The Tennessean
By Anne Paine
Published: February 10, 2009
The Tennessee Valley Authority estimates it would cost $1.8 billion to comply with a federal judge's order to clean up air pollution from power plants near North Carolina, according to a document filed with the SEC yesterday. That's how much would be spent through fiscal year 2014. The agency planned to put $0.8 billion into improvements at the plants before the ruling from the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina, the document said.
The TVA plants targeted in the court ruling are the Kingston, John Sevier and Bull Run plants in Tennessee and Widows Creek in northern Alabama.
TVA has asked the court for a clarification of one point related to the John Sevier plant. Judge Lacy Thornburg did not include other coal-fired TVA plants, such as those in Gallatin and Cumberland City, in his ruling.
North Carolina accused TVA of being a public nuisance because of air pollution from coal-burning power plants that wafted into that state, saying the pollutants made residents sick with lung and heart ailments, even causing deaths, and damaged the scenery and environment in the Great Smoky Mountains.
The document TVA filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission also refers to information that TVA President and CEO Tom Kilgore first told The Tennessean on Friday: that the cost of cleaning up coal ash sludge spills would be "hundreds of millions of dollars."
The document goes on to say that the estimate doesn't include some other costs, including those associated with the lawsuits filed over the spill at TVA's Kingston power plant near Knoxville.
"The cost associated with litigation could be substantial," the document says.
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