Timeline August 14, 2009
TVA as manager of its own mess – comment on KNS article 8/14/09
August 14, 2009
Admirable thoughts about TVA taking responsibility for its own mess. Otherwise, the assumptions and proposed solution for dealing with TVA’s coal ash would be neither cheaper nor better than present disposal systems.
TVA already has said it will not use the wet method of ash storage and there will be thousands of tons of the stuff to be dealt with. Spreading it around on TVA property only keeps it out of the public’s eye. Here are the wrong assumptions:
No. 1. “It makes sense for TVA to keep the fly ash within its full management control.” I looked for the “sense” of it and found no more than a reiteration of what already is known. I saw no reasoning for it to “make sense” for TVA not to ship the ash elsewhere. (My choice would be to barge the stuff to the ocean where it could help desalinize it). It now is problematic that storage of coal ash would have long term undesirable consequences wherever it is stored.
No. 2. “Why would we not have confidence in TVA's ability to ably manage all aspects of fly ash?” Disposal of coal ash is not particularly complicated but based on TVA’s gross mismanagement of much more important matters TVA does not leave much room for confidence in anything it does. I have been following TVA for years and almost everything they do is suspect. The TVA OIG pointed out TVA management narrowed the scope of a report in order to minimize TVA’s liability of the Kingston disaster.
No. 3. “TVA also has deep pockets that can be tapped when it makes mistakes.” TVA is “tapped out”; TVA does not even have any pants for those pockets. Through mismanaging the federal agency, TVA has run up a $25 billion debt with no way to reduce it.
No. 4. “One would think that TVA's board of directors would want to manage this issue and do it right.” TVA is so wrapped up in itself that it cannot think of anything but staying out of jail.
Ernest Norsworthy
http://norsworthyopinion.com