Monday, February 9, 2009
Breaking News TVA Is Screwing Elderly Farmers
Posted by Brantley Hargrove on Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 5:28 AM
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If you read the initial story about my encounters with Harriman folks unfortunate enough to find themselves at ground zero for the TVA Kingston fly ash spill, you remember Sandy and Terry Gupton, the kindly farmers who've got a few dozen acres fouling beneath piles of fetid ash and water.
You may have also heard that TVA is buying up besmirched properties in and around the spill--some 12-14 homes, mostly one to five acre little plots. Well, get this. And prepare to want to kick TVA squarely in its collective balls. They haven't offered the Guptons a damned thing for their 250 acres.
Times have only gotten worse for the couple. Samples of urine, feces, hair and blood indicate they have elevated levels of heavy metals in their bodies. Prospective cattle buyers have canceled their orders with the Guptons simply because they're near the site--a sort of weird scarlet letter even though they've kept their prized Gelbvieh cattle on the other side of the property.
Sandy and Terry have done a little shopping around, checking out farms around Roane County, but none of them are fixed up with a pond, fences and a house like their little farm on Swan Pond Circle Road. It'd take the couple five to eight years just to get it the way they want it. And as Sandy said, "Terry and I are up in our years."
Sandy is doubtful that TVA will buy them out because of the size of their property, but they can't make a living when every buyer thinks their cattle are bioaccumulating hazards. Meanwhile, ash is still piled up on their land, only now it's seeded with rye and covered over with hay.
Some fix, TVA. I mean, really, WTF?!
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