TVA prepares to start scrubber at Kingston

KINGSTON, Tenn. — Smokestack scrubbers will be going into operation next week at the Tennessee Valley Authority's coal-fired power plant in Kingston.

The $500 million scrubbers promise to eliminate 95 percent of the plant's sulfur dioxide emissions. It should help remove haze in the Great Smokies and improve air quality as required under a federal judge's order in a petition from the state of North Carolina.

But the scrubbers also will produce a new waste stream at a plant still engaged in a $1 billion cleanup from a massive coal ash spill in December.

The scrubbers are expected to produce hundreds of thousands of tons of gypsum byproduct annually. TVA hopes to sell the gypsum for use in wall board and concrete additives.