Affidavits say records on Kingston coal ash cleanup were intentionally destroyed

Three supervisors – two construction foremen and a TVA-paid overseer – say in affidavits filed in U.S. District Court they saw separate instances in which Tom Bock, the man tasked with protecting workers at the nation’s largest coal ash spill,  intentionally destroyed or skewed air monitoring results and knowingly endangered workers, reports the News Sentinel.

Bock served as safety manager for Jacobs Engineering, an international government contractor.

The firm was tapped by TVA and approved by the EPA and Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation to manage the clean-up of the massive coal ash spill at the TVA Kingston Fossil Fuel Power Plant in the Swan Pond community of Roane County in December 2008.

More than 150 of the 900 workers employed at the height of the years-long clean up are dying or are dead, according to court records. Many of those sick workers and survivors of the dead are suing Jacobs.

… Federal law makes it a crime if someone working at a superfund site tampers with or destroys monitoring results while knowing to do so would endanger people. The U.S. Attorney’s Office has repeatedly declined to comment on whether the office has launched a probe on behalf of the EPA. The EPA also isn’t talking. Neither is TVA.

Russell Johnson, a state prosecutor, has said he is working with TDEC and the state Attorney General’s office to determine if he can legally mount a criminal case. A decision hasn’t been announced yet.

Attorney Jim Sanders, who represents Jacobs and Bock, says the firm will defend itself in court. His firm is already attacking workers’ experts in court pleadings.