The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) was again forced to hang its head Tuesday as two new studies pointed to its culpability in the December coal ash spill that dumped more than 1 billion gallons of fly and bottom ash over 300 acres in Kingston, Tennessee. The Authority was still smarting from a June audit that excoriated it for failing to adopt Homeland Security's National Incident Management System protocols for emergency communications

The latest reports revealed a lack of concern for safety stretching back to 1985 and attempts to mitigate legal liability in the recent spill, according to an online Knoxville News Sentinel article.

“We conclude that TVA defaulted to a preference for litigation strategy over transparency and accountability,” the Inspector General’s report on the causes of the spill states.

The report indicated that the spill might have been avoidable if the TVA hadn’t ignored engineering concerns, which began in 1985 and surfaced again on several occasions—notably in 2004 when a malfunction temporarily closed the facility. Perhaps more disturbingly, the report points to an agency culture that “is likely to be resistant to the kinds of reforms necessary to avoid other safety failures.”

“We have some concerns about ponds that are similarly situated,” Tennessee Clean Water Network’s Renee Hoyos told the Sentinal. “I'm hoping that TVA is looking at the historical records on those sites too. I hope they approach those ponds and deal with any problems quickly.”

The TVA—which is a federal entity—operates 10 other fossil fuel plants in Tennessee, Alabama, and Kentucky, according to its website.

In addition to claims of apathetic and irresponsible management, the Inspector General slammed TVA for narrowing the scope of a $3 million root-cause investigation to physical reasons for the dike failure, according to the Sentinel article.

“Management decisions leading to the spill weren't part of the study,” the article stated.