Tennessee Valley Authority used toxic waste in Claxton youth sports field

For two decades, children in Anderson County have been playing — unaware — on a sports field constructed with the Tennessee Valley Authority’s radioactive coal ash waste, Knox News confirmed this week.

The nation’s largest public power provider is now acknowledging it used a mix of dirt and “bottom ash” — the most toxic and radioactive form of TVA’s coal ash waste — to build a ball field that's part of a larger park that contains a playground, as well. The ball field has played host to youth sports games since it opened in 2001.

Coal ash is the byproduct of burning coal to produce electricity, and it contains a toxic stew of 26 cancer-causing pollutants and radioactive heavy metals. Duke researcher Dr. Avner Vengosh — a renowned expert in coal ash detection and testing — noted the “absolute concentrations” of toxic heavy metals in the soil of the adjacent playground were low.

TVA did not install a clay liner — a thick layer of compacted clay typically used to seal off TVA’s coal ash waste in its dumps — on top of the ball field to protect children from direct exposure to coal ash dust. Instead, TVA said in a statement to Knox News that the radioactive fill dirt mixture was topped with gravel, mulch and slope stabilizers known as “geofibers.”

https://www.knoxnews.com/story/news/crime/2021/08/09/claxton-playground-contaminated-radioactive-dust-still-open/5470284001/
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