Monday, January 26, 2009
By the Way TVA Spill: Weird Federal Loophole Complicated Emergency Response
Posted by Brantley Hargrove on Mon, Jan 26, 2009 at 2:18 PM
In the wee hours after the 1 a.m. breach that spilled more than 1 billion gallons of fly ash and water into the Emory River and onto the surrounding countryside, Roane County emergency personnel searched houses for trapped folks. It wasn't until nearly 5 a.m. that the county emergency czar found the man in charge at TVA. It preferably would have been TVA's equivalent to Howie Rose, County Emergency Management and Homeland Security Director. The best they got was CEO Tom Kilgore. Not exactly what he was looking for.
So they set to slapping together a response framework so they could, you know, coordinate and stuff, rather than running around independently and inefficiently.
"We have had exercises with the steam plant, and it's always been a finding that their command structure doesn't match up to our command structure," Rose told the Knoxville News Sentinel.
At former President Bush's direction, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge ordered all agencies implement this standardized response system to reduce confusion and establish a command structure between agencies. Perhaps it's time TVA stepped up. Just because they aren't expressly required to do something, doesn't mean they shouldn't.
Comments (2)
Showing 1-2 of 2
On a slightly unrelated note, I sent a constituent letter to Bob Corker about his opinion that federal Superfund funds should not be used for the cleanup. Here is part of his response:
"There's been an effort through the years to cause TVA to be a self-standing entity, to have a corporate-like board and to run independently. I think when we start seeking federal dollars to deal with TVA, we start a process of unwinding something that took several years to put in place."
So in other words, because TVA is less like government and more like a corporation, TVA rate payers will be left holding the bag. And yet, taxpayers are bailing out GM .... Okie dokie ...
like
dislike
