Previously unpublished photos of the May 2010 Nashville flood indicate urbanizing Bells Bend was and is an idea fraught with peril

Recently, Bells Bend advocate Sumter Camp sent me 2010 flood photos that he has had stored away for almost 5 years. With the 5th anniversary of the Great Nashville Flood a few months away, it is worth reconsidering the impact of the flood on various communities.

Parts of the May properties, which were originally proposed to become a "second downtown" sprawling across the Bend would have been underwater if the Planning Commission had approved the build. Given that buildings and other impervious surfaces displace flood waters, the 2010 flood waters would have likely pushed further into the Bend if May Town Center had been allowed. As Nashville Next sets new goals for infill that have the potential to drive lower income people out of city neighborhoods, we should expect increasing pressures to urbanize our vanishing agricultural villages like Scottsboro/Bells Bend. The flood is a cautionary tale instructing us to organize and to push back against such pressure.

Advocates for protecting our agricultural areas like Bells Bend share complimentary interests with urban activists who demand affordable housing and rent controls in city neighborhoods. They should be building bridges to one another for the sake of common cause.

The caption descriptions are paraphrases of Sumter's own descriptions. I am grateful to him for giving us yet another look back at the 2010 catastrophe.

Cumberland River at the bottom with the right-hand bank
just outside of the last curving row of trees.
The power lines cross the southern-most corner of the May property.

Looking the opposite direction of the preceding photo.
John Tune Airport is at upper right. Charles Bass Prison is just below it
and to the right (water in between all of the pods).

Southern end of the Bend looking west. Old Hickory Blvd runs from right to left
just above the centerline of the photo. Partially flooded I-40 lies beyond.

Local news media prompts more questions instead of hunting down answers

The hemorrhaging of strong writing continues in the traditional news media.

On the one hand, the Nashville Scene reports that the Tennessean just lost their best investigative journalist, which is sad since the Tennessean rarely bothers investigating much of anything any more. Tough questions are left to be asked by outsiders.

On the other hand, the Tennessean's business section has an intern running down stories and writing copy. Part of that copy regarding the AOL founder's recent visit to Nashville's Entrepreneur Center was "mistaken":

The startup locations Case toured — Bow Truss Building, Marathon Village and the Trolley Barns — were historical buildings left in disrepair for years and just recently renovated by the newly founded Nashville Entrepreneur Center.

To get government funding to renovate these buildings, the Nashville Entrepreneur Center raised funding from private sources and then asked the city to match this funding instead of asking for city funds first.

"(That made it) an easy yes for the mayor," Burcham said, "because there was no risk involved."

To their credit, the Center quickly responded when I tweeted about the intern's mischaracterization of the history of Nashville's historical buildings:

The Tennessean's business section editor came to the defense of his intern saying that the center did raise a lot of funds, which is not the same thing as getting millions in federal aid, a new office above the 2010 flood stage from Metro's own powerful real estate broker (MDHA) and a lot of help from the Mayor's Office. Government seems to have had as much to do with the renovations (not excusing them for their decades of inexcusable neglect of the trolley barns) as did the Entrepreneur Center itself. It seems like a seasoned reporter might have recognized that, and been less likely to leap to the conclusion that EC did it all (as well as Marathon Village renovations!)

Beyond the inaccuracies in the story, other questions prey:

• The original print media stories reported connections between the Entrepreneur Center getting grant money and the purpose of the grants being to support Tennessee flood recovery. The EC moved from its 105 Broadway offices (which flooded and which continue to be occupied by other tenants) to the trolley barns (which did not flood). I don't understand why a government grant dedicated to flood recovery would allow EC to move rather than to repair its Broadway location. The Tennessean editor responded to me yesterday that the EDA did not require flood damage to get the grant. So, why did the original reports link the grant and flood damage as if the latter were a rationale? And why were other businesses allowed to take up space in the Broadway offices that flooded after EC left rather than Metro condemning the property as flood plain?
• In the 2011 coverage of the grant award, the partnering organizations that joined EC in the trolley barn promised that in return for government funding, they would create 300 new jobs in 3 years in Nashville. It is 2014, and I can find no independent source proving that they have created 300 jobs. Did they? If they did, how many of those jobs stayed in Nashville? How many left before the 3 year timeline was used up? I followed up this morning with both the Tennessean business editor and the Nashville Business Journal asking whether EC partners followed through with promised job creation. Neither have responded. It seems to me that independent proof that the jobs were created is vital to taxpayers believing that public funds were appropriately spent on private enterprise. EC received a staggering amount of public financing. Have they paid us back for our investment in them?

