Valley So Low: One Lawyer's Fight for Justice in the Wake of America's Great Coal Catastrophe

A riveting courtroom drama as victims of a manmade environmental disaster—the survivors—pursue justice in a Tennessee court led by a country lawyer challenging the notion that, in America, justice can be bought. For more than 50 years, a power plant in the little town of Kingston that was operated by Tennessee Valley Authority burned some fourteen thousand tons of coal a day, creating a mountain of ashen waste 60 feet high and covering 84 acres, contained only by an earthen embankment. On December 22, 2008, that embankment broke, unleashing a lethal wave of sludge that covered hundreds of acres, damaged nearly 30 homes, and precipitated a cleanup effort that would cost more than $1 billion—and the lives of more than 50 workers. Jim Scott, a local attorney, after meeting with workers who had developed respiratory problems, decided to take on TVA, a colossal, federally-owned utility and a cornerstone of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. Scott and the team he hastily assembled gathered massive evidence of threats against workers; retaliatory firings; disregarded safety precautions; and test results, either hidden or altered, that would have revealed harmful levels of arsenic, lead, and radioactive materials at the cleanup site. At every stage, Scott—outmanned and nearly broke—had to overcome legal hurdles constructed by TVA and the firm it hired to execute the cleanup, along with the EPA, which refused to aid the sickened workers. Scott grew especially close to one of the victims, whose swift decline only intensified his hunger for justice. As more information leaked out and as the workers’ day in court arrived, they seemed to have everything on their side, including the truth.

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