Groups join lawsuit to protect Nashville drinking water

Environmental organizations that prodded the state to sue the Tennessee Valley Authority want a place in the courtroom.

The Tennessee Clean Water Network and Tennessee Scenic Rivers Association filed papers Thursday to join that lawsuit. The legal dispute centers on threats that pollutants from TVA's Gallatin coal plant pose to the Cumberland River — the source of drinking water for Nashville and surrounding communities. The river is jeopardized by arsenic, aluminum, barium, boron, cadmium, mercury and other chemicals that seep from from coal ash ponds, according to the complaint.

Lawyers with the Southern Environmental Law Center, who are representing the two nonprofit organizations, seek to be consumer watchdogs in Davidson County Chancery Court. They stated in a news release that the state's environmental regulatory agency for decades had "failed to stop TVA's ongoing coal ash pollution into the Cumberland."

The Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, the state regulator, did not take legal action against TVA until the nonprofit organizations filed a notice of intent to sue. TDEC filed the suit last month.

TVA does not have a good record of protecting rivers from coal ash. The Kingston coal ash spill in 2008 was a $1 billion disaster.

"TVA was responsible for the largest coal ash spill in the country six years ago, and yet it has not learned its lesson," said Anne Davis, managing attorney for the Nashville office of the Southern Environmental Law Center. "TVA can no longer continue to store over 50 years' worth of toxic coal ash waste next to a major river in leaking, unlined pits on unstable ground."

The complaint filed Thursday notes that coal ash storage areas cover hundreds of acres along the bank of the river in an area prone to sinkhole activity. And it pointed out that the state had failed to enforce environmental safeguards at the site even after a 2011 report from the federal Office of Inspector General said it should do so.

"TDEC declined to initiate corrective measures on its own accord, prior to bringing the instant lawsuit in response to the conservation groups' notice of intent to sue," the complaint said.

Besides the storage points, the plant also has a permit to discharge wastewater into the Cumberland. The plant is upstream from intake stations that provide drinking water to Nashville and Gallatin as well as portions of Rutherford and Williamson counties.

"The Cumberland River is a source of drinking water for over 1 million people downstream from TVA's coal ash pollution," said James Woodall, president of the Tennessee Scenic Rivers Association. "We cannot allow TVA to continue to threaten the waters that our communities rely upon for drinking water, fishing and recreation."

At times, TVA has on an annual basis discharged over 7,000 toxic weighted pounds of arsenic, over 8,000 toxic weighted pounds of aluminum, 3,400 toxic weighted pounds of selenium and other metals through the permitted discharge point.

The complaint asks that the court force TVA to prevent coal ash ponds from leaking into groundwater and the Cumberland River; to eliminate sources of contamination and implement corrective measures; to remove coal combustion by products and contaminated soil from the coal ash ponds; to store them in a lined industrial landfill away from the river; and to implement a door-to-door survey to identify potentially contaminated water wells. It also seeks financial penalties.

Reach Tom Wilemon at 615-726-5961 and on Twitter @TomWilemon.