Stringing North Nashville along

Last week Mayor Karl Dean decided it was time again to grace North Nashville with his presence. So, he joined Sharon Kay on Jazzy 88 WFSK (Fisk University) for an interview about the job he has been doing.

He framed his customary economic development pitch with the statement that he considers his administration's spending on upgrades to the water and sewer system an important part of what creates economic development. That seemed to be a departure from his standard stump about economic development as providing more opportunities and subsidies for business. He even broached the subject of the increase in water service fees to pay for the upgrades.

As usual, what Karl Dean did not say about his spending on upgrades was more significant than what he did say.

First, just like in his recent speech on his new budget, Karl Dean discussed the Metro Water upgrades as if they were his own initiative, which they they are not. Metro Nashville has been mandated from above to comply with state and federal clean water regulations. The Environmental Protection Agency required the Mayor to commit $1.5 billion to comply:

federal and state officials approached Metro about the need for additional sewer investments. Shortly after, the EPA and the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation filed a consent decree in federal court requiring Metro to comply with a list of environmental regulations. By March 2009, the consent decree was approved, setting aside a schedule whereby Metro must submit a long-term plan to address the issue.

So, the Mayor can talk as if he has ownership of the clean water issue, but what are the chances the Dean administration would have "spent far more on water mains, sewer lines and storm water projects than it cost to build the Music City Center" if a government mandate had not been imposed? It was not too many years ago that Mayor Dean attacked the idea of government regulations. It seems disingenuous to embrace spending that he has been forced to accept now.

The other thing omitted from his comments to Ms. Kay had to do with his reference to raises in water fees. Mayor Dean failed to acknowledge that his water fee increases are regressive: Metro charges big businesses less for higher volumes of stormwater they shed than Metro charges smaller operations like, well, Fisk University. Those who can afford to pay more actually pay less in Karl Dean's world.

Hizzoner came off dubiously at other spots like where he said that the wealth he has helped business generate in Nashville trickled down to ordinary people during the construction phase of the Music City Center. Explain that one to me.

However, his touting of the money spent on water and sewer is dishonest if not looney. After the 2010 floods he told us that what saved Nashville from the catastrophe was not the federal government but local volunteers helping people. His mantra is voluntarism even when it warps the truth.

In this case, it was not local volunteers who created the stormwater upgrades. And it was not even the Dean administration's own initiative to start forking over revenues for water despite the credit he expects us to give. Water and sewer improvements are the result of mandates from the federal government that actually caused Nashville to break with a past of soiling its own run-off in order to protect the environment.

If he wants credit for ponderous capital projects like Music City Center then let him claim it, even if it does not sell in places he visits outside of Downtown. But the real record on water infrastructure should not go without saying anywhere.

Thanksgiving and Christmas are odd times to have community meetings, too

I realize that 2:00 is a bit of an odd time to have a community meeting.

--Doug Sloan, Deputy Director, Metro Planning Commission

How about planning a bona fide
community meeting?

Three weeks ago today, Mr. Sloan spoke those words to a couple of hundred people gathered in what turned out to be more of a press conference on a new Sulphur Dell ballpark than a community meeting. If his comments were not obvious acknowledgement of criticism at the impossible scheduling for a community of ordinary people with working obligations, the response by Planning's information officer, Craig Owensby was:

We hope as many interested citizens as possible can attend the meeting, but we recognize that it is difficult to find a time that works for everyone’s schedule .... We also hope to offer more community meetings as this process continues to give additional opportunities for community questions and comments.

