KINGSTON, Tenn. -- Dozens of plaintiffs, many of them seriously ill and some dying, still await resolution of a case involving the cleanup of an enormous coal ash spill 10 years ago.
A jury in Knoxville, Tenn., last year decided within hours that Jacobs Engineering, a contractor for the Tennessee Valley Authority, breached its safety duties, exposing hundreds of cleanup workers to airborne "fly ash" containing known carcinogens. The jurors said Jacobs' actions had the potential to make the workers sick. The key question of whether those actions caused the workers' illnesses was left for a different jury in a second phase of the civil trial.
More than 200 workers blame the contractor for exposing them to ash that they say caused a slew of illnesses, some fatal, including cancers of the lungs, brain, blood and skin.
Despite a favorable verdict in November for the first 72 plaintiffs, they won't get monetary damages unless they can prove what caused their specific illnesses. The judge, alluding to their urgent need for medical care, ordered mediation. More than 100 other plaintiffs await the outcome.
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"To have the burden put on you, that you have to prove what caused these horrific things -- that's an atrocity," said Janie Clark, whose husband, Ansol, has a rare blood cancer after driving a fuel truck at the site. "I guess that's just the law."
Jacobs' attorney, Theodore Boutrous, said the company "was doing its best to help manage the cleanup in a way that is safe -- that the regulators have said is safe." He stressed that it hasn't been proved that Jacobs -- or even coal ash -- is to blame for any illnesses.
The workers encountered a moonscape after a leaking six-story earthen dam collapsed at the TVA's Kingston Fossil Plant on Dec. 22, 2008, releasing more than 1 billion gallons of coal ash. It remains the largest industrial spill in modern U.S. history. It also prompted the Environmental Protection Agency to begin regulating coal ash storage at more than 1,000 active ash dumps across the country, although not as stringently as environmentalists would like.
The TVA paid for as many as 900 people to contain and remove the pollution, some working 12-hour shifts for months at a time. The sludge dried into a fine dust that sparkled like glitter and sometimes whirled into thick clouds as trucks drove through the area.
Workers said they were healthy before breathing the ash but that they have since suffered unusual symptoms. They recalled joking darkly about "coal ash flu" before suffering strange lesions and seeing their skin flake off like fish scales. At least 40 workers have died, they said, some collapsing and coughing up blood.
"We cleaned it up in a little over five years, and it would've took 25 years to do it the right way," said Doug Bledsoe, who drove trucks at the site and who now has brain and lung cancer.
Foreman Michael Robinette testified that Jacobs safety manager Tom Bock ordered him to take one worker's mask away and get rid of all the masks in the equipment room. "We threw them in the dumpster," Robinette testified.
And Greg Schwartz, a Jacobs subcontractor, testified that his supervisor said masks weren't allowed "because it looked bad."
"They didn't want people driving by and seeing people with masks. That was the answer I got," Schwartz said.
Bock, at trial, denied the workers' allegations that he ordered the dust masks be destroyed or discouraged their use.
The TVA is not a defendant and hasn't commented on the personal injury cases, other than to say Jacobs was responsible for worker safety. With its reputation at stake, the agency has stressed that coal ash is classified as nonhazardous by the EPA.
Duke University geochemist Avner Vengosh, who is not involved in the litigation, tested ash from the Kingston spill and found high levels of radioactivity and toxic metals, including arsenic and mercury. In a statement about his 2009 peer-reviewed study, he warned that inhaling airborne particles could "have a severe health impact on local residents or workers."
But the workers said Jacobs safety supervisors told them that "you could eat a pound of it a day and it wouldn't hurt you."
Ron Bledsoe, a truck driver who now struggles to breathe because of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, said supervisors made a big deal about safety glasses and steel-toed boots but downplayed the fly ash swirling around the workers.
Jacobs officials testified that they followed regulations for air monitoring, with results verified by outside agencies, and found the workers were never exposed to dangerous levels. Workers testified that they witnessed the monitoring being manipulated.
Regardless, experts say there isn't enough research to establish a safe level of prolonged exposure to fly ash.
"We need more research because people are potentially getting sick from coal ash," said Kristina Zierold, an epidemiologist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham who is not involved in the lawsuits. She compared it to the concerted effort it took to prove scientifically that smoking causes illness.
Regulations apply to dust in general and to many of the individual elements of fly ash, but researchers don't fully understand what happens in the body when all those toxic chemicals are breathed in together. That's one reason some of the workers may have an uphill battle proving their particular illnesses resulted from prolonged exposure, said Paul Terry, an epidemiologist at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, who testified for the workers.
At a TVA board meeting last week, Janie Clark pleaded for help with the workers' medical bills.
"They cleaned up your mess," she said. "Please do not let these hardworking people be treated as collateral damage."
Business on 08/29/2019