Roane County officials, as well as former spill workers, gathered yesterday (December 20, 2020) to commemorate the 12-year anniversary of the TVA ash spill at the Kingston Fossil Plant. The ceremony remembered the workers who died of complications they say they got from working the cleanup of the disaster without proper safety equipment.

The spill resulted in 1.1 billion gallons of coal ash and water, which traveled across the Emory River and its Swan Pond embayment, onto the opposite shore, covering up to 300 acres of the surrounding land. The spill damaged multiple homes and flowed into nearby waterways including the Emory River and Clinch River. When it was said and done, it was the largest industrial spill in United States history.

The initial spill, which resulted in millions of dollars’ worth of property damages and rendered many properties uninhabitable, cost TVA more than $1 billion to cleanup, and was declared complete in 2015. TVA was found liable for the spill in August 2012 by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee. The initial spill resulted in no injuries or deaths, but several of the employees of an engineering firm hired by TVA to clean up the spill developed illnesses as a result of exposure to the toxic coal ash, and by the ten year anniversary of the spill, more than 30 had died and numerous former workers are sick. Officials said yesterday the death toll now stands at 44.