Tennesse Valley Authority CEO pay cut; coal ash lawsuit

Photo: DUNCAN MANSFIELD / ASSOCIATED PRESS
Tennesse Green.com
Settling ponds and ash piles are shown at the Kingston Fossil Plant in Kingston, Tenn., on Monday, Jan. 12. A breach in a containment wall released 1.1 billion gallons of ash and sludge from the plant on Dec. 22, 2008. The Tennessee Valley Authority has been spending $1 million a day since then to clean it up.


TVA board cuts CEO Tom Kilgore’s pay
Former Republican Party chief chosen
By BRAD SCHRADE and ANNE PAINE
The Tennessean
February 12, 2009

The TVA board sliced CEO Tom Kilgore’s potential pay today, eliminating “performance incentives” that could have sent his salary as high as $3.275 million this year.

The board also – in an unusual split vote – elected a new incoming chairman who is fresh out of the National Republican Committee chairmanship. One critic has called it an "overly partisan and tone deaf move."
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Kilgore’s salary will now be capped around $1 million, including his base pay and deferred compensation package.

His pay had been particularly controversial with the public who were outraged when the board approved in October what could amount to a 20% raise for him. Residents were struggling to pay electric bills after their rates had soared about 20% in previous months, mainly to cover rising fuel costs.

The board made cutbacks in incentives TVA-wide, as cleanup costs for the Dec. 22 coal ash disaster at TVA’s Kingston power plant reach $31 million.

The price tag is anticipated to rise to $525 million and possibly $825 million, not including the cost of lawsuits, Kilgore told the board.

In other action, the board elected Mike Duncan as its incoming chairman to take over May 18, with four board members in favor and three against.

Duncan is the former head of the Republican National Committee...


A Coal Day in Hell
by Diane G
Dec 26th, 2008

Right as they are on the brink of selling "Clean Coal Technology" to the American Public, Kingston Tennessee gets buried in 300 million tonnes of coal sludge. Its now in the watershed...

Nothing like cadmium in your water cocktail with a nice fat lead stick to swizzle it and a sprinkle of mercury bits on the brown foam topping.

For the sake of a job, you have been poisoning yourselves, your children and grandchildren for a hundred years. How long will the denizens of Tennessee, West Virginia and Kentucky put up with Coal Mining not only for its irresponsible lack of environmental control, when will they figure out its just a bad overall idea, plain and simple?...


TVA found in violation of federal Clean Water Act
February 10th, 2009
by Jennifer Walker-Journey

Following the investigation of the Kingston, Tennessee coal ash impoundment that failed and spilled more than a billion gallons of toxic material on to 300 acres of east Tennessee property, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has found the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) in violation of the federal Clean Water Act, according to Knoxville Biz.

In a letter released late last week, EPA regional administrator Stanley wrote that the EPA “considers the Kingston spill to be an un-permitted discharge of pollutant in contravention of the Clean Water Act.” The TVA has been ordered to produce a plan to correct the violation as soon as possible and to keep the EPA in the loop with all its data communication with the state Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC).

Officials hope that data that already has been turned in to TDEC and future data will help pinpoint the why the impoundment failed last December, pouring 2.2 million pounds of coal ash onto a rural neighborhood. The coal ash contains toxins that could be hazardous to human health, including arsenic, lead, chromium, manganese and barium...