Washington County Convenience Center: Water Contamination of the Nolichucky River

Tennessee Department of Environment & Conservation

Johnson City Field Office

March 27, 2018

Tennessee Code Annotated 69-3-118 provides for remedies for a citizen’s interest in prevention or stopping unauthorized wastewater discharges or water contaminating events. The following is an observation I made at the Washington County Convenience Center identified as: Washington County Hwy Dept. Block 2, 3391 Hwy 81. 

Please formally investigate this concern and provide your response and solution to this issue of concern.

My field observation and report follows:

Washington County Convenience Center Water Quality Inspection:

Stan Olmstead

Date:   March 25, 2018, Onsite Field Inspection (11:45 – 12:30)

Re:      Waste Water Discharge into the Nolichucky River

On Tuesday, March 20, 2018, I visited a Washington County Convenience Center to discard solid wastes and to recycle used materials. The Center has provided excellent recycling and waste management for many years at improved environmental care and economic savings to citizens.

However, while at the center it was necessary to wait until the work crew changed out the compactor bin from the compactor since the present unit was full and required replacing with a new waste bin. The process resulted in approximately 5 cubic yards of waste material falling from the compactor and onto the cement below the compactor/bin union. The bin was removed waste material shoveled back into the compactor with approximately ½ cubic yard of waste material of fluids, fines and course material that required washing out of the way to complete the bin replacement. A high-pressure water hose and “squeegee” were used to accomplish the waste removal. This material was hosed across the cement/asphalt area of the center’s compound to a drain about 35 feet from the changing compactor/bin area.

This debris material with the added hose water constituted wastewater material was unchecked, uninspected and with unknown contaminants. However the material was washed down grade and then discharged directly into the Nolichucky River, contaminating the river with this unknown material.

On March 25, 2018 I visited the area of the Nolichucky River and the surrounding fenced area of the convenience center to conduct observations, make estimated measurements and to photograph the discharge waste area.  The drain within the convenient center compound accessed an 18” culvert that is under ground for approximately 50 feet then discharges outside of the fenced compound area. The wastewater then flowed down hill across the bank of the Nolichucky River approximately 45 feet and then directly into the river. A cement re-enforced riverbank to prevent riverbank erosion indicates that this practice of “hosing” wastewaters from the compactor/solid waste bin has been going on for a long time. Total distant (approximation) from the work area to the river about 130 feet.

As a concerned citizen and an individual knowledgeable on water quality the serious nature of this activity causes me to submit to the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, a (69-3-118(a) formal complaint to address the need for correction and discontinuation of this activity. Photographs of the site are attached.

Washington County Convenience Center; highway 81, Lamar TN

Out flow area below 18” culvert on bank of the Nolichucky River

Outflow from the Convenience Center of waste waters entering the Nolichucky River

18” culvert outside the fenced compound area of the Convenience Center where waste waters are discharge onto the bank of the Nolichucky River

Cement re-enforcement of the riverbank

Negative Family Comments

Prejudicial Negative Family Comments:

by Stan Olmstead

March 22, 2018

Introduction: It’s difficult preparing this list of comments from a family you care for so deeply, but it is indicative of a greater systemic problem in America that should be challenged and discussed. The list identifies the ease in which we say “hurtful statements” with little or no thought. Love is a very powerful emotion, whether; parent, sibling, spouse or child, however there are ethical issues where love does not prevent anger. The following list had been started earlier and then set aside due to so much negativity in print it is not a complete list as many comments passed by without remembrance.

 In an effort to communicate the point and the purpose of drawing attention to casual statements made without thought, the following comments are remembered and recorded to highlight statements made in the past by family or extended family to accentuate a problem not just in the family but in America that accepts racially negative attitudes and a lack of understanding of our fellow citizens and the world community as a whole. 

Axioms:

·      “If you can’t say something nice don’t say anything at all”  

·      “Honesty is the best policy”  

·      “Don’t argue with someone you do not respect”.

Negative Comments:

·      Why do they want to be where they are not wanted?

·      Saying nigger is not meant to be derogatory.

·      Martin Luther King Jr. is just an agitator and he should leave the system alone.

·      Why did he have to marry a Jew?

·      Why is there so many of them on TV?

·      There is a white culture and there is a black culture.

·      You sure have a lot of Mexicans here in Fresno.

