The massive coal ash spill at a Tennessee Valley Authority power plant last month wasn't so much "catastrophic" as it was a "sudden, accidental release." That's according to a memo obtained by The Associated Press that was prepared by TVA's 50-member public relations staff for briefing news media the day after the disaster at the Kingston Fossil Plant, about 40 miles west of Knoxville. The nation's largest public utility has been accused by environmentalists and affected residents of soft-pedaling the seriousness of the flood of toxin-laden ash that filled inlets of the Emory River and swept away or damaged lakeside homes. Steve Smith, director of the environmental group Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, told a U.S. Senate committee that TVA downplayed the potential toxicity of the ash and the extent of the damage immediately afterward and for several days more. "Oh, absolutely. They came out and said everything is safe, right?" said Bruce Nilles, a Madison, Wis.-based attorney for the Sierra Club.

The Dec. 23 document, inadvertently sent to the AP and once labeled "risk assessment talking points," was crafted as TVA scrambled to contain a spill that caused no serious injuries but displaced several people and continues to pose an environmental threat. "That was very early on," TVA spokesman John Moulton said about the memo, in which "catastrophic" was replaced with "sudden, accidental" to describe the "release of this large amount of material." "We were putting in the word that we thought ... best described it at that time," he said. "Now, we certainly realize it is a very serious event and we realized then it was a very serious event. There was no attempt to downplay it." Noel Holston, a public relations specialist with the University of Georgia's Peabody journalism awards program, said "I can't imagine that anyone who sees these additions and deletions would not conclude that the final version is softer and less alarming than the earlier wording. The fact is they whittled away at this until it said something a little less frightening than what it originally said."

Learn more about the Kingston coal fly ash spill and the rights of individuals and property owners affected by the spill.