Yes, it was odd to hold a "community meeting" in the middle of a weekday afternoon. More odd to me is the fact that three weeks have passed, and Metro Planning has not delivered on the promise to have more community meetings. You may remember that Mayor Karl Dean wants the Planning Commission and Metro Council to approve this proposal before 2013 gives way to 2014. That is exactly six weeks from today.

At this point, the only way that community meetings can happen are either hastily announced for the next week (which will translate to poor attendance) or scheduled during and between the battle-fatigued, mind-numbing, attention-deficit holidays of Thanksgiving and Christmas (which will translate to poor attendance). One of the tricks in the "developers' playbook" is to hold public hearings of controversial projects as close to holidays as possible to minimize and mitigate any hard looks at those projects. Let's hope the lack of community meetings in the preceding three weeks does not constitute such a trick on the part of Metro planners.

At this point, they would do us all better to extend the Mayor's timeline into 2014 and hold community meetings after New Year's Day. However, who knows what kind of arm-twisting is being conducted by the Mayor's Office to minimize community input?

On a related note, I sent CM Erica Gilmore the following letter. I'll update if she responds.

CM Gilmore:

Three weeks have now passed since a media event to promote a new Sulphur Dell ballpark occurred at the Farmers' Market, and I am disappointed that no community meetings on the question have been held for the neighborhoods immediately affected by the proposed development. My disappointment is compounded by the fact that several important questions were asked by community leaders at the end of the October media event, but they have yet to be addressed by ballpark supporters such as yourself.

Some of us in your district who would have to bear immediate negative (as well as the positive) consequences of a new ballpark should have our concerns addressed in forums open to the public. And those meetings--unlike the one at Farmers' Market--should be held at times and on days when working people are free to attend. Given that Mayor Karl Dean intends the council to rush to approve of a new ballpark in the next six weeks, I am concerned that, if scheduled, the next meetings are going to fall among Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years holidays, when many people with family and work obligations do not have time to attend them. Rather than schedule more inopportune meetings and ridiculous times, Metro leaders should extend the timeline for consideration of the ballpark into 2014, after the holidays when turn-out to community meetings can be maximized.

In the meantime, please address these questions that are preying on my mind:

1. This entire development is being built on historic flood plain. Most of it will be built to withstand future floods, which means that the displaced water will be pushed further up into the surrounding neighborhoods in such catastrophes. In 2010 the Cumberland River crested within a block of my home. How can I be sure that future flood water displaced from a Sulphur Dell development won't end up in my home?

2. You once told me that you are opposed to reserved residential parking on streets. A new Sulphur Dell ballpark will attract thousands on game nights and not all of those people will want to park in a parking garage. With huge new apartment dwellings and popular restaurants, Germantown parking is approaching a choke point. Are you willing to reconsider your opposition to reserved street parking in adjacent neighborhoods if a ballpark is built? If not, what legislation can you offer to protect our parking needs? Please explain how your reconcile you opposition to on-street reserved parking in your district when it exists in other parts.

3. Many of us here spent a long time working on the North Nashville Community Plan and we would hate to see it sacrificed due to the aspirations of developers and club owners. What assurances can you give us that a new Sulphur Dell will protect the quality-of-life elements that we put into the community plan? How will the ballpark compliment rather than undermine our plan?

4. What safeguards will you support to keep taxpayers from having to bear the load of the costs of a new ballpark if either the Sounds or developers refuse to pay their share of the $150 million?

5. It is my understanding that Salemtown Neighbors--which has not officially taken a stance one way or the other on a new ballpark--formally requested a community meeting from you. Are you working on scheduling a meeting with the association? If not, why not?

I honestly hope that you will make every effort to insure that all of your constituents are represented in the public dialogue on this huge capital project. Bringing probing questions to the table should not disqualify any of us from participating in this decision.

Regards,
Mike Byrd

UPDATE:  On Tuesday evening a new wrinkle emerges as Channel 4 News is reporting that properties adjacent to the site on which the new ballpark would sit have tested positive for soil contamination in the past. A reporter was told by the Mayor that Metro has no plans to test the soil on which the ballpark would sit for toxins or heavy metals. Maybe it would break his budget to test in the name of public safety, but nonetheless, this is an interesting position for a county executive who has claimed to be a "green Mayor" in the past.

