U.S. Senate panel hears from Trump nominees to TVA board
A U.S. Senate subcommittee heard testimony Tuesday from President Trump’s four nominees to the TVA Board of Directors. Jeffrey Smith, deputy director of operations at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the only Tennessean among the four, emphasized the need for clean energy in recruiting new business investment within the region, reports WPLN. No vote was taken.
TVA year-end bonuses average $10,970 per employee
The Tennessee Valley Authority next week will distribute year-end performance bonuses averaging $10,970 for each of more than 10,000 employees, reports the Times Free Press.
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.
Trump picks 4 nominees to TVA board (1 from TN)
The White House announced today that President Donald Trump will nominate four men to fill vacancies on the Tennessee Valley Authority Board of Directors – one each from the states of Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky and Tennessee.
TVA ratepayers may pay contractor’s legal bills in coal ash lawsuit
After unsuccessfully using the Tennessee Valley Authority as a legal shield, a global government contractor accused of fatally endangering workers at the site of the nation’s largest coal ash disaster wants TVA ratepayers to pay its legal bills, according to court records reviewed for a News Sentinel report.
TVA board approves 1.5 percent electricity rate increase, $10B budget
The Tennessee Valley Authority Board of Directors on Wednesday approved a $10.37 billion budget for its 2018 fiscal year that includes a 1.5 percent rate increase for electricity customers, reports the News Sentinel.
Judge orders TVA to move mountain of coal ash waste at Gallatin Steam Plant
U.S. District Court Judge Waverly Crenshaw of Nashville has ordered the Tennessee Valley Authority to excavate and relocate a mountain of coal ash accumulated over decades at its Gallatin Steam plant, reports WPLN.
Crenshaw said in his order, issued Friday and resolving a lawsuit brought by environmental groups, that TVA’s construction of an unlined ash waste pond in porous terrain, as the case in Gallatin, risks leakage into the neighboring Cumberland River. Because the cost of moving the waste will be so high, he did not order TVA to pay any penalties.
TVA finds arsenic, other toxins in ground water beneath Memphis plant
The Tennessee Valley Authority has reported finding high levels of arsenic and other toxins in ground water underlying a Southwest Memphis power plant where thousands of tons of coal ash are impounded, reports The Commercial Appeal.
The arsenic, measured at levels more than 300 times the federal drinking-water standard, was discovered in monitoring wells at the Allen Fossil Plant. Excessive amounts of lead also showed up in the 50-foot-deep wells that were installed to check for any pollution emanating from ponds containing ash and boiler slag generated by burning coal.
The tainted ground water lies within a half-mile of where TVA recently drilled five 650-foot-deep wells into the Memphis Sand aquifer, the source of local drinking water, from which it plans to pump 3.5 million gallons daily to cool a natural gas-fueled power plant under construction. Local scientists and environmentalists had opposed the wells, saying the pumping could pull contaminants into the Memphis Sand.
However, Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation officials say they believe the pollution is restricted to the upper-most aquifer and does not pose a threat to the much deeper Memphis Sand.
“We are confident the contaminants found in TVA wells at the Allen Fossil Plant are not impacting drinking water. Out of an abundance of caution, we have requested Memphis Light, Gas and Water (Division) to sample its treated water in order to give that assurance to customers,” TDEC spokesman Eric Ward said in an email.
Trump reported unlikely to nominate new TVA board members until September
Tennessee U.S. Sens. Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker have submitted recommendations to President Trump for filling five vacancies on the Tennessee Valley Authority board of directors, Corker tells Michael Collins. The senators’ suggestions aren’t provided, but there’s a rundown on some names mentioned otherwise.
State Rep. John Ragan, R-Oak Ridge, confirmed that he’s interested. (Sen. Ken Yager, R-Kingston, was interested earlier, but his withdrawn his name from consideration – previous post (HERE).
“Senator Alexander and I submitted our recommendations to the White House earlier this year,” Corker said. “We remain in close contact with the administration and have urged them to make nominations to fill out the board very soon.”
…Knoxville attorney Jeff Hagood, Oak Ridge National Laboratory executive Jeff Smith and former Virginia state Sen. William C. Wampler – the nephew of former U.S. Sen. Howard Baker and the son of a former Republican congressman – also have been in touch with Congress members about serving on the board.
Yager withdraws as candidate for nomination to TVA board
In a letter to U.S. Sens. Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker, state Sen. Ken Yager has withdrawn from consideration for nomination to the TVA Board of Directors by President Trump.
There had been some question raised as to whether a state senator could legally sit on the TVA board without resigning as a legislator. Yager doesn’t address that specifically in his letter, but says he has decided that “priority attention” should go to his legislative duties, which include chairing both the Senate State and Local Government Committee and the joint House-Senate Fiscal Review Committee.
