NAVIGATION   Home   News   About Us   Contact Us   TVA Findings (MSDS)      > Bottom Ash      > Fly Ash   Our Stories   Is Coal Clean ?   Health Hazards   Current Health Impacts   Videos   Property Sales   Photographs	Posted On 04-05-2009 :: Anonymous Sometime after midnight , December 22, 2008 , the Coal Ash Waste Pond by the Kingston Coal Fuel Plant in Kingston , TN , started collapsing. The dyke had been leaking, which shows up on the satellite pictures which were taken before the disaster happened. By zooming in Google Maps Street View and following along with the moving van carrying the camera, the spots of leakage can be seen. The emergency crews were called out, and no one knew what to do because a command center was not set up. The rescue people who first arrived went from house to house looking for victims making sure that no one had died. Still no command center was set up. After a while someone asked who was in charge, and someone pointed to Kilgore, the CEO of the TVA plant. Kilgore did not set up a command center and it was mass confusion. Emergency drills had not been practiced, as they thought that a disaster would not happen to them. I woke up about 9:30 am to planes and helicopters flying in the sky. It was like a war zone out side. I walked out on my deck and on the lake was fishing boats full of men heading towards the TVA plant, and there was a white muddy looking film on the top of the lake. I ran back into the house and turned on the local news and there it was. The horrible toxic coal ash disaster was right there on the TV. I thought that the ash was on the other side of the plant and didn't even drive out the road to look at it. My dad called me later and told me to drive out my road and take a look, because he said it was horrible. I did what he said and there it was just three houses down from mine. I sat and cried. I couldn't believe my eyes. Our beautiful lake was now ugly and contaminated and noisy from all the commotion going on both sides of the lake. I live on Emory River Road across from the actual disaster. People came from all over to view the disaster. Cars were turning around in my driveway nonstop. I started coughing and having headaches. My throat started getting scratchy and my voice sounded raspy. My eyes started burning and itching. I started coughing up phylum and my ears even itched. I didn't know what was happening. I thought that I was coming down with a virus. It never went away. I was contacted by the United Mountain Defense to take a heavy metal testing, and I was happy to take the test. UMD had gotten a grant to cover the cost of 29 persons to get the test free. I went into the hospital about a month later having chest pains and had to have a stint put into one of my arteries. While I was in the hospital, I stopped coughing, the headaches went away, the raspy throat went away and I felt better. When I returned home, all the same symptoms came back. On January 31, I flew to Delaware to take some training on air sampling so that we could do independent air sampling and all my symptoms when away while I was gone and when I returned all the symptoms came back. I got the results back from the heavy metal testing and I had higher than the range levels of aluminum, tin, antimony, bismuth, silver, and nickel. The test showed that I also have a skin disease called porphyria which is connected to heavy metal poisoning. To think that all the 40 years that I have lived at my house, I had been breathing in toxic coal fly ash from the ponds when the wind blew. I never new that there was fly ash in the ponds. I could go stay with my daughter in Nashville to get away from all this toxic fly ash, but there are people in the Swan Pond area who need help to get out of there. All they breathe is dust and toxic coal fly ash, and listen to trucks going by 24/7 and blasting from the quarry where they get the gravel. The trucks are moving fly ash from one place to another. Therefore, toxic fly ash if getting spread where ever these trucks travel. How can anyone live in this type environment?      Posted On 04-05-2009 :: Jeff Harrill My name is Jeff Harrill. I have a wife (Christie) and three kids (Lexie 7, Tyler 4, and Isaiah 5wks). We are not having any adverse effects from the ash so far that we know of. Our concerns start with our kid’s future. We are worried about the heavy metals in the ash, especially the mercury which is proven to cause autism in children. It is our understanding that any children under the age of 10 can be affected. This includes all three of our children, our neighbors Shane and Tiffany Whittenbarger have a three year old daughter, Haley, and there are at least 5 other young children in our section that we know about. We have gone to the outreach center and filed our claim and all we have heard is, “Yes, we can tell you that you are in the system.” Another concern is that when we went to the outreach center, our area by the quarry wasn’t even numbered to be in the affected area. Oh sure, we got a letter from TVA recently, stating that they haven’t forgotten about us. Surely everyone didn’t get the SAME letter. It seemed SOOOOO very personal. Another issue is the hundreds of trucks that travel on Swan Pond Rd. every day. We have had to wait for 40 trucks to come up from the quarry before we could pull out of Steven Lane. Both of our windshields have damage from the rocks falling out of the back of the trucks. I want to emphasize that it wasn’t road debris, this fell out of the door on the back of the trucks. One of our vehicles was even damaged as my wife was driving in the opposite direction. As she went by the truck, a rock smacked against the windshield. There are several times that we have had to swerve because a truck was over the yellow line and could have hit us. I would dare to guess that many people out here have had close calls such as these. If we had the money, we wouldn’t have a problem moving before TVA did something but unfortunately that isn’t the situation. All we can do is pray and trust in God.      Posted On 04-05-2009 :: Connie Kelley On December 22, 2008 my husband and myself was woke up by these sirens coming by our house. We thought that someones house was burning or something to that matter. Never thought of the tragic that we heard as we got up at 5:15 to get ready for work. We turned on our t.v. to listen to the news as we always do and that is when we heard about the ash spill. I thought oh my god, what has happened? So my husband and myself left for work and started out swan pond circle road and we were stopped by the police, he said that we couldn't get through because the road was gone due to the ash spill, so we turned around and had to go out the long way around. We will be going out this way for a long time that is how we feel. We couldn't see what had happened until we came back home and that is when we seen the most horrifing sight, it was unreal. Since the spill I have been having alot of headaches, eyes burning and itching, coughing, nose bleeds and some horrible nightmares. I never had a nightmare in my life until this. People probably think I am crazy or making this up but I am not. Why would I lie or make something up this terrible. I hate it. My husband and I bought this home in April of 2008 and have spent time and money on it fixing it up and now look at what we have to face everyday. This awful, dirty, stinking, nasty, gray, gloomy, dusty stuff. I don't like it. I want out of hear now, but we can't sell or leave. We don't have that kind of money to just pack up and leave. If we did we sure wouldn't be on Swan Pond Circle Road that's for sure. T.V.A sure isn't going to do anything for us. I am just sick of the whole ordeal you can't leave your home without seeing 25 to 50 dump trucks a day or maybe more. We almost got hit by one the other day at the intersection of Quarry Road and Swan Pond Circle. What are we to do? All I know is that I am sick, depressed, I am on medicine because of this tragedy. Rumor is that it maybe 5 years before all this mess is cleaned up. I don't know if my nerves will let me stay in this mess that long.	LINKS TCASN Blog Bucket Brigade Kentucky Sierra Club on TVA Kingston MSNBC Testimony WSMV Testimony Testimony Day 2 Nashville House Committee Meeting Story by Carlan Tapp LIFE ON SWAN POND AFTER TVA UNITED MOUNTAIN DEFENSE Evyns Disaster