Dirty Energy and the Lost Promise of the TVA
9 hours ago
- The TVA was created in 1933 as a New Deal program to transform the impoverished Tennessee Valley through flood control, electricity, and regional planning, but it displaced over 125,000 people and enforced racial segregation.
- The 2008 Kingston coal ash spill released over a billion gallons of toxic slurry, exposing workers to dangerous levels of heavy metals and leading to over 60 deaths and 200 illnesses, with the TVA and Jacobs Engineering downplaying the risks.
- Coal ash is not classified as a hazardous material by the EPA due to industry lobbying, and legacy sites remain exempt from weak 2015 rules that have not been enforced.
- The TVA shifted from hydroelectric to coal power after WWII, becoming a massive polluter—responsible for 14% of U.S. sulfur dioxide emissions in the 1970s—and actively opposed strip-mining regulations.
- Despite its failures, the TVA's model of holistic regional planning could be adapted to combat climate change, address environmental racism, and build a sustainable energy future.