KINGSTON, Tenn. (WTVF) — Janie Clark and Betty Johnson said coal ash killed their husbands.
Ansol Clark and Tommy Johnson were some of the first to respond to the Tennessee Valley Authority's Kingston Fossil Plant, outside of Knoxville, 16 years ago this month.
They helped clean up one of the worst environmental disasters in the country's history.
In the dark of night on December 22, 2008, more than a billion gallons of coal ash slurry burst through a retaining wall and covered 300 acres around the plant.
Coal ash is what is left behind after burning coal to produce electricity.
The tidal wave of ash ripped homes off their foundations, knocked down trees, and destroyed railroad tracks, but incredibly no one was killed on the night of the incident.
TVA spent more than a billion dollars over six years to clean up the mess and insisted that coal ash posed no significant threat to human health.
But hundreds of clean-up workers got sick and filed lawsuits.
Ansol and Tommy are among more than 50 workers who have died.
"The system failed these workers," Janie Clark said.
"He had a terrible cough from the ash. His breathing was bad and he had lots of headaches," Betty Johnson said of her husband, Tommy.
A newly published book focuses on the Kingston disaster and the workers, like Ansol and Tommy, who cleaned it up.
"Valley So Low: One Lawyer's Fight for Justice in the Wake of America's Great Coal Catastrophe" has received national attention.
Jared Sullivan spent the last five years researching and writing the book.
He grew up in Middle Tennessee and remembered seeing news reports about the disaster.
"I remember TVA's PR people coming out and saying this stuff is not toxic, don't worry about it — and like a lot of other Tennesseans, I shrugged my shoulders and said, 'OK, great.'"
"It turns out that was not the truth," Sullivan said.
Clark and Johnson said their husbands came home each day covered in coal ash but were repeatedly assured it was safe.
"They were told they could eat a pound of it and it wouldn't bother them. They were told that in a meeting," Johnson said.
"That's the part I have to live with. Why didn't I gather that was making him sick? But they kept saying there's not a problem here. So, I trusted them," Clark said.
But memos reveal TVA was concerned about coal ash long before the Kingston disaster.
In 1964, TVA's director of health wrote to supervisors about "fly ash fallout" at its Paradise, Kentucky, steam plant.
It cited "detrimental effects" on the paint of employees' cars.
Tests "revealed definite corrosive tendencies of the dampened fly ash," according to the memo.
"They did not want the public to find out how bad the ash was. They never took ownership of the things that were in the ash," Johnson said.
Coal ash contains arsenic, mercury, radium and other toxins.
But TVA insisted those elements are in such low levels that coal ash posed no serious threat to human health.
The Environmental Protection Agency has never designated coal ash as a hazardous waste, which would make it more costly for disposal.
But when TVA officials testified to Congress right after the disaster, they admitted in written responses that staffers downplayed the health risks of coal ash after the incident.
TVA hired a private firm, Jacobs Engineering, to clean up the Kingston site.
Jacobs Engineering told workers that since coal ash at Kingston was not hazardous, they did not need protective gear like masks or respirators.
Knoxville attorney Jim Scott remembered when some of the workers first told him the ash was making them sick.
"When they came into my office it looked like they had come out of a coal mine. They couldn't breathe. Their eyes were bloodshot," Scott said.
The workers claimed they were not allowed to wear masks or respirators on site.
"And I thought surely to God, no — because you can see people mowing lawns with a mask," Scott said.
Scott said he would need proof that supervisors were telling people they could not wear masks.
That's when a worker showed him a cell phone video he had taken. The worker approached a supervisor and said his sinuses were acting up again.
The worker asked if he'd be signing his job's "death warrant" if he wore a dust mask.
The supervisor initially blamed the high pollen in the air.
But when the worker asked again if he could wear a mask, the supervisor said, "Don't."
"Don't what?" the worker asked.
"Don't hang yourself with your own c**k," the supervisor responded.
Scott was shocked.
"He threatened him with his job, and there were many threats to workers with their jobs if they were to wear a mask," Scott said.
In a lawsuit involving more than 200 workers, attorneys argued Jacobs Engineering, generally did not allow masks because it would have scared the public and slowed the clean-up.
"If you wear a respirator, you have to have breaks and downtime," Scott said.
NewsChannel 5 Investigates asked, "There was a real premium on getting this cleaned up fast, right?"
Scott responded, "Oh yes. It was speed and production over humanity."
Sullivan's book follows the workers and their federal lawsuit.
A federal jury found Jacobs Engineering failed to provide workers with adequate protective gear, which could have likely caused lung cancer, skin cancer, and leukemia.
The company reportedly paid a $77.5 million settlement but admitted no wrongdoing.
"The workers were collateral damage. We do not take care of blue-collar workers in this country or in this state especially," Sullivan said.
Clark said Ansol did not complain even as he got sicker.
He knew the pay was good and in 2008, after the housing collapse, the times were tough.
"These workers were expendable because they were just, in their minds, they were just union hires," Clark said.
One of the last things Ansol Clark did before he died — with a rare form of blood cancer — was take a cross to the disaster site where he and others worked.
The cross sits there now in memory of the workers.
"I think about him every single day, and I know he wouldn't have been down there in all that if he hadn't been trying to take care of us," Clark said.
TVA said it was not a party in the Jacobs litigation or the settlement.
TVA did not comment on the book, but sent the following statement:
"TVA is an industry leader in safe, innovative coal ash management, implementing best practices years before they were required and continuing to pioneer new technology to ensure our coal ash sites are protective of the environment and human health. TVA believes a collaborative, site-specific, science-driven approach results in the safest and best outcomes for the communities we serve."
Jacobs Engineering has changed its name. The company said on its website immediately after the settlement:
"Litigation against Jacobs initiated by cleanup‐worker plaintiffs have pended in federal court for over 10 years. These plaintiffs were not Jacobs employees. In 2023, to avoid further litigation, the parties chose to enter into an agreement to resolve the cases. The terms of this settlement are confidential."
