Tennessee Valley Authority to pay $27.8 million to victims of 2008 Tennessee coal ash spill

The nation's largest public utility has agreed to pay more than $27 million to settle claims from Tennessee property owners who suffered damages from a huge spill of toxin-laden coal ash sludge.

The 2008 spill happened when a containment dike burst at the Tennessee Valley Authority's Kingston Fossil Plant, releasing more than 5 million cubic yards of ash from a storage pond. The sludge flowed into a river and spoiled hundreds of acres in a riverside community 35 miles west of Knoxville.

U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Varlan ruled in 2012 that TVA was liable for the spill. He wrote that if TVA had followed its own policies, the problems that led to the dike failure would have been investigated and addressed.

The settlement with more than 800 property owners was announced on Friday.