Kingston Power Plant, Tennessee

The Kingston Power Plant is a large coal-fired power plant, built by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) in the 1950s. It is located near the confluence of the Emory and Clinch Rivers, and has nine coal-fired units, whose net output capacity is 1,700MW.  In 2008, a dike containing coal ash sludge failed, releasing around 5.4 million cubic yards of the toxic material into the neighboring Emory, Clinch, and Tennessee Rivers, as well as portions of the Watts Bar Reservoir, a source of drinking water for a number of municipalities. Approximately 300 acres of land extending beyond the plant's perimeter were contaminated. All told 26 houses were either damaged or destroyed by the wave of sludge, but remarkably no one was killed. Remediation efforts lasted from 2008 until 2015, employing over 900 people in the process.