Aerial photo of water treatment plant during the 2010 flood troubles me

With Channel 4's investigation of Metro Water Services and the dump of chemicals they are planning near my neighborhood, I went back to look over the aerial maps of the 2010 flood on the Metro government website. I spent hours outside in May 2010 documenting the Cumberland River flood as it happened, especially around the water treatment plant. I remember seeing not just black liquids in the river water that looked like fuel oil, but also some kind of heavy reddish-brown substance rolling just under the surface of the flood waters inundating Morgan Park (which is less than a block from the site where Metro Water wants to bury chemical-laced debris in a new landfill).

Yesterday I went back to the Metro maps and took a screenshot of the planned landfill site at the treatment plant as it looked in May 2010.

May 2010 photo: planned landfill site outlined in black.
Flood waters seeping to the surface or overtopping circled in white.

Most of the old incinerator site seems to sit at a higher elevation than the new addition, the biosolids facility (right side of the screen shot), which was inundated and damaged by the river in 2010. There is a spot at the south end of the plot where the flood overtopped the road. But if you also look closely at other spots throughout the old incinerator site, you can see water pushed up to the surface, either through storm drains or the through the ground itself.

What troubles me most about this photo is the prospect that, with a new chemcial landfill buried in the basement of the incinerator, future floods will pass through the PCBs, lead and arsenic to get back up to the surface. What are the odds that the "protective cap" said to be placed on top will keep those chemicals at bay rather than brought to the surface or pushed out only to expose neighborhoods?

Look at another screenshot a little farther south of the incinerator site (the photo was taken several hours before the flood waters crested, because when it did crest in the evening the streets near Morgan Park were flooded well above the pooling seen in the photos).

The black liquid (in contrast to the yellowish-green floodwater) I mentioned earlier is clearly coming up to the surface of a parking lot. It is also pooling on 3rd Av North at Morgan Park. Note also that it is also flowing across approximately half of the park basin itself. The floodwaters are clearly pushing something besides water into the neighborhood. It might help if we knew where that stuff was coming from.

If Metro dumps its leftover carcinogens at the old incinerator site 300 yards from the Cumberland River, it seems obvious to me that those chemicals will also be subject to the pressure of any future floods of the river. If the 2010 event could push whatever that black chemical was into Morgan Park, it is fair to assume that it will wash and push chemicals left on incinerator debris into the community as well. And those chemicals present demonstrated risk factors for cancer.

This landfill issue is a question of protecting public health in North Nashville. Why even take a chance on doubling any future catastrophe of unsuspecting neighbors by storing contaminated debris in a basement on floodplain?

Council Member Gilmore says she opposes Metro Water's placement of toxic landfill in the North End

In the wake of the bad news that Metro Water, Codes and TDEC approved of a new landfill for banned chemicals near Salemtown, I wrote my council member early this morning:

CM Gilmore:

I am deeply troubled by news of Metro Nashville's unannounced, nontransparent plan to bury old water treatment building debris, laced with PCBs, lead and arsenic, down the street from my house (http://goo.gl/cm186) and 300 yards from the Cumberland River, which in 2010 backed up through and underneath the water treatment plant and into my neighborhood before receding. Metro Water and Codes officials try to put the most publicly appealing face on this penny-pinching chemical dump. However, they admit that they intend to put a "protective cap" over the carcinogens, which seems to me to be an acknowledgment that we need protection from what they are filling the old basement with. And make no mistake: they are siting a new landfill next to Salemtown, even as they tell television reporters that they are trying to avoid siting new landfills.

I am also upset that I had to discover this information secondhand from a TV journalist instead of from Metro government, which should have been more honest and forthcoming about the extent of the contamination at the water treatment plant. As a taxpayer, as a parent, as an active, responsible neighbor, I believe that I have a right to know what kind of risk a municipal agency is posing to my community before reporters force it to be accountable.

Likewise, I am of the opinion that our council members are supposed to protect constituents from Metro departments that make decisions based more on their narrow interests in saving money and cutting corners at the expense of broader public health and welfare. In [this] spirit I would ask you, please, do whatever you can to leverage change of Metro Water's plans to create a new North Nashville landfill to bury banned toxins and carcinogens so close to my family's house and so near the Cumberland River. Please resist Metro government's historical habit of treating North Nashville as a dumping ground for the rest of the city's wastes.

