Plant and Spill Location
The Kingston Fossil Plant is located on a peninsula at the junction of the Emory River (to the north) and Clinch River (to the south and east), just over 4 miles (6.4 km) upstream from the latter's mouth along the Tennessee River. Watts Bar Dam, located along the Tennessee 38 miles (61 km) downstream from the mouth of the Clinch, impounds a reservoir (Watts Bar Lake) that spans a 72-mile (116 km) stretch of the Tennessee (to Fort Loudoun Dam), the lower 23 miles (37 km) of the Clinch (to Melton Hill Dam), and the lower 12 miles (19 km) of the Emory. The plant, originally known as the Kingston Steam Plant, was built in the early 1950s primarily to provide electricity to atomic energy installations at nearby Oak Ridge.
The plant's ash pond disposal area is located immediately north of the plant along the peninsula's Emory River shore. The ponds were originally created by diking off part of the lake at the Emory's confluence with Swan Pond Creek, which flows down from Harriman (just over the ridge to the northwest). The disposal area consists of the main ash pond (where ash is initially dumped), which is flanked on the southeast by a stilling pond (where water from the main pond is placed to further separate it from the ash) and on the northwest by "dredge cells," where ash from the main pond is placed to further solidify. The dike breach occurred at the northwest corner of the dredge cell area, overlooking the Swan Pond Creek spillway.
Read more about this topic: Kingston Fossil Plant Coal Fly Ash Slurry Spill
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