Now They’ve Gone And Done It Again: New TVA Spill In Alabama

By Kleinheider Posted on January 9, 2009 at 11:03 am

From the Knoxville News Sentinel:

Scott Hughes, spokesman for the Alabama Department of Environmental Management, told the Tennessean newspaper, “The only thing we’ve got right now is that there was a release from a gypsum treatment operation. “We do understand that some of the material has reached Widows Creek.”

On Dec. 22, a retention pond failure in Kingston released more than a billion gallons of sludge that damaged homes and fouled the Emory River.

The Widows Creek Fossil Plant is located on Guntersville Reservoir on the Tennessee River.

Electricity is produced at Widows Creek’s eight coal-fired units by heating water in a boiler to produce steam.

Under extremely high pressure, the steam flows into a turbine that spins a generator to make electricity.

Widows Creek generates about 10 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity a year, enough to supply 650,000 homes.

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R. Neal
Nashvillest

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Tags: Alabama, ash spill, TVA, Widows Creek Fossil Plant