"More than 30 workers who cleaned up the December 2008 spill at the Tennessee Valley Authority Kingston Fossil Fuel Power Plant in Roane County are dead, and more than 250 are sick or dying. "
Jury: Jacobs Engineering endangered Kingston disaster clean-up workers
Jamie SatterfieldUpdated 5:42 p.m. ET Nov. 7, 2018
A federal jury on Wednesday ruled a global contractor tasked with keeping disaster clean-up workers safe instead endangered them – some fatally.
A jury in U.S. District Court spent five hours deliberating before returning a verdict Wednesday in favor of the hundreds of blue-collar laborers who say they were sickened during the clean-up of the nation’s largest coal ash spill.
More than 30 workers who cleaned up the December 2008 spill at the Tennessee Valley Authority Kingston Fossil Fuel Power Plant in Roane County are dead, and more than 250 are sick or dying. They sued Jacobs Engineering, a global contractor TVA put in charge of cleaning up its mess and keeping workers safe. TVA ratepayers paid the firm more than $64 million.
Jurors deciding the first phase of the workers’ toxic tort lawsuit in Chief U.S. District Judge Tom Varlan’s courtroom heard three weeks of testimony before returning its verdict.
The panel ruled Jacobs failed to adhere to its contract with TVA, failed to “exercise reasonable care” in keeping workers safe and, in its failures, likely caused the poisoning by coal ash of the laborers, many of whom live in East Tennessee.
Workers can seek damages
The verdict means the workers now will get a chance to seek damages, including money to cover medical testing for all laborers who worked at the site and medical treatment for themselves and their families. Many of the workers’ family members also are believed to have been sickened by exposure to the coal ash the laborers brought home each night on their skin and clothing.
The workers were represented by a small group of attorneys - Jim Scott, Keith Stewart, John Dupree, J. Tyler Roper, Gary Davis, Sandy Sharpe and Jeff Friedman – and investigator Stephanie Johnson, all of whom are donating much of their time in the case so far.
“This was a tremendous day for all our clients, and we truly appreciate the hard work of the jury and the federal court system,” Stewart said.
The legal team for workers sickened in the clean-up of the nation's largest coal ash spill gathered outside U.S. District Court Wednesday, Nov. 7, 2018, to celebrate a legal victory in the case.
The legal team for workers sickened in the clean-up of the nation's largest coal ash spill gathered outside U.S. District Court Wednesday, Nov. 7, 2018, to celebrate a legal victory in the case. (Photo: submitted)
Coal ash, a by-product of burning coal to produce electricity, is filled with a concentrated stew of toxins, including arsenic, radioactive material, mercury and lead. TVA makes millions each year from selling it for industrial uses, including mixing it in concrete.
When a dike at the Kingston plant gave way just before Christmas 2008, smothering 300 acres of land in the Swan Pond community, construction workers from East Tennessee and across the nation responded – without any protection or training. Not only was the spill the nation’s worst but the clean-up itself represented the country’s largest worker exposure to coal ash.
Lies and videotape
Mike Shelton
Mike Shelton (Photo: Submitted)
Testimony showed Jacobs began watering down both safety testing procedures and worker safety rules as soon as the EPA allowed the TVA to put the firm – which has a long history of worker safety lawsuits and even criminal charges – in charge of the Kingston site.
The workers were – falsely – assured coal ash exposure was safe and were misled about its dangers, testimony showed. As many grew sick while working more than 60 hours weekly unprotected, Jacobs’ safety managers, including Tom Bock and Chris Eich, continued to insist coal ash exposure was not the cause.
Testimony showed Bock ordered dust masks kept on site for the workers destroyed and refused to provide them any protective gear. Jacobs refused an EPA directive to provide the workers showers and changing rooms and instead provided them a cat litter box filled with ash-contaminated water to clean up.
Tom Bock served as safety manager for the cleanup of
Tom Bock served as safety manager for the cleanup of the 2008 coal ash spill in Roane County. (Photo: Submitted)
Jacobs also was accused in the case of manipulating exposure level testing – watering down monitors and sampling on rainy days that dampened the level of coal ash dust in the air – and tampering with test samples – dumping ash from the monitor filters before sending them off to a laboratory.
Jacobs’ lead attorney, Jim Sanders, left the courtroom Wednesday without comment. TVA has refused to discuss the case.
Managers untrained
At center Kingston coal ash spill worker Terrance Brashears speaks with friends before the closing arguments in a lawsuit by the sickened workers in the courtyard of the U.S. District Court, in Knoxville Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2018.
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Kingston coal ash spill workers gather before closing arguments
USA TODAY NETWORK-Tennessee has been investigating the treatment of the disaster workers for more than a year. That probe showed no one in authority at the clean-up site – including TVA and Jacobs safety managers – had any training in the dangers of coal ash or how to protect workers from it.
