Lawsuits for TVA Spill Damages Sneak Under the Wire
With an important legal filing deadline just passed, hundreds of lawsuits have been filed by people who claim they were injured by a massive of spill of toxic sludge into a Tennessee Valley Authority holding pond.
About 4.5 billion gallons of coal ash sludge broke through a dike of a 40-acre holding pond at TVA’s Kingston coal-fired power plant on December 22, 2008. Since plaintiffs had one year from the incident to file lawsuits seeking financial compensation for their injuries, the filing deadline (also called a statute of limitations) passed this week.
A few dozen lawsuits just made it under the wire to be filed in time, bringing the total to between 200 and 350 suits filed in the past year, according to an Associated Press report. Some of the suits claim injuries ranging from headaches, shortness of breath and other respiratory difficulties, chest pain, and frequent nosebleeds from exposure to the toxic sludge.
The sludge contained levels of arsenic and other potentially cancer-causing metals that the Environmental Protection Agency has said ranks the spill as one of the worst environmental disasters in history. Still, the ash is not considered hazardous waste – a fact many environmental groups want the EPA to reconsider.
A few neighboring communities and more than 100 property owners who were impacted by the massive sludge spill have already been given a total of $43 million to settle their cases against the TVA, officials said. Another 33 other settlement offers were rejected by the parties.
The TVA has claimed as the nation’s largest public utility, it is shielded from the damages claims because it was providing a government service.
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