Environmentalists Threaten To Sue Over Coal Ash at TVA Gallatin Plant

"Conservation groups have filed initial paperwork to sue the Tennessee Valley Authority, contending that harmful pollutants have been seeping from 55-year-old coal ash storage ponds at the Gallatin power plant and into drinking water.

The groups say that TVA violated the Clean Water Act by allowing pollutants such as arsenic and cadmium into the Cumberland River and other surface and groundwater sources near the coal-fired power plant.

'The contamination levels in the groundwater that TVA has been sampling are striking, many times above drinking water standards,' said Anne Davis, managing attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center’s Nashville office. 'And it’s been going on for a long time.'"

Stacey Barchenger reports for the Nashville Tennessean November 11, 2014.