Janie Clark goes through her husband Ansol's medical
Janie Clark goes through her husband Ansol's medical bills in her Knoxville dining room on Wednesday, March 22, 2017. Ansol worked on clean up efforts of the January 2008 Kingston coal ash spill, and claims many of his illnesses are due to the working conditions he experienced there. (Photo: Caitie McMekin)
The news organization found evidence showing the EPA wanted the workers protected with respirators and Tyvek suits, but both TVA and Jacobs pressured the agency into allowing the laborers to work without protection.
The news organization is currently investigating what happened to video footage that would have revealed the conditions in which the laborers toiled. Jacobs representative Jack Howard has testified TVA has the footage, but a letter obtained by USA TODAY NETWORK-Tennessee last week revealed TVA “no longer has” it. TVA won’t say why.
This photo depicts a worker decontamination area, which
This photo depicts a worker decontamination area, which included a bucket of water, for 900 workers. (Photo: Submitted)
A failure to preserve the video footage is a violation of an EPA order on the clean-up and can carry both civil and criminal penalties. The EPA has not responded to a series of questions about whether it will take action against TVA or seek a criminal probe.
Workers had been laboring unprotected at the clean-up site for five years by the time a small group of the laborers began comparing their illnesses – which then included skin ailments, migraines, low testosterone and coughing fits – and questioning whether exposure to coal ash was the cause.
Craig Wilkinson demonstrates his machine he uses in
Craig Wilkinson demonstrates his machine he uses in order to breathe. (Photo: Submitted)
East Tennessee workers Mike McCarthy, Ansol Clark and John Cox began surreptitiously taking photographs and capturing video footage from the site – including mishandling of test samples by Jacobs technicians and a job threat by Eich – and reached out to attorney Scott for help.
Scott filed the first of what became a series of lawsuits on behalf of the laborers in 2013. The case was initially tossed out, but a federal appeals court resurrected the case after more evidence of wrongdoing by Jacobs surfaced.
Sanders did not indicate Wednesday whether Jacobs will appeal the verdict. Varlan said Wednesday a status conference on a trial on damages – phase two of the case – likely will be set in early
https://www.knoxnews.com/story/news/cri ... 917514002/
compared2what? » Tue Sep 01, 2009 2:07 am wrote:Well....If there's one thing they've got in Rockwood, TN, it's environmental toxins. Mostly industrial. It's kind of like radioactive Roane County or something. The two most compelling things I saw were, from 12/08:Tennessee Ash Flood Larger Than Initial Estimate
A coal ash spill in eastern Tennessee that experts were already calling the largest environmental disaster of its kind in the United States is more than three times as large as initially estimated, according to an updated survey by the Tennessee Valley Authority.
Officials at the authority initially said that about 1.7 million cubic yards of wet coal ash had spilled when the earthen retaining wall of an ash pond at the Kingston Fossil Plant, about 40 miles west of Knoxville, gave way on Monday. But on Thursday they released the results of an aerial survey that showed the actual amount was 5.4 million cubic yards, or enough to flood more than 3,000 acres one foot deep.
The amount now said to have been spilled is larger than the amount the authority initially said was in the pond, 2.6 million cubic yards.
LINK to Times story excerpted above, though there's also this...The spill killed a "tremendous" number of fish, according to the Chattanooga Times Free Press.[17] Although residents feared water contamination, early tests of water six miles upstream of the ash flow showed that the public water supply met drinking water standards.[15] A test of river water near the spill showed elevated levels of lead and thallium, and "barely detectable" levels of mercury and arsenic.[3] On January 1, 2009 the first independent test results, conducted at the Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry laboratories at Appalachian State University, showed significantly elevated levels of toxic metals (including arsenic, copper, barium, cadmium, chromium, lead, mercury, nickel, and thallium) in samples of slurry and river water.
....more horrifying and more recent info at Wiki HERE.
Kingston's only about, maybe ten or so miles or so from Rockwood, it looks like to me. I'm bad at estimating distances. But it's close.
There's also the reassuringly named Toxco Materials Management Center, maybe thirty miles or so to the northeast, in beautiful Oak Ridge, TN. Where they also have some national laboratories, IIRC. But that's kind of stretching it, I think. Because: There are no known accidents or creepy experiments that I see any immediate sign of in Oak Ridge. Whereas: There is a yes-known enormous unmissable cascade of heavy metals and other bad stuff right into their backyard, practically, in the very recent past.
Also, Rockwood was built on a former Cherokee village that served as the headquarters for Chief Tallentuskie in the late 18th/early 19th century. Former major iron and coal country, too. They've kind of got it all.
So what do you think? Could some kind of chemical burn or something cover the symptoms? I don't know enough to know.
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=24991&p=283402&hilit=Tennessee+Valley+Authority+Kingston+Fossil#p283402