At the very least, next year's budget should include a provision to pay for moving all contaminated debris from the old water plant site to an approved, regulated landfill. Metro should abide by the same rules it applies to anyone else who demolishes old buildings. The current water treatment site needs to be reclaimed and renovated for the sake of our local community and of those who rely on the Cumberland watershed. Please do what you can to make sure that revisions to the Mayor's budget include such a provision and the necessary revenues to pay for it.

Regards,
Mike Byrd

Within hours Erica Gilmore replied to my email saying that she is also "very concerned" and that she "will never" support the opening of a landfill in North Nashville. She writes that she will "have monies placed in next year's budget". Good to hear that my council member is on the right side of this issue.

I hope that each of you will consider writing a letter to Metro Council, the Mayor's Office, and/or Metro Water protesting the location of a landfill next to the Cumberland River in North Nashville. Even if you do not live near my neighborhood you still would be affected by the storage of chemicals by Nashville's major water source.

Metro and the state moving to create a landfill of toxins next door to Salemtown and Germantown

Channel 4's I-Team investigators discovered that Metro is about to start a new landfill of debris contaminated with heavy metals, carcinogens and toxins right on our doorstep:

WSMV Channel 4

In an email to Demetria Kalodimos, a Metro Water Services spokesperson defended the new North Nashville landfill with some flawed logic. Here are examples (inserted also are my replies, which are bolded):

1. "The construction debris could have been sent to a demolition landfill but that would involve significant truck traffic and fuel consumption and would unnecessarily add material to landfills leading to the unpleasant need to site future landfills."
   
   And how is Metro not siting a future landfill between Salemtown and the Cumberland River by planning to bury toxic water treatment debris on the site of the old water treatment plant? I do not have to read too strongly between the lines to see exactly what this decision is about: Mayor Karl Dean is holding his budget cutting blades over most departments heads, and public health in historically less affluent parts of Nashville is collateral damage. But make no mistake: Metro is siting a new landfill in North Nashville, practically in Salemtown's lap.
   



2. "the analyzed PCB concentration results were all below 10 PPM. This concentration, at an industrial site with one foot of cover, does not require off-site disposal nor approval for on-site disposal. The basement would essentially be a concrete tomb for the debris capped by a layer of soil containing clay to provide a protective cap on the site."
   
   The analysis of the test results done for Metro Nashville that MWS provided for WSMV is long, detailed and certain in its opinions that the concentration of banned carcinogenic chemicals still in the debris is safe for all of us to live around. (And I have not even started on what could happen in a future catastrophic flood of the Cumberland). Metro Nashville and our red state's department of environment and conservation insist that generating a new landfill several blocks from my house is safe for me and my family. But if these chemicals are perfectly safe in an old basement, why do government officials need to provide "a protective cap"? Who exactly would they need to protect if the chemicals are so safe that we are at a greater health risk buying bricks from Home Depot than in cavorting around contaminated debris? It sounds to me like they are protecting themselves.

Note that at the end of Channel 4's story we find out that no Metro Water or Metro Codes officials are willing to go on camera to talk about this matter. They obviously prefer to stay as quiet about it as they have been all along. In the interview Ms. Kalodimos asked me if I knew about this plan before she told me about it. I told her that no one had been transparent about it with me, an affected neighbor. Not Metro Water, not Codes, not my council member, not the Mayor. So, I am not surprised at all that the bureaucrats prefer to draw as little attention to potentially damaging news as possible.

The question is: are the area neighborhoods and the latest influx of developers going to get up in arms about this and keep it on the public radar to leverage positive change?

One last thing. Be sure you don't pass too quickly over Channel 4's last observation:

Yet the contractor being asked to do this burial work wanted a piece of paper on city letterhead saying this course of action was OK. That company has yet to get the directive in writing.

Why are Metro Water and Codes afraid to put their plan in writing even to the contractor burying the debris? (By the way, the package of emails and reports that MWS uses to justify their hushed-up plan comes replete with warnings that transmitting any of the correspondence between MWS and their private contractors is prohibited. Public interest be damned. Nothing to see here. Move on. What you don't know can't hurt you).

Update on the conditions of the Salemtown Cottages SP

Some of the Salemtown Cottages design options

I got a call Wednesday from council member Erica Gilmore's office saying that the CM has been able to include the affordable housing option and the sound wall component that the community had requested for approval of the specific plan rezoning request made by developers of Salemtown Cottages. CM Gilmore's staffer also asked me if I would support the SP given the progress of the legislation. I responded that I would, indeed, based on the process of feedback in the two bona fide community meetings on the SP. Anyone who knows me knows that I have been critical of developer Mike Kenner in the past. However, based on Mr. Kenner's willingness to accept the stipulations requested in the process of public discussions, I can say without reservation that I support this SP.

