The Tennessee Valley Authority has invested nearly $100 million over the last year to shore up coal waste disposal facilities at its powerplant sites, and will spend up to $2 billion more to convert wet coal-ash storage sites to dry ash storage. But it’s not likely other utilities will follow suit until federal requirements become clearer.
In the wake of the 2008 coal-ash spill at TVA’s Kingston, Tenn., plant site—the biggest environmental disaster of its kind in U.S. history—most utilities have inspected their coal- ash waste ponds to make sure they are not a hazard to life or property.