Right after the May 2010 flood, I emailed my council member Erica Gilmore asking whether Metro Nashville tested the soil around the Downtown Connector Greenway and Morgan Park to determine if the black and red liquids I saw floating in the flood and left behind on vegetation after the flood was toxic/carcinogenic to those exposed. Below is the email thread in the context of a flood relief meeting announced to her constituents:
Emergency Flood Relief Meeting in
District 19 at Mt. Zion at 7 PM
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erica.gilmore@gmail.com
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Fri,
May 7, 2010 at 9:02 AM
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Reply-To: erica.gilmore@gmail.com
To: Michael Byrd
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Thanks so much. I will get
answer to these questions.
Thanks,
ES Gilmore
Sent via BlackBerry from
T-Mobile
Date: Fri, 7 May 2010 07:59:52 -0500
Subject: Re: Emergency Flood Relief Meeting in District 19 at Mt.
Zion at 7 PM
CM Gilmore:
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Downtown Collector Greenway,
near the Metro Water biosolids facility,
May 27, 2010 |
Thanks for playing
your part in helping Metro respond to the needs of storm-affected residents.
I plan to attend
tonight's meeting. I know you are busy right now, so I wanted to go ahead
and send you a couple of concerns I will ask about tonight if they are not
addressed beforehand.
1. The flooding of
East Germantown and the Central Wastewater Plant hit fuel and machine parts
containers, industrial machinery, and large trucks. Fuel and other
chemicals were spilled onto the Downtown Connector greenway and
intersections and lawns in East Germantown and back into the river. Have or
will tests be run to determine what kinds of toxins are in the neighborhood
soil? How safe are we from exposure? Are people being warned to stay out of
these public areas until clean-up? When does Metro expect to have spills
completely clean? Are there stronger rules Metro can establish for storing
toxic materials in East Germantown to prevent such accidents in the future?
2. During the
crest of the Cumberland River some of us were at the site of flooding in Salemtown:
Morgan Park. The park has been flooded since last Saturday and it is now
slowly receding. In the hours before the crest on Monday, flood water
continued to push up from sewers on 3rd and 4th Avenues and into the
already flooded park. During that time a reddish-brown substance gathered
underneath the water flooding the closed intersection of 4th and Hume. Do
we have any idea what chemicals could have come out of these sewers? Given
its close proximity to East Germantown, will any tests be performed on
Morgan Park soil for toxic substances? The police have worked hard to keep
people out of the water standing in the park, but does Metro have plans to
clean up the water and any chemicals that may have flooded in when the
river was rising?
Again, thank you
for your service to our community.
Regards,
Mike Byrd
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I never heard back from anyone in Metro about my concerns after that. At the end of May 2010 I blogged on the persistent dark rings around trees and the fact that no one got back to me about these concerns. After 3 years of waiting, I am thankful that WSMV-Channel 4 raised them again and
broadcasted them to a broader audience. I am also glad that I documented the spills and took photos.
Sadly, if Metro Nashville conducted no tests of the flooded areas around Salemtown and Germantown, then we may never know whether the toxic chemicals kept at Metro Water were really contained during the first week of May 2010. We also do not know whether we can have faith that we are safe from exposure using Morgan Park and the Downtown Greenway Connector along the Cumberland River itself, which receives the watershed that so many Middle Tennessee communities rely on.
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