6 important questions I would ask planners of a new Sulphur Dell ballpark

These are questions I am hoping will be answered at next week's community meeting on a new Sulphur Dell ballpark sponsored by Metro Planning. They are in no particular order:

1. Please tell us how you are going to incorporate the idea of "Complete Streets" (that is, making streets safe for all forms of transportation besides cars) into the ballpark development.





Complete streets at Fenway:
2 sidewalks, 3 planters & 1 rain garden!

• Karl Dean paid lip service to Complete Streets consistently throughout his tenure. He should not have a problem demonstrating that the redevelopment around the Sulphur Dell site will place limits on auto traffic while installing amenities for bicycle and pedestrian traffic. In their stories on Dean's ballpark designs, the news media is fond of dropping the factoid that the Mayor is a big Red Sox fan. If Dean fails to include complete streets in his design, would it be too much for the media to point to redevelopments around Boston's Fenway Park that have aggressively incorporated Complete Streets and to ask about the lack of consistency at Sulphur Dell?


2. How does a new Sulphur Dell fit alongside the North Nashville Community Plan?


• Pick your plan. 2002: traffic calming along the major roads and a diversity of housing stock to attract diverse groups of residents including lower density options. 2010: parking solutions for busy urban corridors, leaving flood plain undeveloped, conserving green space, restricting taller buildings to major corridors. The community has a clear track record of expressing how they would prefer growth to be managed rather than be permitted to run amuck. A new ballpark plan should be consistent and sensitive to already formulated community plans, which represent the most significant democratic brake on the power of money and on Johnny-come-lately political influence.


3. What measures are taken to incorporate flood mitigation into this ballpark plan? What will be the impact on the North Nashville neighborhoods of Sulphur Dell flood mitigation in the event of another catastrophic flood?


• This is a simple equation: the old Sulphur Dell flooded because the ballpark sat on flood plain. In May 2010 the area flooded again. Metro plans to do what it tries to prohibit Nashvillians from doing since 2010: build on flood plain. If they do not take measures for mitigation, the new Sulphur Dell will likely be inundated in a catastrophe. If they do mitigate future floods, the water will have to go somewhere. The most obvious place it will go is higher into the surrounding neighborhoods.


4. What is the mass transit plan for the North Capitol area to MetroCenter on game and event days/nights at a new ballpark? If the only plan is to build more parking for car owners on site, what plans do you have for alleviating overflow parking and congestion in the nearby neighborhoods?


• Parking is already becoming a huge challenge with the rapid wave of mixed-use developments sweeping the area, including massive apartment complexes. The stadium plan includes even more mixed-use residential along with the entertainment complex itself. The strain on on-street parking, our primary mode of parking, will only grow more intense. If the Mayor is committed to Complete Streets in more than just words, Jefferson Street will become a choke point of cars, bikes and people without a mass transit strategy that he has yet to divulge (if he has one).


5. Besides uncertain, pie-in-the-sky predictions of local job growth with new businesses around a new ballpark, what job strategies do you have for hiring people from North Nashville for every phase from construction to team operations?


• Watchdogs of another of Mayor Dean's immense capital projects, the Music City Center, discovered during the construction phase that Hizzoner did not follow through on promises to extend contracts to local companies and that jobs created by MCC looked lousy. The planners of a new ballpark should have to explain why North Nashville can expect more from the development than Music City Center offered our community.


6. What commitments can we get from the Nashville Sounds baseball club that they will provide programs and service opportunities for North Nashville youth (for example, inner city baseball training programs)?


• I am not aware of anything that the Sounds are working on with neighborhoods around Greer Stadium. North Nashville needs the ball club to commit to be more involved here.

Those are six I have off the top of my head and a good start toward formulating other important questions. Look forward to hearing from others who are concerned about our quality of life.


