Displaying items by tag: tva coal ash spill

Jessica Waller, whose father worked on cleanup of a massive Tennessee Valley Authority coal ash spill, reflects on the effects of his work nearly 20 years after the spill. Benjamin Pounds for Tennessee Lookout

Jacobs Engineering required employees to work without personal protection in cleaning up toxic byproduct of coal burning; many died after the work.

This story was originally published by Tennessee Lookout.

HARRIMAN — Seventeen years have passed since a massive rupture at a Tennessee Valley Authority plant spilled more than 1.1 billion gallons of coal ash into Harriman, Tenn., but the event is still raw in Jessica Waller’s mind.

Waller’s father, Ernest Hickman, a union contractor for Jacobs Engineering Group, worked on cleanup of the spill.

Hickman died of emphysema, which Waller attributes to his contact with the ash over a six-year cleanup period — specifically beryllium, a naturally occurring metal used in the nuclear, automotive and aerospace industries; and arsenic, which is used in metal, technology and some medical uses. 

Both are present in coal fly ash and are highly toxic.

She believes her mother, Patsy Hickman, also got ill from exposure after washing her husband’s clothes and other activities putting her in contact with the ash, causing her death of respiratory failure.

“It’s sad to know there’s a lot of people even here in Tennessee in the area who have no idea about the coal ash spill,” Waller said. “Or they do but they didn’t know the extent of the devastation that it caused, especially health-wise of making so many people sick.”