Workers who cleaned up the 2008 Kingston, Tennessee, coal ash spill spent years working in conditions that they believe made them sick.
FILE - In this Aug. 6, 2019, photo, Ansol and Janie Clark pose at a memorial Ansol Clark constructed near the Kingston Fossil Plant in Kingston, Tenn. The Tennessee Valley Authority was responsible for a massive coal ash spill at the plant in 2008 that covered a community and fouled rivers. The couple says the memorial is for the workers who have come down with illnesses, some fatal, including cancers of the lung, brain, blood and skin and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
In addition, the workers' attorneys say it is simply too late to bring this challenge. The case already went through the first part of a two-part trial in 2018, when a Knoxville, Tennessee, jury found that Jacobs breached its duty of care to the workers. The jurors said Jacobs’ actions were capable of making the workers sick. Whether those actions actually did make them sick, and thus eligible for monetary damages, was left for a subsequent trial or trials.
“Everything we done, we done together,” Johnnie Bledsoe said. “We raised cattle together. We had a farm together. All that's stopped.”