Shades of Gray

The cover story in this week's Flyer is about the TVA coal ash spill in KIngston, TN...

Shades of Gray
Confusion reigns in the wake of an unprecedented TVA coal-ash spill in Kingston, Tennessee.

At times, the January 9th town hall meeting held in Harriman, Tennessee — hosted by celebrity environmentalist Erin Brockovich and set against the panic and uncertainty of a massive environmental calamity — resembled an episode of The Simpsons, TV's long-running satire about a typical "nuclear" family living in a radioactive city where the fish have three eyes.

One woman worried that cleaning up the Tennessee Valley Authority's (TVA) massive coal-ash spill might disturb all the barrels of toxic waste rumored to be buried under the sediment.

A man in a wide-brimmed hat offered to donate the misshapen body of his tumor-ridden, river-loving dog to science as soon as the poor thing died.

A nattily dressed man with snow-white hair waited patiently, then, when he got his turn at the microphone, erupted like a volcano: "Who can I trust? Tell me, who can I trust?" he asked, his voice quivering.

The man ran down a list cataloging the incongruous viewpoints he'd been subjected to for 18 days — the time that had passed since the waste-retaining wall at the TVA's Kingston Fossil Plant gave way, and his hometown — once a water-lover's paradise tucked into the postcard-perfect hills of East Tennessee — became the new synonym for environmental disaster.

Read the rest of the article here...