UPDATE:  Nashville Scene reporter Steven Hale gets Metro Planning to explain why they would schedule a community meeting on the ballpark in the middle of a weekday afternoon when most people cannot attend the meeting. Planning's response to Hale indicates to me that this meeting may be more of a pitch of a done deal to the community and less of an invitation to influence the ballpark plan:

This was the first meeting Metro and the State could schedule that could work for all of the speakers, and we wanted to get the conversation started.

For those unable to attend, we plan to tape the meeting so that they can view the presentation online and make comments and ask questions. We also hope to offer more community meetings as this process continues to give additional opportunities for community questions and comments.

So, there is a slate of speakers and they are going to tape for the "benefit" of those who cannot attend. It does not sound like to me that they are enlisting the community's participation in the formulation of this plan. In fact, it is reasonable to assume that since the unnamed speakers' attendance is more important than the community's attendance, the plan has been agreed upon between Metro and the State without reference to community planning. Yesterday in an email exchange with Planning's Craig Owensby about the meeting I asked him whether such a perception was correct. I received no response from him on that particular question.

How Karl Dean chooses to spend federal flood money has an impact our neighborhoods

Dean's bauble: the real reason for a ballpark announcement

The reason that a possible deal between Metro, the Sounds, and the state for a new Sulphur Dell ballpark was announced was to clear the way for this week's announcement of a new amphitheater and park at the former thermal site (effectively bumping the ballpark). I cannot prove that claim is true. But I would bet six ways to Sunday that it is.

Whether the Sounds were willing to make the move to North Capitol or whether Hizzoner simply played his hand out until the Sounds felt forced to acquiesce, we may never know. We do know that a lot of old Nashville wealth is behind flipping the thermal site to open space for outdoor orchestra concerts.

The Mayor will pay for this high-society playground in part by flipping flood relief funds to pay for a wall and a "promenade":

The mayor put the estimated cost of the project at between $30 and $40 million, but stressed that his administration is not seeking new funds. The Metro Council has approved about $35 million for riverfront redevelopment on the west bank as part of three previous capital spending plans. And last month, the Metropolitan Development and Housing Agency approved the reallocation of $7.1 million in federal flood relief. The former flood aid will be put toward the construction of the flood wall along the promenade.

So, the rest of Nashville is no longer in need of federal flood damage relief? We cannot find any other projects around Nashville that might help the everyday lives of average people? What about these folks in Madison or Bordeaux? Or how about this guy?

"I've been battling this for two years at least. I feel like their (the city's) negligence caused this whole thing to happen," explained John Watts of Value Vet in Nashville.

The problem is a drainage ditch along the side of Watt's property along Gallatin Road. Every time it rains, he said the water isn't draining properly and causing the edge of his parking lot to slowly erode. Recently the problem got so bad his retaining wall collapsed.

"We would like to make improvements on this property and actually do some construction with the building. We're in a holding pattern, we can't get permits because of this issue, we can't expand because of this issue," he said.

In an effort to get the city to pay attention to the issue John had a sign made at a local print shop that reads "Mayor Dean, This is your mess!" with a black and white photo of Mayor Karl Dean in the center of the sign.

"I get lots of support from it, people come by and honk and are like ‘yay' they know the problem," John added.

The Mayor refuses to acknowledge the problem. He's got a promenade to erect.

However, there might be a problem for North Nashville neighborhoods if all of the federal flood funds are going to suit a stylish amphitheater. Sulphur Dell is an area historically prone to catastrophic floods. Even with the Army Corps of Engineers taking measures to mitigate flood damage in Nashville during the 2010 flood, the Sulphur Dell area flooded again. Has the Mayor figured any flood mitigation costs into a new ballpark? He failed in 2010 to consider the damage that could be caused by Richland Creek on the planned west police precinct and had to add expensive damage mitigation, which still looked flawed afterward. One would think that he learned a lesson and has committed money to flood mitigation for all capital projects that need it. But I have heard nothing to that effect.

