This site will post communications directed to the Roane Community Advisory Group (CAG) as they are received in order to keep the community affected by the TVA ash dike failure fully informed.

General information regarding the CAG and relevant public documents are posted at the CAG website.

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Highlight Information from the CAG Meeting 1- 19-10

This is a preliminary report to inform the public of information that came to light in tonight's CAG meeting. We had presenters from several agencies with the highlights as follows:

TVA will reroute rail switch lines to eliminate all road crossings by rail cars except for whole trains entering or leaving. This will eliminate 30 – 60 road closings daily by mid February. TVA police will not normally be involved with the road closings after that point.

Emory River dredging still expected to finish May 2010

The joint Public meeting will have EE/CA presentations and Public Health assessment Tuesday Jan 26, 5:30 at Roane Coounty High School Cafeteria.

The storm water pond that receives water outflow from the Gypsum pond will have a vinyl liner added since no actual leak point could be located. Two feet of clay will be removed and replaced and compacted in addition to the installation of the vinyl liner.

A CAG member asked about feasibility of adding vinyl liner to gypsum pond since percolation seems to be the problem with leakage. TVA will look into this.

TDH: TVA, EPA and TDEC were given the preliminary draft of the Public Health Assessment on the same date prior to release to the public. They were allowed to comment on the entire report and request changes prior to publication. Concerned with the perception of TVA influence, TVA’s comments, CAG members requested that TVA's comments be made public. Also at the CAG request, the initial release of the Public Health Assessment received by TVA will be released so that the changes that were made after TVA comments can be assessed by the public. A number of errors and omissions in the current report were noted by the CAG members.

EPA will get the majority of the ash from the Emory River in a May 2010 time frame. They are about 2/3 complete. After this period some ash will remain and will be dealt with in the non time critical phase of the clean up.

The Emory River closure will be extended beyond the February 10 date currently posted. A review will be conducted in early February at which point a more firm date will be set.

The temporary ash storage area at the ball field is currently at 15 feet. Approval has been granted to raise the storage height to 30 feet. This consists of 40 acres of which 30 acres could reach the 30 foot height. This is due to the dredge capability being higher than the ability to dry and ship the ash to a permanent storage location. These plans have been reviewed and approved by the Bureau of Land and Reclamation (Dam Safety responsibility at the Federal level).

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