Kicking up a stink: Friends join fight to keep river clean
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A growing body of nearby residents are so concerned the action will adversely affect the environment that a committee composed of members from Van Buren, White and Warren counties has been formed to offer legal opposition to the project.
Called Friends of the Caney Fork, committee members have enlisted renowned environmental attorney Frank Fly of Murfreesboro to represent them in their efforts. Fly is well known for a case he took right out of law school when he helped block the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Columbia Dam project in 1973.
Spencer has announced that state permits have been approved to allow a project to build a pipeline that would eventually empty into the Caney Fork at the 104.6 mile marker near Hodges Bridge. The water from the treatment plant will be routed through an eight-inch pressurized out-fall pipe which opponents say is actually capable of dumping over a million gallons of effluent per day into the river.
Currently Spencer officials say the plant is producing only 50,000 gallons of wastewater per day, though the state permit would allow the plant to dump up to 250,000 gallons per day if necessary.
Local residents point out even 50,000 gallons per day will result in more than 1.5 million gallons of wastewater being dumped into the river every month – far more than they feel the reservoir can tolerate safely. Opponents fear the effect on the delicate balance of the river’s ecosystem will be devastating over time, and perhaps irreversible.
“I’ve lived here all my life,” said Friends chairman Ricky Dunn. “And if gets where the kids can’t play in the water, the ones that have grown up here, then what have we got to look forward to? This water is the heart and soul of this country all down through here, and the people in Warren County know it too.”
Amid all the controversy, the committee’s leadership has made it clear they are not opposed to Spencer’s sewage treatment plant, only to the method of disposing of the water.
“We don’t have a thing against their sewage treatment plant,” said Friends vice chairman Robert Slatton. “We’re all for them having their state-of-the-art sewage treatment plant. It’s already constructed. We’re for land application.”
Land application is an alternative method of wastewater disposal which consists of a field of spray heads that actually project the effluent up into the air and distribute it over the area. Spencer officials say a plant of their size would require approximately 150 acres of spray field, plus a five-acre lake around eight feet deep to hold the effluent during the months when it is too cold for the spray heads to operate.
Spencer Mayor Terry Crain stated in an interview with The Mountain View that land application had been looked into and subsequently rejected.
“The city of Spencer discussed this option and felt it was not feasible for us to pursue this option,” he said.
Although Friends of the Caney Fork members acknowledge land application may be more expensive initially, the damage to the Caney Fork may very well turn out to be more expensive in the long run.
“They’re using land application in Sewanee,” Slatton said, “and it’s working beautifully.”
Slatton said the committee disagrees with the state strongly on three major points listed in state permits: 1) that the river is a flowing body of water; 2) that there is no back flow; and 3) that TVA states the Great Falls Dam is very dynamic and therefore no lake turnover is likely.
“We believe all these statements are false,” Slatton said.
Several prominent Warren County residents have joined in the battle saying the future of the river is their main concern.
“Well, it’s just conservation,” said former Warren County coach and school superintendent Pedro Paz. “I have grandkids. I mean, I’m too old for it to bother me, but future generations are what I’m concerned about.”
Marie Cotton of Cotton’s Marina agreed, noting there is already a significant amount of wastewater being dumped into the river.
“The more and more they keep putting in here eventually it’s going to get to where the kids can’t swim in here,” she said. “And they’re claiming it’s running water. It’s not. It’s going right back up the river right now. They’re not generating and they don’t have a gate open.”
Cotton was also concerned about where the water would eventually go when the gates are opened.
“It goes right into Center Hill lake,” she said.
For more information, or to make donations, contact Ricky Dunn at (931) 836-8449 at work, or (931) 657-2181 at home, or Robert Slatton at (931) 657-5563. Donations can also be sent to Friends of the Caney Fork, P.O. Box 152, Sparta, Tenn., 38583. All donations go directly to the committee’s legal expenses.
PHOTO INFO:
Friends of the Caney Fork chairman Ricky Dunn shows where an estimated 1.5 million gallons of wastewater per month from Spencer’s new sewage treatment plant will be dumped into the Caney Fork River near Hodges Bridge if a proposed pipeline, already green-lighted by the state, is built. The group has been organized to offer legal opposition to the project. (Charles W. Johnson photo)