December 27, 2008 journal, the TVA toxic coal ash spill may have contaminated water in the Tennessee River serving Chattanooga with arsenic, lead & selenium in Emory River. HARRIMAN, Tennessee-"Millions of yards of ashy sludge broke through a dike at TVA's Kingston coal-fired plant Monday, covering hundreds of acres, knocking one home off its foundation and putting environmentalists on edge about toxic chemicals that may be seeping into the ground and flowing downriver. The 1.8 million cubic yards estimated Wednesday, when TVA President and CEO Tom Kilgore told reporters the pond held 2.6 million cubic yards, and 70 percent of that had escaped. TVA's figures on the amount of sludge have shifted three times in the early stages of a disaster that has put a spotlight on TVA and how coal-burning power plants handle ash. "The first was an estimate," TVA spokesman John Moulton said. The agency then did a precision look with radar, he said. When asked why TVA didn't know better how much was in the pond, Moulton said: "That was the number we had at the time." Mercury, lead and arsenic that are generally found in coal are among the potentially toxic substances that can concentrate in the ash. Environmental activists have pushed for years for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to label it as a hazardous waste requiring close regulation. An environmental activist who has followed TVA and energy issues for years said the agency's lack of knowledge about the amount of ash formerly in its pond is to be expected. "One of the big underlying issues of this is that EPA has been lax in regulating this, so the utilities have been left to their own devices to do whatever they want with the stuff," said Stephen Smith, with Southern Alliance for Clean Energy in Knoxville. "They have no requirements like they would if this were regulated like a hazardous waste, which it should be. "They have been piling this stuff up for decades. It doesn't surprise me that they're somewhat uniformed about it." (Tons of dead fish are shown on television) The muck, which is spread over 250 to 400 acres and is several feet deep in places, poured from the elevated settling pond when a side gave way around 1 a.m. Monday and forced at least a dozen families to evacuate their homes. Bulldozers, backhoes and dump trucks moved in Thursday as cleanup efforts continued. "We're busily getting up all the ash we can," Moulton said. Booms and skimmers had been placed along waterways to try to contain the ash, he said. A weir was being built with rocks across the Emory to keep any more ash from moving. The Emory River joins with the Clinch just downstream from the plant, and from there the waters move into the Tennessee. Testing showed water quality met all regulations, TVA officials said. EPA workers have been testing the slurry on land, but results were unavailable. Ash at the plant is mixed with water and sluiced into the unlined earthen pond, where it settles, to be dredged out and moved to a drier pond later. Seven of the nine coal-burning units at the Harriman plant had been shut down as of Thursday, along with 15 other TVA fossil units because of reduced demand for electricity with milder weather, the agency's document said. Kingston, built in the 1950s, is one of TVA's largest fossil plants, generating enough energy to supply about 670,000 homes. When will the Tennessean report the true magnitude of this disaster? Anne Paine is relaying TVA's press releases, not critically accessing the spill. This is more than a "pond" spill. It is the collapse of an absolute mountain of toxic waste into the river. How can the Tennessean staff believe this is a "few weeks" to clean up? We will be dealing with this disaster for YEARS. I know it's Christmas, but you should be on top of this story -not filtering TVA tripe to your constituent's". (There's no such thing as clean coal)