Immediately following the disaster that has ruined many lives and livelihoods, “Executive Rewind” (TVA Management Took a Holiday) noted the utter lack of senior management’s availability and presence on location to work with residents, clean-up teams and the news media.
TVA’s reluctance to communicate continues and it is getting a deserved drubbing in the press. Case in point, The Tennessean’s Brad Schrade’s lengthy and compelling indictment of the authority in a January 25th article entitled “TVA spill unleashes flood of questions.”
Schrade reports that the incident raises a host of “uwanted questions” for the Authority and quotes a democratic congressman who skewers TVA management for their hubris:
“In TVA’s 70-year history they’ve gone from a yardstick for the world to a laughingstock with the nuclear problems (in the 1970s) to a run-of-the-mill, get-by-with-what-you-can utility,” said U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper, a Democrat from Nashville. “I told (TVA Chief Executive) Tom Kilgore and (TVA Chairman) Bill Sansom when they came up (to Washington) that 2008 was a disastrous year for TVA.
“They demanded whopping rate increases from every customer. Paid the top executives fat bonuses. Then virtually on Christmas Eve poured toxic sludge on a lot of good, hard-working Tennesseans and one of our most beautiful valleys. Oh, sure they’re apologetic but it’s tragic and disappointing that we don’t have a first-rate, top-flight utility in the valley.”
