Described as “an environmental disaster 100 times the size of Exxon Valdez,” the spilling of more than 1.1 billion gallons of coal ash from an impoundment near the Tennessee Valley Authority’s (TVA) Kingston, Tenn., coal-burning electric power plant led the local community on a crusade to protect their environment and health. Kelley Campaigns ensured that these community activists were equipped with the access and skills to tell their stories and dispel the myths created by the power utility.
Through concentrated media efforts, Kelley Campaigns garnered media attention for the disaster in newspapers, blogs and magazines on the East Coast. In a feature article for GQ magazine, contributor Sean Flynn reports how TVA attempted to alter the reality of the disaster:
After [editing an internal talking-points memo], the spill was no longer catastrophic but merely sudden and accidental, and it did not dump 2.6 million cubic yards (which was off by more than half, anyway) but 1,600 acre-feet, which employs both a smaller number and a unit of measurement few people can readily visualize.
