I live in Kingston and work in Oak Ridge, so I see a lot of this area.
(1) Yes it is a mess.
(2) All the lakes... Watts Bar, Melton Hill, and Ft Loudon are high. And the are spilling water at Norris, even though it is below full pool. They started that at Norris before this spill I believe.
(3) The Kingston water intake is on the Clinch upstream of the mouth of the Emory. Shouldn’t be an issue.
(4) We’ve had a ton of rain. It didn’t wash the ash away. And tests of the water so far haven’t really shown any chemical or biological problems that I have heard about. In fact, I think the water from the original storage area was routinely discharged back into the river, and anything that would leach out quickly would probably be there.
(5) Erin is a bit of a carpet bagger I think. But from what I have heard today, some (not all) of our local politicians aren’t any better. You’d think they had slipped on a wet floor at Walmart.
TVA has sold off some land in the Loyston Sea area as well as the Powell River side on Norris to developers and as such they want nice pretty lake levels rather than showing the typical 970-980 feet for this time of year and winter time barren shoreline typical to Clinch, Powell, Holston, and French Broad rivers.
I think the persons near the Kingston plant do have a legitimate case for damages and some of the property is likely not reclaimable for quite some time if ever I'm guessing. With the utility water intake as you say being on the Clinch then the cities water is safe. A major concern taken care of. Personally I'd much rather drink from the Clinch than Ft Loudon any day.
Food for thought. Bull Run also has a pretty good discharge of water from it's plant. It has a dry ash bed and I imagine some run off from it into the water table. I know a tad bit about Boilers. In many cases you use caustics {lye} and other chemicals in treating the water to prevent tubing scaling. However Bullrun Steam Plant it seems is clean enough that it's discharge is a feeding area that produces some national records on fish caught there. The season is about to start. Bullrun is roughly 20 miles upstream. {I know you know this}
A few years back TVA caused a needless flood and it didn't make even the news. Nobody but a few persons knew and understood why when it happened. They built a Transmission line on Hinds Creek near the Anderson/Union/Knox County line. It went along the Chesnut ridge north slope in Anderson County and was about 2.5 miles long.
The made the cut about half way up the ridge at about 400 feet wide and ran with the ridge for the duration till it reashed the substation. About half the route was in a wooded area. A typical spring storm front moved through the next spring aftwer it was built and the springs on that route shot out mud. I saw it myself. This happened solely because TVA used very poor reclaiming measures after the line was finished. Clear cutters do far less damage than they did as they leave vegitation. My well cased 60 feet down and 180 feet deep didn't even get dingy. It was all surface run off. I have lived in the area for about 45 of my 51 years and that was the highest flood I ever saw on that creek. But it wasn't by any means the worse storm that produced it either.
I made a trip to Knoxville to the TVA Inspector Generals Office and a few days later the liquid seed truck was up there. It didn't happen again. My home is below the powerline. Had I not stopped their cut where I did the flood would have gotten me. Not the kind you are thinking of. This is where a massive sheet of water comes running off a ridge side.
I saw the same thing happen back in the 80's when Knox County built the Chesnut Ridge Landfill in Anderson County. I drove down Wolfe Valley Road after a storm and houses were taken out by that flood. It's just common sense.
A lot of TVA's bad publicity they bring on themselves and their lack of reclaiming was my second run in with them. My first was over their initial Right Of Way purchase where they bought 150'X1500' and took 400' width instead and almost placed my home in danger doing so till I ran them off my property and called a congresscritter. They threatened me when they left with bringing a Marshall. They returned with a stump counter and purchasing agent with a checkbook. Of course I had a video camera going too :>} BTW I told my neighbors and the ones they did this too also got a new settlement.
What happened was the planners had changed the line from a single pole stacked lines tower to a dual pole H configuration after the purchase of initial ROW. TVA then claimed a need for more ROW using the term danger trees to try and take the larger ROW cut rather than do the right thing.. It was like watching the Three Stooges build a power line from the word go. First thing happened was their surveyors could not read a USGS map and compass. I know this because I saw the inital route they staked out going across my place and said you keep on that course and you'll meet your power line in Halls instead of up at the next road.
There is no reason TVA could have not at least attempted to make a settlement with the ones who's homes and property were destroyed at Kingston. A little bit of good will and action goes a long way. TVA is dense in that department and always has been unfortunately. Sad to say the lawyers will end up getting a cut too. Accidents happen I understand that. With accidents comes responsibility. TVA needs to loose it's we can run over you because we are the federal goverment attitude. The longer they drag out making restitution to property owners the more ammo they give their enemies.