It's been a busy day at the Deuce, but I've been gobbling up everything I can that you've been writing on the TVA ash pond spill. Below is a little of what I've been reading. In particular, I want to draw your attention to the excellent post by Southern Beale excerpted below. As always, Enclave has aggregated a lot of content over the weekend with his own astute analysis.

These are just some of the bloggers helping hold TVA accounatable to the people of Tennessee and the nation. Kudos to Jack Lail and the Knoxville News Sentinel for digging in where bloggers might not have the time or resources to dig and getting information out to the public through their developed knowledge of prefered online channels (blogs, twitter, etc).

Welcome to the new participatory media culture. Keep it coming!

• Should we trust that Howie did what he was supposed to? - Enclave
  The displaced Swan Pond journaler is livid that Roane County EMA Director "Howie" Rose admonished Tennesseans to trust TVA and local, state, and federal officials about their reports on ash containment and the disaster fallout, given that a 2006 emergency preparedness checklist for which Mr. Rose was responsible looks incomplete.




• The TVA Board That Operates Like A Business - Southern Beale
  The TVA board used to consist of three members, nominated by the president and confirmed by the U.S. Senate. In November 2004 the board was expanded to nine members, a scheme concocted by Tennessee Senators Bill Frist and Lamar Alexander to “modernize the management structure” and “lead to more accountability at TVA,” and which was implemented without any congressional hearings of any type.




• TVA response to Swan Pond disaster - KnoxViews
  While the executives are at press conferences talking about the disaster, we sometimes tend to overlook the fact that there are hundreds of hard-working TVA employees and contractors up there working to clean up the mess, some of them in harms way. It's also a reminder that large-scale cleanups don't happen overnight, no matter how many resources you have (or don't have) to throw at the problem.




• Bloggers on the TVA spill - No Silence Here
  I agree completely that bloggers were out of the blocks fast on this story and have stayed with it providing volumes of coverage and context. And while I think that in general the KNS has driven the bus on the story, bloggers have provided readers with invaluable additional context and core coverage of the historic spill. My underlying point is this story is a very good example of the MSM and bloggers "teaming up" to provide extensive coverage. It's also another example that the tired old refrain of "them vs. us," which dissipated among bloggers several years ago, is a myth and inaccurate. And again, we see another example of the melding of the blogosphere and the MSM.