The Tennessean from Nashville, Tennessee • A1

The Tennessean TUESDAY, DECEMBER 23, 2008 NASHVILLE FOOD ID NFL 1C Find a place to dine on Christmas Day QB Vince Young will play. lineup vs. Colts i ONLINE Get the scoop on the Titans' victory. Search TITANS for video commentaries from our columnists and reporters. 'mm wm Banks keep lips zipped on bailouts They won't say how aid used "They can say this is a one-time thing, but I don't think people are going to believe them." DON SMITH, a nearby homeowner Flood of sludge breaks TVA dike By Matt Apuzzo ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON Think you could borrow money from a bank without saying what you were going to do with it? Well, apparently when banks borrow from you they don't feel the same need to say how the money is spent.

After receiving billions in aid from U.S. taxpayers, the nation's largest banks say they can't track exactly how they're spending it. Some won't even talk about it. "We're choosing not to disclose that," said Kevin Heine, spokesman for Bank of New York Mellon, which received about $3 billion. Thomas Kelly, a spokesman for JPMorgan Chase, which received $25 billion in emergency bailout money, said that while some of the money was lent, some was not, and the bank has not given any accounting of exactly how the money is being used.

"We have not disclosed that to the public. We're declining to," Kelly said. The Associated Press contacted 21 banks that received at least $1 billion in government money and asked four questions: How much has been MONEY, 7A The aftermath of a retention wall collapse is seen Monday in Harriman, Tenn. A retention pond wall collapsed early Monday morning at a power plant run by the Tennessee Valley Authority, the nation's largest public utility, releasing a frigid mix of water and ash that flooded 15 homes nearby, i. miles cary knoxville news sentinel 4 THE ENVIRONMENT Collapse poses risk of toxic ash la -fi.

4 Literacy leader Katie Pattullo teaches a Reading First lesson to third-graders Jarren Myers, left, Adia Townsend and Earldria Batey at Alex Green Elementary, billy kingsley the tennessean Reading program for at-risk schools may be left behind Tenn. educators say it works By Jennifer Brooks it -wmr THE TENNESSEAN Neighbors came out to look at the covered Swan Pond Road in Harriman. SAMUEL M. SIMPKINS THE TENNESSEAN Neighbors' worst fears are realized with pond disaster By Anne Paine and Colby Sledge THE TENNESSEAN HARRIMAN, Tenn. Millions of yards of ashy sludge broke through a dike at TVA's Kingston coal-fired plant Monday, covering hundreds of acres, knocking one home off its foundation and putting environmentalists on edge about toxic chemicals that may be seeping into the ground and flowing downriver.

One neighboring family said the disaster was no surprise because they have watched the 1960s-era ash pond's mini-blowouts off and on for years. About 2.6 million cubic yards of slurry enough to fill 798 Olympic-size swimming pools rolled out of the pond Monday, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Cleanup will take at least several weeks, or, in a worst-case scenario, years. The ash slide, which began just before 1 a.m., covered as many as 400 acres as deep as 6 feet.

The wave of ash and mud toppled power lines, covered Swan Pond Road and rup- ENVIRONMENT, 9A The first 90 minutes of every school day at Alex Green Elementary is reading time. Every student from kindergarten through third grade begins the day with intensive lessons, supervised by teachers trained to spot the first warning signs of a child who is struggling to read: a kinder-gartner who can't tell that the middle sound in the word "cat" is or a third-grader who sounds out every word. It's a simple idea and the cornerstone of the federal No Child Left Behind program. It's an idea the Bush administration has committed six years and $6 billion toward, including $111.4 million set aside for Tennessee and the 75 schools in the state that have been the testing ground for this Reading First curriculum. But five years and $5 billion into the Reading First experiment, the government's own research has found no evidence that the program has done anything to improve students' reading comprehension skills, or schools' test scores.

READING, 7A THE COMMUNITY broke, sending tons of muddy ash and gray water into this rural community just days before Christmas. Neighbors walked past police roadblocks Monday to survey the damage for themselves, looking over what used to be their relaxing point. Many walked away crying. "I am still in shock," said Crystell Flinn, 49, whose ranch-style house SPILL, 9 A By Colby Sledge THE TENNESSEAN HARRIMAN, Tenn. The Swan Pond community offered tranquillity that Roane County residents and visitors treasured.

Some came for a sure fishing spot; for others, the quiet waterfront was the reward for a life's worth of work Now it is a wasteland, a stretch of ashen sludge and flooded dreams after a wall of a 40-acre Tennessee Valley Authority retention pond i WEATHER 6B 4644, CLOUDY ft GAIL KERR IB Opry Mills has one tall stack of shoes, but is it a record breaker? M3 800 '06 Ranae Rover Sdoi More than 1 million people in Middle Tennessee read our newspapers and use our Web sites every week. VOL. 104, NO. 358 2008 GANNETT INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 5 SUBSCRIBE: 1-800-342-8237 Si 0 3 MomsLikeMe.com Metromix.com Tennessean.com HighSchoolSports.net TennesseeGreen.com 4090105606.