For the sake of argument, let's assume that Mayor Dean has taken care of flood mitigation at Sulphur Dell. All of that displaced Cumberland River water will have to go somewhere. Sulphur Dell is now essentially floodplain that kept many of us from flood damage in 2010. Flood waters at that time crested within a block of our house. If we have a future flood with a new ballpark and there are plans to push waters away from Sulphur Dell, whose homes will be inundated in Germantown, Salemtown, Buena Vista and Hope Gardens where they were not in 2010? Given that there is a daisy chain of flood events that results from displacing water in flood mitigation, has Karl Dean any secondary plans to protect our neighborhoods, businesses and homes from damage if a ballpark is built near us?

On this the 8th anniversary of Katrina flooding in New Orleans (which captured our attention at the time), I wonder whether the millions of dollars in federal flood aid in Nashville might be spent to help many more people beyond the patrons of an amphitheater.

East Nashvillians to Hizzoner: "Karl Dean. This is your mess."

A property owner erected a sign (photograph at Pith in the Wind) suggesting that Mayor Dean did not do due diligence in dealing with 2010 flood repairs on their side of town. I find the fact that the Mayor sanctions shifting millions in federal funds away from community recovery toward developments for touristy Downtown difficult to swallow myself. Karl Dean will run for future office on the proposition that he brought Nashville back from a once-in-a-thousand-years catastrophe. I doubt we will see in those campaigns reality as it actually occurs on the ground in town.

You know? I would not mind seeing this sign pop up over at Metro Water's new toxic landfill in North Nashville.

Metro government continues to forget North Nashville in flood recovery

The day before yesterday, Whites Creek in Bordeaux rose above flood stage and a number of residents were evacuated. I wonder whether the latest catastrophic miseries back up against the neglect with which some North Nashvillians charge Mayor Karl Dean's administration, even as late as last May.

Where has the stormwater runoff from Metro Water's toxic petroleum pile flowed in the last 10 years?

News that Metro Water Services has allowed fuel-contaminated soil to sit on a parking lot near my home for the last decade (and has now started to bury that soil underground nearby) got me to wondering where all the run-off from that soil went over the years. I have strolled the Downtown Connector Greenway that runs through the plant for as long as it has been open and I remember seeing a ravine and a drain near the parking lot where the pile is kept.

Look at the photos I recently took below that move progressively closer to the drain. The pile of petroleum soil sits but a few yards uphill from the drain at the bottom of the ravine. Where does the drain carry the stormwater from the parking lot? If it is a storm drain, it goes straight to the river. How much petroleum has been washed out of the pile and into the Cumberland River (assuming it is a storm drain) in the last 10 years?

Petroleum pile on the left in the photo; ravine on the right.

Ravine below the treeline; petroleum pile behind treeline.

Ravine with drain, downhill from petroleum pile.

If this is a stormwater drain, it goes to the river.

Again, I do not know for fact whether the drain that captures the pile's stormwater run-off carries the water straight to the Cumberland, or whether the water is contained below ground and remediated before it is sent to the Cumberland. If it is untreated stormwater, Metro Water has likely been polluting the Cumberland for 10 years by allowing the soil to stay heaped on the parking lot beside the ravine.

The situation would be better if the drain leads to some form of containment tank that keeps the untreated water from flowing to the Cumberland. Except that it would not have been better in May 2010. The photo below show that the ravine was inundated with floodwaters that come right up to the foot of the petroleum pile. If the drain leads to containment, that containment was overwhelmed by rising floodwaters and whatever was in it likely came out.

May 3, 2010 aerial photo of flooded ravine, inundated drain.

Metro Water has so many storm drains in the area, and I'm betting that the ravine was designed to send stormwater straight to the river. If that is the case, I hope that MWS has been monitoring the levels of uncontained petroleum that likely would have also spilled from the contaminated soil it allowed to remain for so long exposed during rainy periods.


CONFIRMED: It is a storm drain, and hence, runs to the Cumberland River, which is a stone's throw away.

How could burying petroleum, PCBs, lead and arsenic in a basement possibly be dangerous?

Flooded basement at Metro Water Services, May 2010
(emailed to me among other flood photos taken on MWS property)

How about commemorating the high water mark in Salemtown by remediating the petroleum?

Last month Hizzoner showed us Richland Creek's highest line in May 2010.

