Thu
Jul 2 2009
09:44 am
Missing TVA inspection report documents
By: R. Neal

Scott Barker has a disturbing report regarding testimony that an engineer's field notes on the final Kingston coal ash containment pond inspection before the failure somehow went missing.

Further, the inspection report was apparently "polished" by a PR flack:

Buttram also said in his deposition that a "TVA Media" employee named Jessica Stone edited the report, which went through four drafts, because employees knew "that it would be seen by the public." Buttram confirmed that later drafts did not include language Buttram had used in the original draft, including his recommendation to make repairs "immediately."

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JMG's picture

Go get em Scott.

Submitted by JMG on Thu, 2009/07/02 - 10:31am.

Go get em Scott.

mary's picture

Mr. Buttram, the latest TVA scapegoat!

Submitted by mary (not verified) on Thu, 2009/07/02 - 10:57am.

This is an outrageous attempt by TVA to conceal the facts and put the blame on their newest engineer, a person who had not even seen the schematics of this unlined, overloaded 'pond'. Further, this pond had failed inspections for 10 YEARS, both by its own inspectors and outside engineers. The fact that Mr. Buttram could see the flaws, the threats of a spill, even with no drawings, etc, is the very reason his report was 'removed', and re-written! I actually have a good friend who has original drawings and worked on these unlined ponds...it shouldn't be that hard for plantiffs' lawyers to find the truth.
And TVA is now claiming it had "set aside" $800 million to build a natural gas plant near Rogersville, next door to ANOTHER ash pond! And it has also applied to build a new 'mini-nuke' reactor on the Clinch River from Kingston where fish glow in the dark!
The management and Board of TVA have gone far from the environmental stewards it once tried to be. Today it is all about the money! And the sad fact is that TVA is still denying it is at fault...so it won't have to take care of all the sick folks and survivors out on Swan Pond Road and downstream from Kingston.

KC's picture

Missing field notes are the

Submitted by KC on Thu, 2009/07/02 - 11:14am.

Missing field notes are the tip of the iceberg. Maybe someday someone will care about the ethics and accountability that vanished from TVA long ago.

The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present.
President Abraham Lincoln 1862

SnM's picture

Snark

Submitted by SnM on Fri, 2009/07/03 - 12:46pm.

TVA Tries Sending Inspection Reports Directly to Landfills
Field notes, press releases to go immediately to dump, too

From APB reports. KNOXVILLE - The Tennessee Department of Environment Oversight, in the Sense of Overlooking, Not Overseeing (TDEOSONO) has approved test runs of four area landfills for the disposal of inspection reports, public-information documents and other materials related to the Dec. 22 coal fly-ash spill at the Tennessee Valley Authority's Kingston Fossil Plant.

In a statement issued Wednesday, TDEOSONO spokeswoman Trisha Cabrini-Green said TVA would be permitted to send five to 10 truckloads of reports and public-access documents - as well as any investigative journalism stories TVA successfully stonewalls - to each landfill under the agreement. The failure of a coal-ash disposal pond at the Kingston power plant dumped 5.4 million cubic yards of reports, memos and press releases - enough to fill 450,000 dump trucks - into the surrounding communities.

Cabrini-Green said that after the revelation that the field notes of the inspector who was the last to scrutinize the coal-ash pond at the Kingston Fossil Plant disappeared from his desk, TDEOSONO decided to bow to reality and start allowing TVA to begin sending materials relevant to the disaster directly to landfills.

Cliff Buttersquash, a Tennessee Valley Authority engineer, said in a deposition that his Oct. 22, 2008, inspection of the fly ash pond was the first he'd ever conducted, and while he responded to the Dec. 22 collapse at the facility, the notes disappeared. He specifically and emphatically stated in his deposition testimony that he had not taken the notes with invisible ink...
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