A federal judge is ordering a TVA contractor, accused in the nation’s first and largest case of mass poisoning by coal ash, to sit down at the bargaining table with those cleanup crews that have become ill. The Knoxville News-Sentinel says Chief U.S. District Judge Tom Varlan on Friday ordered Jacobs Engineering into mediation in a toxic tort lawsuit filed on behalf of the hundreds of blue-collar laborers who were sickened — some fatally — after unprotected long-term exposure to the 7.3 million tons of coal ash that spilled from a dike at the TVA Kingston Fossil Plant in Roane County a decade ago. Jacob’s firm was deligated to the coal ash cleanup of 300 acres of sludge which smothered the Swan Pond community. The company is a global contractor with a long history of lawsuits and criminal charges involving worker safety violations, tampering with safety testing and wrong-doing.