Records: Same toxic coal ash, different EPA treatment of workers in Alabama, Tennessee

Jamie Satterfield | Knoxville

Show Caption Hide Caption Lawsuit reveals coal ash workers treated as 'expendables' More than 50 coal ash spill cleanup workers and workers' survivors are suiing Jacobs Engineering for unsafe working conditions that they allege lead to sickness and death at the cleanup site.

The EPA allowed workers at the nation’s largest coal ash spill to be exposed — unaware — to a toxic stew of carcinogens and neurotoxins with only goggles as protection.

But the EPA required workers in Alabama who were handling the same coal ash to be fully informed of its dangers and, for those directly exposed to it, outfitted with protective overalls and respiratory gear, newly filed court records show.

Roane County was the site of the nation’s worst coal ash disaster when, in December 2008, a dike at the TVA Kingston Fossil Fuel Power Plant gave way and 5.4 million cubic yards of coal ash — which contains dozens of deadly toxins including arsenic and radium — smothered 300 acres of land and more than two dozen houses.

Undercover video shows air quality monitors manipulated On separate occasions, workers secretly filmed Jacobs Engineering staffers cleaning coal ash out of monitor filters before packaging them to be sent for testing.

Lies and pressure

A USA TODAY NETWORK - Tennessee investigation last year revealed evidence, including secret recordings, that contractor Jacobs Engineering — tapped to protect the hundreds of laborers who toiled for months and years cleaning up the mess — lied to workers about the risks and denied them basic protective gear, including garden-variety dust masks.

More: 180 new cases of dead or dying coal ash spill workers, lawsuit says

More: Kingston coal ash spill workers treated as 'expendables,' lawsuit by sick and dying contends

The probe showed test results were manipulated and the results withheld from the workers. Now, more than 200 of those laborers are dying from diseases linked to coal ash by the EPA and more than 30 are dead. Many are suing Jacobs and Kingston safety manager Tom Bock in both U.S. District Court and Roane County Circuit Court.

What is coal ash? Coal ash is produced primarily from the burning of coal in coal-fired power plants.

As part of its ongoing investigation, USA TODAY NETWORK - Tennessee last year obtained a report that showed Mark Kovak, an EPA national safety manager, told representatives of TVA and Jacobs in May 2009 — five months after the laborers began working unprotected in coal ash — he wanted those workers facing the greatest exposure threat to be outfitted in protective coveralls.

But Jacobs and another government contractor, The Shaw Group, balked, arguing it wasn’t necessary. The EPA overruled Kovak and ceded to the contractors’ demands, the report showed. The EPA also agreed, at the urging of TVA, to remove the words “hazardous waste” from signs warning the rate-paying public of the danger of coal ash exposure, USA TODAY NETWORK - Tennessee’s probe found.

Tommy Johnson worked in the middle of the coal ash Tommy Johnson helped build the dykes that contained the coal ash and then he helped clean it up.

Alabama workers protected

Records filed earlier this month by attorney Jim Scott on behalf of workers show the EPA made no such concessions a year later when TVA began shipping via rail the Kingston coal ash to a landfill in Uniontown, Alabama, a predominantly black, impoverished neighborhood.

The EPA, according to a 2010 directive, ordered workers at the Arrowhead municipal landfill who had direct contact with the ash while unloading rail cars and cleaning them to be fully advised and fully protected from the cancer-causing substance.

“Those workers will wear protective overalls (polypropylene or Tyvek) and respiratory protection specifically designed to protect the worker from particulate matter,” the directive filed by Scott stated.

TVA’s plan to ship the Kingston coal ash to Uniontown sparked protests, with groups arguing the EPA was allowing the nation’s largest electricity provider to dump the toxic byproduct of coal burning in black, poor neighborhoods across the country. The EPA has documented 160 coal ash disposal sites that had poisoned drinking water or air.

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has launched an investigation of whether poor, predominantly black neighborhoods are being targeted.

Roane County’s top prosecutor, Russell Johnson, has been pushing for a criminal investigation of the treatment of the Kingston coal ash workers, predominantly white and blue collar.

So far, the EPA, which has authority to pursue a probe, and the agency’s Office of Inspector General have declined to discuss the treatment of the Kingston workers or investigate.

Ratepayers pay bills; workers' costs

TVA ratepayers paid Jacobs Engineering — a California government contractor with a history of worker safety lawsuits — and its subcontractors $1.2 billion to keep workers safe and clean up the toxic spill site.

Records obtained by USA TODAY NETWORK - Tennessee showed Jacobs has invoked a provision in its contract with TVA that requires ratepayers to pick up the tab for its legal bills — while Jacobs’ legal teams are, at the same time, blaming TVA for the worker deaths and illnesses as part of their defense in the lawsuits.

The workers, who must pick up their own legal and medical bills, are fighting in federal court for the right to present their case that Bock, Jacobs’ safety manager, intentionally endangered them to keep quiet among residents about the danger of the coal ash.

Attorneys for Jacobs argue the workers’ lawyers first must prove coal ash exposure caused the laborers' sicknesses. The USA TODAY NETWORK - Tennessee investigation showed workers suffered similar symptoms while still toiling unprotected at the site, and some died either during or shortly after they left their jobs at the site.

But there has been little scientific research about coal ash, which was largely unregulated until 2014. Even then, the American Coal Association successfully lobbied Congress and the EPA to water down regulations, treating coal ash — which the EPA said as early as 2007 had arsenic levels far higher than surrounding soil — as household garbage.

Toxic coal ash big business

Coal-burning power plants generate some 140 million tons of coal ash every year, and utilities like TVA sell it for millions, too. It’s used in asphalt, building materials, makeup and has even been marketed as a method of melting icy rivers — a process that itself would dump toxins into the water.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Guyton should be ruling in the coming weeks on whether the workers’ attorneys can keep the case legally afloat. Among the issues he is considering is whether the laborers can make a case that long-term coal ash exposure is what made them sick.

After USA TODAY NETWORK - Tennessee’s investigation last year, TVA began posting warning signs at its Kingston plant of the danger of long-term exposure and requiring workers in silos filled with coal ash to be outfitted with protective overalls and respirators or masks.