Oh, yes. The Mayor's Office finally tips its hand on North Nashville's new landfill

Karl Dean has an annoying habit of taking credit for the positives and foisting the negatives on his agencies while pulling away from the blowback. However, the Mayor is essentially the CEO of Metro Government. Anything proposed by Metro agencies is properly vetted so as not to cause surprise or egg-on-the-face. That's the fact, Jack. His staffers need to hear that posing as if beholden to water services on that which the Mayor has already signed off insults the intelligence. The Mayor supports landfilling heavy metals and petroleum in North Nashville because environmental agencies allow his administration to get away with standards below what they plan in other parts of Nashville in order to save money.

The Nashville Scene contacted the Mayor's Office, which predictably insisted that everything is fine because Metro Water tells them everything is fine:

The mayor's office tells the Scene it has "been assured" by Water Services "that they are following all necessary protocols set forth by the environmental protection agencies."

That may strike Germantown neighbors as cold comfort, though, since the city keeps citing as a positive that the incinerator-burial plan has been approved by the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation — an agency whose questionable regulation has come under fire from all corners of the state .... Most recently, in April, Davidson County Chancery Court Judge Carol McCoy ruled that TDEC Commissioner Robert Martineau approved permits for a landfill near a residential neighborhood in Camden, Tenn., without sufficient evidence local authorities had followed laws requiring public notice and local approval. To North Nashvillians, that might sound discomfortingly familiar.

Greeniness: Hizzoner poses with a solar panel.

Or not. It may not strike Germantown neighbors as cold comfort because, according to the Tennessean's clipped coverage of this metastizing problem, Germantown does not care what is going below its water table, otherwise they would naturally mobilize against it.

On Twitter, reporter Steven Hale clarified his Germantown observation when I brought up the Tennessean's blanket statements about the neighborhood. His point was that Germantown neighbors probably would not be satisfied by TDEC approval when they find out about TDEC's actual record. I have to admit, I get more appalled myself the more I hear about TDEC's track record on permitting unhealthy burials elsewhere. So, how can we have the same faith that Metro Water bureaucrats place in TDEC?

But TDEC's actual record? That is something else Tennessean reporter Bobby Allyn conveniently omitted in his kowtowed newspaper article on Metro's landfill plan.


Postscript: going back over my old notes, I rediscovered that this is not the first time I've questioned reporter Allyn's objectivity and fairness.