I suggest reading, or at least skimming, the whole article.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/aug/17/coal-spill-workers-sick-dying-tva
by Austyn Gaffney
Mon 17 Aug 2020 04.00 EDT
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n early 2009, after movie work dried up, his union offered him a new job with GUBMK, a long-term subcontractor under the Tennessee Valley Authority, or TVA, a federal agency founded to provide flood control and electricity to east Tennessee. TVA was known as one of the best employers in the south-east, putting thousands to work and creating a thriving middle class.
For almost six years, he, along with roughly 900 others, helped clean up the nation’s largest coal ash spill an hour west of his doorstep. TVA’s own testing showed the utility knew the coal ash – waste material leftover from burning coal for electricity – contained toxic heavy metals such as cadmium, lead, mercury and selenium, and radioactive materials, decades before the spill; an EPA pollution report from early 2009 shows TVA tested for radioactivity in ash and soil samples two weeks after the spill occurred and EPA found spikes in radiation above background levels.
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But an initial draft of the site safety plan made no mention of radioactive materials, and did not list heavy metals as constituents of fly ash aside from arsenic. Contractors working for the utility repeatedly assured cleanup workers that the ash, which floated in the air, coating their bare skin and lungs, was safe. Some workers testified the company refused to provide or allow for the use of protective suits or masks.
“I was right proud of TVA until I went to work for them,” Bledsoe said.
Bledsoe, 69, had grey hair that swept across his forehead. In May, he still looked hardy, but his ailments sapped his energy and left him rail thin. His stage four cancer meant he was on chemotherapy treatments for the remainder of his life, though he outlived his doctor’s expectations by over nine months.
Bledsoe was one of many workers hired for the cleanup who have suffered since the spill. His eldest brother, Ron, a lifelong health enthusiast, has a terminal condition called chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. App Thacker, who dredged ash from the riverways, said his testosterone levels dropped to those of an octogenarian when he was in his 40s. Roy Edmonds, who drove dump trucks around the site, had five debilitating surgeries to remove a sarcoma that nearly bankrupted his family. Ansol Clark, a fuel truck driver, had two strokes before he was diagnosed with a rare blood disorder. Frankie Norris, a heavy equipment operator, developed weeping sores all over his skin, including on his face. He has to wash blood off his body every night. Philip Crick, who operated a water truck, had skyrocketing blood pressure and a series of skin cancer diagnoses that led to reconstructive surgery on both sides of his nose.
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In March, Jacobs offered the first 52 workers and spouses who filed 2013’s original suit $10m, but they would have to pay back insurance plans like Medicare, Jacobs would be released from any future responsibility and the 2018 verdict would be vacated. After lawyer’s fees, and if the settlement were split evenly, each plaintiff would receive roughly $125,000 – an amount some workers say would be nowhere near enough to pay their medical expenses.
They turned it down, so Jacobs offered 197 additional workers and their families, plaintiffs in subsequent legal actions, $10,000 each to drop their own lawsuits (according to court records, roughly 30 plaintiffs have settled). When news of the settlement offers leaked to the press, Jacobs tried to get a court to charge the workers for the company’s legal fees. A judge rejected that – but with no settlement reached, each plaintiff from the phase I trial now has to prove their individual illnesses are linked to their coal ash exposure in a phase II trial planned for 2021.
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Coal ash is the nation’s second-largest waste stream after household garbage, and it contains a slew of heavy metals such as arsenic, chromium, mercury and lead, as well as radioactive materials such as uranium. There are over 1,400 coal ash sites across 45 US states and territories. For decades, the waste material has been dumped by utilities in unlined landfills or ponds, leaking into waterways and groundwater across the country.
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The spill led to increased federal regulation in 2015 – although the Trump administration has since rolled back the new rules
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Although workers took hazardous waste training, those I spoke to and others who testified or supplied affidavits for the 2018 trial, said they were not informed of the constituents in coal ash, or that they could be dangerous to human health. In 2009, Anda Ray, TVA’s project coordinator for the Cercla order, told 60 Minutes the spill’s coal ash had similar constituents to soil and rocks, and that she’d swim in the Emory River, then filled with coal ash.
But workers say none of the regulators provided respiratory equipment to workers, despite complaining of being covered with toxic dust every day for years. Jacobs’ safety manager at the time, Tom Bock, told them they could safely “eat a pound of coal ash a day” and directed at least three workers – two laborer foremen and a tool room manager – to turn over or destroy on-site dust masks.
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Workers say they were discouraged from wearing any form of PPE besides steel-toed boots, a hard hat, a fluorescent vest and occasionally goggles or gloves, and safety orders by statewide regulators and TVA support these claims. When they asked to wear dust masks, or when they were prescribed dust masks from their doctors, they said company culture implied if they wore them, they’d be fired. Union members, especially those who’d worked in the mining industry before, knew that typical safety regulations required PPE and that the silica dust – a mineral 100 times finer than sand that can lodge in the lungs and cause respiratory illnesses – in the coal ash could be hazardous. Witnesses during the trial testified Jacobs tampered with dust monitors, manipulated dust sampling results, and failed to warn workers about the dangers.
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“The biggest problem was that they didn’t want to scare the general public,” said Michael Bledsoe, Doug’s older brother who also drove trucks on the site. “They didn’t want them to see us wearing masks or respirators or Tyvek suits. They wanted to basically keep it [coal ash] a secret and that was told to us every day.”
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Coal ash lodges in the lungs forever; the toxins in it can damage the body years after exposure. Research shows that short-term exposure to coal ash can cause shortness of breath, dizziness and vomiting, and prolonged exposure can impact every major organ system in the human body, causing birth defects, heart, lung and neurological disease, and a variety of cancers. Dr Paul Terry, an epidemiologist at the University of Tennessee, analyzed worker health concerns for phase I of the lawsuit. In particular, Terry noticed the relation between coal ash and the frequency of respiratory, cardiovascular and skin conditions.
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Satterfield’s reporting validated how many workers felt. She revealed that state and federal agencies were not reducing worker’s health risks by obtaining internal documents revealing TVA knew coal ash contained high levels of radioactive materials and heavy metals decades before the disaster. She also discovered Tennessee’s environmental regulators altered sampling results, downplaying higher levels of uranium and radium.
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