The SP was approved with conditions (or recommended for disapproval without conditions) by the Planning Commission last Thursday, although it was pulled off the consent agenda at the request of opponents, which exposed it to some critical public feedback (bills on first reading are usually approved as a group without debate). I understand that there are some unqualified supporters of the SP as proposed (with or without a wall or affordable housing). They either were not present or chose not to express public favor for the bill after it was pulled off the consent agenda.

Arguments by the opponents of the SP who expressed themselves at the Planning Commission meeting are fairly easy to dispatch. Opponents claim that Mr. Kenner's cottage development is "too dense" and would create parking and run-off problems for Salemtown around Buchanan and 7th Av. With the current zoning, any developer can build either 18 or 20 units on the space where Mr. Kenner and company are proposing 24. A developer would not need the community's support to build attached duplexes as is. They would not be bound to build the detached cottages proposed in the SP. The opposition fails to grasp that reality. Rather than wasting their time digging in their heels, asserting that 4-6 more units on the lots would be "too dense", opponents should be trying to leverage space, parking and design accommodations from Mr. Kenner in exchange for slightly higher density.

The developer's request for 4-6 more units is not unrealistic, given urbanization. Demanding one detached single family home on each lot zoned for duplexes--as one opponent did during Planning's public hearing--is foolish and self-defeating. The community was at wiser moments able to get the developer to provide affordable housing and a sound wall. In my opinion, if they would have applied themselves pragmatically, they could have leveraged more compromises (the same argument applies to supporters, who woefully acquiesced to the proposal with no negotiation whatsoever). I was left with the impression that Mr. Kenner would have compromised to get what he wanted more than he did. The community's lost opportunities are perplexing to me.

I support the Salemtown Cottages SP with the conditions approved by Metro Planning and affirmed in CM Gilmore's legislation (as reported on Wednesday). Given its awkward layout due to the interstate, the northwest corner of Salemtown needs a thoughtful SP. I only wish that Salemtown would have made more of an effort to avail itself of the opportunity to inform the SP that currently we have before us.

After years of different concepts, ground finally broken at 6th and Garfield for row homes

Metropolitan Brokers and rootARCH started construction this week on the only vacant lots (4) left at the intersection of 6th Av N and Garfield Street in Salemtown. Exteriors look like they have taken their cues from some of the period infill around Salemtown and Germantown.

What's being built in 2013 at 6th and Garfield

I admit I am partial to the period look, but in several community meetings I have attended in the past few weeks I have heard grumbling about the sterile, geometric boxiness of more recent builds in Salemtown. I would think that a plan for a more traditional row house style would be welcomed by some of the folk unhappy with some of what's been offered recently. That said, HR@G strikes a good balance to the rectilinear "G spot" homes across Garfield. Moreover, it is unequivocally more attractive that the slapdash, Lego-like disappointment across 6th Av N (I still am not sure what it is called. "Sixth & Garfield"?).

Everything I've read about HR@G says it will have 8 units, which is denser than what was previously proposed as the "Salem Gardens" concept 6 years ago when duplexes were to be built on this pivotal neighborhood site:

Scaled back 2007 plan for duplexes at 6th and Garfield

I am not bothered by the greater density of the Historic Row plan as others might be for a couple of reasons. First, Salem Gardens was unmistakably duplexified in its appearance. The row houses give a little more diversity to a neighborhood where duplexes could dominate (on some streets they already do) without some creative building and zoning. Second, the Salem Gardens proposal emerged several years ago after Salemtown Neighbors fought and won rezoning for three of the SG properties further south of the Historic Row site redeveloped for detached single family homes. The Salem Gardens group originally proposed mixed use (which SNNA supported):

2006 mixed use concept for 6th and Garfield

Then the SG group pulled a u-turn and lobbied unsuccessfully to return to all duplexes. One of the detached SF homes for which SNNA won rezoning is already built and owned. Two more can be built if current property owners ever tear down some old triplexes.

So, I am not concerned about the greater density that current developers of the Historic Row at Garfield plan for 6th and Garfield. It is balanced, thanks to thoughtful and diligent planning, by zoning for 3 lower-density, detached homes to its south. We just need to stay vigilant that the lower density nearby is not rezoned to mirror the lots where HR@G is going up. "Diversity" remains the name of the Salemtown development game.