·      Look there is a “colored person” in New Cuyama?

·      Well with re-incarnation you may come back initially as a criminal, a prostitute, a black person but eventually you will be white and affluent.

·      Well you know Obama is a “bluegum”.

·      When in the Caribbean and an island controlled by a dictator you know if you or your family are on the beach you will be safe because the criminals know they will be executed if they assault you.

·      The Civil War was not about slavery.

·      You wouldn’t be mean to your slaves because why would you treat your property poorly?

·      George Wallace was my man.

·      The “Jim Crow Laws” had purpose; as an example, not wanting blacks in the restrooms, you know they carry disease.

·      This is not “One Country Under Allah” it is “One Country Under God”.

·      Well you know that 5 Jews in Germany’s banking caused WWII.

·      The reason that the constitution considered slaves as 3/5 of a person in determining legislative representation was purely mathematical.

·       I like Trump in this election because he will fight “nasty”.

·      “White Privilege”, I don’t know what that means? 

·      While in northwest Florida passing an elegant house of Persian architecture – “look how ugly that building is, gross”?

·      Happy Holidays? I’m going to say Merry Christmas; I don’t care what they think? 

·      “My tenant is a lesbian”? (Every time he talks about his tenant he reminds you of her sexual orientation). 

·      When she got propositioned in Vegas by Bill Cosby she just shouted out loud – “I don’t fuck niggers”

·      Indians just want to marry white women.

·      Minorities and women in the fire department ruined the “good ole boy club”.

·      Mexicans just stole my iPad from my car.

·      Trayvon Martin was a thug and a drug dealer.

·      Torture three people and if they all give the same answer you know you have the truth.

·      Black people are just always complaining.

·      People should stop protesting, it just separates us more.

·      Explaining my experience of seeing black Muslims in Philadelphia, a cultural experience for me, the returned comment was: -  “Oh my god”.

·      Obama is a Muslim and a Socialist.

·      After hurricane Katrina the area south of New Orleans - “well it at least cleaned that area out”.

·      I just read for pleasure, I am not particularly interested in factual information.

·      Terrible Joke with the punch line: “One more fucking nigger on welfare”.

·      I thought you may be one of those damn Mexicans digging up “ramps”.   

·      BLM (Black Lives Matter) is a terrorist group.

Conclusion: It isn’t easy living with one another in this world. We all have different opinions rationalizing our inner values. However some opinions are wrong, ignorant and mean and are not based on factual understanding. Instead they are based on dogmatic beliefs that should be altered if we are to be considered a decent individual. But how do we alter individual ignorance when we are so completely entrenched and rooted in our deep-seated social dogmas? Then there is fear, an emotion that takes us away from logical thinking and causes reactionary behavior.

Talking to someone: a chance encounter, neighbor, acquaintance, co-worker, a friend, extended family or family can take a delicate exchange of communications if our values differ and it is best for communication to be polite. However of all our encounters, the family is by far the most difficult, because you cannot extricate yourself from them. Family is there “forever in your life” and when they fail your expectations of decency and ethics it is difficult to continue the discussion, small talk is not enough and of little value. Once Donald Trump was elected as President it became obvious that the situation had risen to extreme ethical complexities, usually reserved for extremes during national travesties: the trail of tears, civil war, civil rights conflicts, Japanese internment, anti-war/pro-war or the McCarthy period. But ethical extremes are never really absent, even when not making news or violent expressions. A “Nice guy” cannot make absolute and insulting statements and remain a “Nice guy”.

 Where will America be with its ethics tomorrow and how will our communication develop with those we talk to in the future? Placing in print insulting comments that were so easily given with little or no thought to meaning, consequences or accuracy may highlight and draw attention to our selves, it did for me. Writing these remembrances of conversations may help to rethink our social and human argument of differences?

Social science is a difficult subject and few of us are prepared to answer the question of human behavior, but we should always assure that we remain considerate to our fellow travelers on this earth and as a citizen take the time to investigate at least an “elementary” amount of social science before we insult one an other based only on our ignorance.

Ethics, Education, Environment and economics  - Stan Olmstead

Go Everywhere, Study Everything, Fear Nothing – Atlas (Appalachian Trail Hiker)

“Our Quest, is to see that we are connected to all things, that there is no separation, only in the mind”- John Mayers; Geologist.