3 years ago petroleum showed Salemtown the Cumberland's highest 2010 line

Not looking for any greenway or park signs; instead, commitments from Mayor Dean and Scott Potter to remediate and remove all toxic and carcinogenic debris and soil from the watershed near Metro Water would be a fabulous way to commemorate the devastation in our neck of the woods so that future flood victims can commemorate their experience with anything but memories of black residue.

Despite my requests for information, Metro never got back to me

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

---

erica.gilmore@gmail.com	Fri, May 7, 2010 at 9:02 AM
Reply-To: erica.gilmore@gmail.com To: Michael Byrd
Thanks so much. I will get answer to these questions. Thanks, ES Gilmore Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile From: Michael Byrd <micchiato@gmail.com> Date: Fri, 7 May 2010 07:59:52 -0500 To: Erica Gilmore<erica.gilmore@gmail.com> Subject: Re: Emergency Flood Relief Meeting in District 19 at Mt. Zion at 7 PM CM Gilmore: 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

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.

Metro Water adding petroleum toxins to its new North Nashville landfill

The other shoe dropped in the Metro Water landfill controversy. Not only are toxins besides PCBs, lead and arsenic going into the MWS hole, but in some places the toxicity exceeds legal levels:

WSMV Channel 4

Again, just like I wrote yesterday, Metro Water officials do not even seem to care about their own double speak (assuming they even see it). PR specialist Sonia Harvat insists that the 2010 flood did not reach the petroleum pile, but she also insists that the dirt in the pile is safe enough to put in Metro Water's new landfill to leach out into the ground water and eventually into the Cumberland. Why should it matter to her or anyone else at Metro Water if the 2010 flood did reach the pile? They are already so convinced that it is safe.

Photo I took on May 3, 2010. Metro Water's highly toxic petroleum pile
is in the background at the center. The Cumberland River is rising from
behind the pile and from the right edge of the photo.

May 3, 2010 photo of road (now flooded) where I snapped photo earlier
of the petroleum pile (Metro closed off access any closer).
Had I known then what I know today, I would have panned to the left more.

Metro's aerial shot from May 3, 2010. Petroleum pile circled in white.
Normal Cumberland River shoreline drawn in black.

However, if the flood missed the pile as Ms. Harvat told Ms. Kalodimos in tonight's report it did not miss by much. Metro's aerial photo indicates that flood waters came up to the bottom of the pile hours before crest. Unless Metro Water has honest reports on water damage, we may never know whether the petroleum toxins were actually contained during the flood. And I have to wonder now whether the black stuff I watched streaming into Morgan Park with flood waters 1 block from our home was from the unremediated petroleum pile languishing on a MWS parking lot since 2004.

Moreover, how can we even trust Metro Water officials when they insist that the toxic dirt would be tested before burial after workers on site told Channel 4 that almost 100 loads of dirt have already gone into the ground untested? Metro Water refuses to even be accountable for whether the soil is being tested yet: Ms. Harvat told Ms. Kalodimos that she cannot answer the question on whether the soil has been thoroughly tested yet (even though she seems convinced it will be safe enough). Seems like the standard bureaucratic two-step: public agency hires private contractor, which allows public officials deniability when it comes to accountability. And private contractors never have to be accountable to voters. It's the perfect vicious circle. In the meantime, Metro Water pushes ahead with their burial, deniability in their back pocket, and the agency bunkers itself from the blowback from concerned citizens like me instead of exercising transparency and accountability.

MWS workers were out cleaning up oil-like liquids on the greenway by MWS on May 3.
The liquids left dark lines and streaks across trees and grass for weeks afterwards.
Did the dark stuff came from the pile? We will likely never know.

The 2004 assessment report lays down an unequivocal directive that defies the bureaucratic two-step:

Because petroleum contamination is known to exist at the northeast corner of the property, special procedures and consideration may be necessary if excavation of the contaminated soil is necessary for construction of the biosolids treatment facility

It was handled by stacking the soil (that one pro landfill telling Channel 4 they would not accept it) in a pile in the open (with the blessing of the renowned green state of Tennessee) without telling anyone in the open what was in the pile. Now it is dealt with absent consideration and with the unceremonious procedure of dropping it in a hole and covering it up. Out of sight; out of mind. Kind of like a cancer, which is exactly what exposure to these materials causes.

