At Least 30 Workers From 2008 TVA Coal Ash Spill Dead, 200+ Sick; They Were Told Waste Was Harmless

[hatrack]

Harry Hemingway spent two years working — unprotected — to clean up the coal ash that smothered 300 acres in the Roane County community he called home. His bosses at Jacobs Engineering assured him and the other 900 workers at the site of the nation’s largest environmental disaster that the ash — loaded with cancer-causing heavy metals such as arsenic and radium — was so safe they could eat a pound of it a day without harm.

Now, Hemingway is dead from multiple myeloma, a blood cancer linked to the constituents of coal ash, court records show. He died in August — the latest name added to the worker death toll. More than 30 cleanup workers at the December 2008 TVA Kingston Fossil Fuel Power Plant coal ash spill are dead and at least 200 are sick or dying — all with common ailments known to be caused by long-term exposure to arsenic, radium and the host of other toxins and metals found in the ash.

EDIT

Tennessee had already discovered evidence, including secret video filmed by workers at the cleanup site, that Jacobs Engineering supervisors lied to laborers about the toxicity of coal ash, refused to provide them protective gear, threatened to fire them if they brought their own, manipulated toxicity test results and abandoned testing for the most dangerous chemicals entirely well before the cleanup effort ended.

Follow-up reporting this year has now revealed independent testing of the coal ash in the days after the spill showed dangerously high levels of arsenic and radium. Workers were never told about those results. And, just three months after independent firm Tetra Tech and others documented high levels of arsenic and radium in the ash, a new testing firm — this one a contractor working for the Tennessee Valley Authority — insisted the ash was safe, according to an ongoing investigation by USA TODAY NETWORK - Tennessee.

EDIT

https://www.knoxnews.com/story/news/crime/2018/09/20/kingston-coal-ash-spill-cleanup-worker-dies-lawsuit-hearing-nears/1344072002/

[Botany]

1. Let's hear it for "clean coal."

n/t

[Racerdog1]

4. No such thing!

Never has been and never will be.

[riversedge]

2. #weshouldallcare, we. will. resist.

[dlk]

3. Yet Republicans Love Repealing "Onerous" Safety Reglations

Their version of freedom is deadly.

[onethatcares]

5. Ya ain't gonna find

no coal ash dumps in the gated communities our elected live in. No coal ash, no superfund sites, no pigshit filled ditches, no anything that might hurt them.

We the people however are expendable.

Peace out.

[Nitram]

6. Just add this to the cost of "clean" coal.

[bluedigger]

7. Criminally negligent homicide should be the charge.

As the TVA is a federally owned corporation, I believe the FBI has jurisdiction to investigate.

[flying_wahini]

8. Makes me wonder where they dumped this toxic sludge.....

Probably down a well or in a lake somewhere......

[Uncle Joe]

9. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread hatrack.

[Crash2Parties]

10. The USA has forgotten the Radium Girls & the GOP wants to keep it that way.

"The women in each facility had been told the paint was harmless, and subsequently ingested deadly amounts of radium after being instructed to "point" their brushes on their lips in order to give them a fine point;"

Back then it was considered abuse against workers & their case ushered in workplace safety rules in a manner similar to an earlier factory fire.

Their case also ushered in a new era of Labor Rights movements.

But now, like the slowly boiled frog parable, the 1% with the GOP's help has eroded those gains and all since and nobody is outraged.

[geardaddy]

11. They must pay.

Lock them all up and freeze their assets.

[Submariner]

12. Well I'm sure glad to be retiring next year

That sucks. The company I worked for since 1988 was just acquired by Jacobs. Never heard of this lawsuit.

My former company went from one of the 6% of U.S. companies with a female CEO, to a Texas based outfit with a Trumpkin CEO thinking his now enlarged company is going to cash in on Trump's infrastructure projects. Good luck with that.

[NNadir]

13. Like the Deepwater Horizon dangerous fossil fuel...

...disaster, this will rapidly go down the memory hole.

Even though it has the extra charm of involving radiation, like fracking flowback water - which can be far more radioactive than seawater outside Fukushima - produced to provide the gas that keeps the so called "renewable energy" scheme running, it doesn't involve a nuclear power plant.

This event, if correctly reported killed 30 times more people than Fukushima. What are the odds than 7 years from now this event will be as close to the tips of the tongue as Fuksushima will still be in 2025?

We couldn't care less. If we did, we'd pay attention to stuff that really matters, for instance the ongoing disaster of air pollution.

[Calculating]

14. Coal is death plain and simple

Mining it is dangers/deadly to human health, burning it greatly contributes to climate change and air pollution, and even if you burn it cleanly and sequester the carbon you still need to deal with the toxic ash. The world cannot get away from this primitive fuel source soon enough.