On Tuesday, the Roane County Commission approved allocating money to hire an outside lawyer with the intent to sue the Tennessee Valley Authority and/or Jacobs Engineering over the 2008 coal ash spill in Kingston.
The spill was one of the largest environmental disasters in U.S. history, and the county believes the economic impact, property value damage, health issues related to the ash spill and the continuing news coverage on recovery workers' lawsuits creates a negative impact that will impede Roane County for decades.
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The ash spill happened on December 22, 2008 after a dike holding back 1.1 billion gallons of toxic coal ash at TVA's Kingston fossil plant broke and spilled into Watts Bar Lake. Jacobs Engineering was hired to clean up the site.
Roane County commissioner Randy Ellis said the county needs to file suit before 10 years has passed from the disaster to ensure the evidence is preserved.
"We're going back to look and see if we were misled as a county for several years in the beginning in how safe it was, and it turns out it wasn't very safe and they've done things to cover that up."
The resolution adds $100,000 to the part of the county's budget for legal services - doubling what was in the initial budget.
The vote came after commissioners met with the county's attorney in an executive session that lasted nearly an hour. Attorney James Scott, who's leading a lawsuit against Jacobs Engineering for the current health problems of former clean-up workers, was also in the executive session.
"Tonight's special called meeting sort of culminated from the sick worker trial which just took place in Knoxville where the jury found, I believe, Jacobs may have falsified some records, and we've got sick workers from the spill that actually passed away and are dying," Ellis said.
County executive Ron Woody will select who represents the county. Woody indicated after the meeting that a lawyer from Knoxville attorney James Scott's office will likely be hired.