TVA digs own grave - still no mea culpa
October 2, 2009
When the CBS TV program 60 Minutes left the Kingston disaster site there was no doubt a sigh of relief but that was back in June. Now the hammer surely is coming down on TVA when the program is aired on Sunday. To try to blunt some of that criticism the President and CEO of TVA, Tom Kilgore, has a short laundry list of reasons why TVA should be held blameless for the Kingston “ash slide” and the usual “we’re gonna fix it” promises. Those stale promises somehow ring very hollow.
Here’s a critique of Mr. Kilgore’s “TVA Stakeholder Letter” of today.
1st paragraph:
“Given the program’s (60 Minutes) reputation for conflict-driven journalism, we …believe it is important to give you our perspective on the report…”
This is about as close as TVA or Kilgore will come to admitting wrongdoing; they already know what 60 Minutes will report. Kilgore also realizes that the TV program will pile even more criticism on the federal agency. Mr. Kilgore must have been hiding under an ash pile to not understand that most journalism is “conflict-driven”. It is true that much written about the TVA is merely a regurgitation of what TVA says, not analyses of TVA’s statements. Few media outlets in TVA’s 80,000 sq-mile territory bother to dig very deep.
2nd paragraph:
While TVA has “made every effort to provide accurate information to reporters”, they have in the past not been very forthcoming in some of their statements and in their actions have tried to sway a favorable report from a consultant to help keep management and TVA board members from being culpable for the Kingston disaster. Kilgore goes on to say, “We have tried to balance our commitment to being transparent and responsive…with the need to make progress with the ash removal…”
Here’s where I’d get another speech writer because that last sentence is illogical on its face. There is no compromising transparency and responsiveness while “making progress with ash removal”; it’s a post hoc fallacy.
3rd paragraph:
“…We were encouraged by their (60 Minutes) stated commitment to tell this complex and technically challenging story in a balanced way.” Yes, the story is far too complicated for small minds to comprehend, to understand that the disaster was nobody’s fault, certainly not the fault of any TVA employee or consultant. This is one of TVA’s weaker defenses, complex does not equate to non-culpable although TVA would like everyone to believe it was “slime” that was at the root cause of the massive ash dam break.
Technically speaking, it ain’t so hard to understand the root cause.
5th paragraph:
“…Ms. Stahl interviewed Anda Ray…lead executive on the cleanup”. As I understand it, Ms. Ray has been kicked upstairs and a former DOE disaster expert is now effectively in charge of the entire Kingston operation. But maybe I’m reading the reports from TVA incorrectly; maybe Ms. Ray still is in active charge of it as implied. This really needs clarification by Mr. Kilgore who does not seem to know which base he presently is on; seems like he does not know who’s on first. (Wonder who is next to get thrown under the bus?)
6th paragraph:
“We are not sure how “60 Minutes”…will shape the story or how they will edit…the information we shared.” Well, that is a completely different tune than the one sung at the beginning of the letter where Mr. Kilgore thought it “…Important to give you our perspective on the (forthcoming) report…” which obviously will be devastating to TVA.
8th paragraph:
“…TVA continues to urge everyone interested in our progress to visit our Web site at tva.com for updates…and other information.” Two issues here; is TVA a federal government agency or that neither “fish nor fowl” creature that FDR imagined? Government agencies use the “dot gov” extension as in www.tva.gov, not www.tva.com the latter indicating it is a profit-making enterprise.
If you have tried to negotiate in TVA’s Website you probably have come away very frustrated. The organization of the material is not user-friendly or intuitive; TVA probably likes it that way. I have searched in vain for TVA’s budget information, a line-item TVA budget that shows where the 2010 money is planned to be spent and for last year, where it actually was spent. And if you can get a straight answer on TVA’s finances, why it is borrowing money from the Bank of America a recipient of $45 billion in bailout money, please let me know.
TVA's present and seemingly open-ended debt disregards its statutory limit of $30 billion. Even if that limit were extended by many more billions there is no reasonable way to hold electricity costs down; borrowing more money just to roll over present debt will never succeed.
Ernest Norsworthy
emnorsworthy@earthlink.net
http://norsworthyopinion.com