Tennessee Valley Authority advances plan to transfer coal ash from Gallatin Fossil Plant

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) announced last week that it will proceed with plans to move coal ash from ash pound impoundments at the Gallatin Fossil Plant to a lined, onsite location when permitted by the state.

At its current home in Gallatin, the ash sits in wet impoundments, but as of June 2019, TVA and the state agreed to close those impoundments. An environmental impact statement followed, and was released earlier this month, wherein various options were laid out and their potential impacts examined.

From these options, the TVA noted a preference for a plan whereby the coal ash would be either disposed of in the existing onsite lined dry storage landfill, granted a lined, permitted expansion of the existing landfill, or both. Other options included removal to an offsite landfill or the possibility of encapsulated beneficial reuse. The latter option is one still being explored by TVA in the hopes it might have potential in the future. Nothing will move forward, though, without approval from the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation.

The environmental review based these suggestions on environmental impacts, economic issues, and TVA’s own long-term goals for the management of its coal ash.