Valley So Low

One Lawyer's Fight for Justice in the Wake of America's Great Coal Catastrophe

By: Jared Sullivan

Length: 11 hrs

Publisher's summary

A riveting courtroom drama about the victims of one of the largest environmental disasters in U.S. history—and the country lawyer determined to challenge the notion that, in America, justice can be bought

For more than 50 years, a power plant in the small town of Kingston, Tennessee, burned fourteen thousand tons of coal a day, gradually creating a mountain of ashen waste 60 feet high and covering 84 acres, contained only by an earthen embankment. In 2008, just before Christmas, that embankment broke, unleashing a lethal wave of coal sludge that covered 300 acres, damaged nearly 30 homes, and precipitating a cleanup effort that would cost more than $1 billion—and the lives of more than 50 cleanup workers who inhaled ​​the toxins it released.​

Jim Scott, a local personal-injury lawyer, agreed to represent the workers after they began to fall ill. That meant doing legal battle against the Tennessee Valley Authority, a colossal, federally owned power company that had once been a famous cornerstone of President Franklin D. Roosevelt​’​​s New Deal. Scott and ​his hastily assembled team​​ gathered extensive evidence of malfeasance: threats against workers; retaliatory firings; disregarded safety precautions; and test results, either hidden or altered, that would have revealed harmful concentrations of arsenic, lead, and radioactive materials at the cleanup site. At every stage, Scott—outmanned and nearly broke—had to overcome legal hurdles constructed by TVA and the firm it hired to ​​help ​execute the cleanup. He grew especially close to one of the victims, whose swift decline only intensified his ​hunger for justice. As the incriminating evidence mounted, the workers seemed to have everything on their side, including the truth​—​​​and yet, was it all enough to prevail?

The lawsuit that Scott pursued on the workers​’​​ behalf was about their illnesses, no doubt. But it was also about whether blue-collar employees could beat the C-suite; if self-described ​“​​​hillbilly lawyers​”​​ could beat elite corporate defense attorneys; and whether strong evidence could beat fat pocketbooks. With ​​suspense and ​rich ​detail, Jared Sullivan’s thrilling account lays bare the ​casual brutality of the American justice system​​, ​and ​call​s​​​ ​into​​ question whether—and how—the federal government has failed its people.

©2024 Jared Sullivan (P)2024 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"Jared Sullivan’s Valley So Low is a gripping legal thriller documenting the power and greed behind this appalling and deadly environmental disaster. Not since Jonathan Harr’s A Civil Action has a book so compellingly documented one man’s Herculean efforts to force accountability through the courts.”—Gilbert King, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Devil in the Grove

“Jared Sullivan brings to mind a young William Langewiesche in his skill at following human stories through the dense fact-field of long, careful reporting on major events.”—John Jeremiah Sullivan, author of Pulphead

“An unassuming book that proves it is easier to imagine the death of capitalism than it is to imagine the death of our better angels. This is the book we should be reading, the book we should all be trying to write. Valley So Low is a masterpiece.”—Nico Walker, author of Cherry