Duke Energy was just fined $25 million for a huge coal ash leak in North Carolina. So why are the victims of the Kingston, Tennessee spill— the largest industrial accident in American history — still waiting for justice?

When Sarah McCoin woke that morning, she wondered what had happened in the middle of the night. Some commotion near the farm had disturbed her in the early hours — the sounds of emergency vehicles and helicopters — but there’d been no indication of what had brought them out. Was it a major crime? That seemed unlikely: After all, Kingston, Tennessee was a pretty sleepy town, with just under 6,000 residents.

As she got dressed, McCoin turned on the radio to hear reports of a mudslide. But where could that much mud come from? “The only thing I could think of was someone had cleared a hill to put in a modular home,” she recalls.

McCoin, who is 58 with short, sandy hair and stylish, thin-framed glasses, got into her car to commute to nearby Knoxville, where she worked as a benefits consultant. But less than a mile from her door, she hit a police barricade. She asked the officer on the road…