Personal Injury Law

Updates on Lawsuits Stem from TVA Ash Spill

By Editor

The Knoxville News-Sentinel today has an interesting story on how the Tennessee Valley Authority handled communications in the moments after holding pond levees broke and sent 5.4 million cubic yards of fly ash, a toxic byproduct of coal combustion, into the surrounding areas of Roane County, Tennessee.

The story states: 

"The Tennessee Valley Authority didn’t use a mandated command structure for interagency disaster response at the Kingston Fossil Plant’s fly ash spill, making coordination with local emergency personnel an ad hoc affair for the first couple of days following the disaster, according to Roane County’s top emergency responder."

This revelation could have a big impact on the class action lawsuits that are being filed by area residents whose homes, property values, personal belongings and possibly even health have been affected by the spill.

As we mentioned in our last post about airline crash landings, personal injury and liability, one factor that may play an important role in a personal injury case is negligence. TVA’s procedures, protocol and response will all be examined closely to see if there was negligence on the part of the agency as residents - and, later, juries - examine the personal injury lawsuits.

Full post as published by The Injury Blog on January 26, 2009 (boomark / email).