Ala. Waste Pond Ruptures; Spill Contained

A waste pond at a coal-burning power plant in northeast Alabama ruptured Friday, but the spill was quickly contained, utility officials said. It was the second breach at a Tennessee Valley Authority facility in less than a month.

The leak was discovered at about 6 a.m. Friday at the plant near Stevenson, said TVA spokesman John Moulton. Most of the material from the leak flowed into a settling pond at the plant site, but some spilled into nearby Widows Creek, he said.

The leak had stopped by late morning and TVA was conducting temporary repairs on the pond, Moulton said. State emergency management officials are trying to determine if any drinking water systems might be affected by the spill into the creek, which flows into the Tennessee River, said Scott Hughes, a spokesman for Alabama Department of Environmental Management.

The spill, about 30 miles southwest of Chattanooga, Tenn., comes just after a dike burst at a plant near Kingston, Tenn. on Dec. 22, releasing more than 1 billion gallons of toxic-laden ash into a neighborhood. The spill has renewed a debate about whether states or federal regulators should oversee the materials, and whether stricter regulations are needed to govern them.

On Thursday in Washington, a U.S. Senate committee grilled Tom Kilgore, the CEO of the Tennessee Valley Authority, reports CBS News correspondent Mark Strassman.

"You've got to clean up your act," said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif. "Literally."

The federal utility said the pond that leaked Friday contained gypsum, a material that is captured in air pollution control devices at the plant and is different than the type of sludge that spilled in Tennessee. Gypsum is a naturally occurring mineral that contains calcium sulfate, which is used to make wall board, cement and fertilizer.

TVA didn't immediately have an estimate on how much material spilled and the cause of the failure is under investigation. In 2005, the utility reported depositing 445,200 tons of gypsum in ponds at the Widows Creek plant.

Two plants remained in operation and two smokestacks that tower over the plant were still putting out a plume of emissions in the hours after the accident.

Victor Manning, the emergency management agency director in Jackson County, where the plant is located, said he didn't learn about the leak until several hours later. He said there are no homes nearby that might be endangered by the spill.

TVA inspected all its retaining ponds, including the ones at the Widows Creek Fossil Plant, after the rupture in Tennessee. Moulton said on Dec. 31 that the ponds were "all in good shape."

TVA initially speculated that bitterly cold temperatures and flooding could have been a factor in the Tennessee failure. But the cause of the Tennessee accident is still under investigation, and TVA officials said this week the flood may have destroyed much of the evidence that could help determine why the dike broke.