Ten years after more than one billion gallons of wet coal ash burst through a retainer pond at the Tennessee Valley Authority's Kingston Fossil Plant, Tommy Johnson, Jeffrey Brewer, and Ansol Clark are among more than 73 plaintiffs in a suit against the company TVA hired to clean up the spill.
The workers claim the coal ash got in their hair, their mouths and their clothes. Now, some of them say it is killing them.
They say Jacobs Engineering told them the ash was safe and would not let them wear doctor prescribed protective gear.
A representative for Jacobs Engineering declined to comment for this story, citing the ongoing legal matter.
In court, a lawyer for Jacobs argued that chemical levels remained below levels the EPA says are permissible.
"They were making money off of us and killing us at the same time," Ansol Clark, one of the workers in the suit, told 10News on Sunday.
He and other workers claim they have contracted serious illnesses as a result of their time cleaning up the spill.
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"I'm still sick," Clark said. "I go to the doctor every 30 days. I still have dizzy spells."
"All I took was Allegra for my allergies," Brewer said of his health before starting work at the site. "I left there on two blood pressure medicines, a fluid pill, a steroid inhaler and I take a shot every two weeks."
Johnson periodically takes long puffs of an inhaler to be able to speak, even when sitting down.
"I got sever grandkids and four grandsons that I'd like to hunting with and I'd like to go fishing with," he said. "I'm not able to do those thing."
The workers said they were grateful for the jobs when they were first hired.
"Jobs was hard to get then," Brewer said. "It was recession time."
He said the company told workers they could "eat a pound of [the ash] a day and drink the water off of it and it wouldn't hurt you."
The workers said the safety managers on site prohibited them from wearing dusk masks.
"They wanted to let the public think that everything was safe. That there was no harm no foul," Clark said. "It was not."
In early November, a federal jury ruled the workers could seek damages from Jacobs Engineering. That phase of the trial is expected to begin in early 2019.