Metro Water intends to "flag the deed" to let future generations know what they are dealing with. Good for future generations, but bad for the present ones. These people don't care about us, their neighbors. They have already admitted in emails to Demetria Kalodimos that this is a primarily a matter of their agency saving money for Karl Dean's administration.

And the Mayor is the one ultimately answerable for this environmental abuse. The buck stops right about where the fish rots. Hizzoner puts some vegetation on top of a new convention center and markets it wanting you to believe he's a tailor-made green candidate for the US Senate or the Governor's mansion. But in low-visibility places that most Nashvillians do not hear about and under cover of hushed initiatives of a Metro agency he oversees, he is content to bury and cover up Metro's toxic water treatment cocktail of PCBs, lead, arsenic and now petroleum regardless of its proximity to our watershed.


Afterword: I'll be writing on this controversy again tomorrow. In 2005 I attended a community meeting sponsored by Metro Water at the Neuhoff Complex in East Germantown. I told Demetria Kalodimos that had I known what I know now about the soil contamination problem I would have asked different questions at that meeting. Of course, Metro Water failed to disclose that problem to its neighbors in 2005.

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?

Moral hazard in Metro's purchasing past

One definition of "moral hazard" is taking undue risks with resources acquired when incentives exist to do so. I'm wondering whether the Mayor's Office, the police department, and Metro Council (34 members) realized that definition in 2009 when purchasing the old Frensley car dealership in order to flip it into the West MNPD Precinct.

Neighborhood leaders were skeptical and challenged Karl Dean's budget man Rich Riebeling and former police chief Ronal Serpas. They wondered if the cost was fair market. They wondered about the site's flood-proneness. They wondered about the political patronage behind the deal.

CM Buddy Baker, a buddy of Bob Frensley, spearheaded the effort even though the car dealership was not in his district. An ethics complaint was filed against Mr. Baker for allegedly concealing the information that the former police commander of the West Precinct was a trustee for Bob Frensley. Mr. Riebeling pushed the deal through without a detailed site plan, and he was surly and arrogant toward concerned neighborhoods, acting like he was going to put down $4+ million on a cheaper property simply because he could with or without public support.

The incentives for moral hazard were there.

Then came the Great Flood of 2010 that proved community leaders were exactly right to be skeptical of the risk Metro Nashville was willing to take for the West Precinct plan. So then, extra money was needed for flood mitigation of a HQ on a flood plain at a time when Metro was tearing down buildings on other flood plain. But Metro could not or would not spare enough money to provide a large enough community meeting space to allow public meetings for many to attend.

The flood was revealing of the undue risks Riebeling et al. were willing to take with public funds to ignore planning and to patronize the circle of good old boys built up around Bob Frensley through the years. Yet, it was also incentive to continue to take risks to mitigate the costs of keeping MNPD on Charlotte Ave flood plain and stay callous toward the community.

Jump forward to 2013, property reappraisal time.

If you are a property owner, you have likely received your tax appraisal from Metro in the past week. Mike Peden looked at a tax appraisal for a property near to the West Precinct and emailed me this morning:

The tax appraisal for the property next door to the West Precinct on Charlotte went down from $3,816,900 to $3,452,100. (5330 Charlotte Ave)

That seems strange since the tax appraisal on the land metro purchased was $2.88 million and they paid $4.2 million. I thought the justification for that was that the property was under appraised.

In a separate email, Mike wrote that the appraisal of Wendell's Restaurant (5300 Charlotte)--where CM Baker like to hold court occasionally--dropped 6% ($437,200 to $411,900).

Smells to me like moral hazard drove the Frensley dealership deal.

Whither the MetroCenter levee?

Two years ago reporters were writing about the "what ranks among the most significant levee projects in Davidson County history":

Mike Wilson, Nashville District USACE deputy district engineer for project management, said Wednesday that Mobile, Ala.-based DRC Emergency Services recently was awarded an approximately $1.4 million contract to finish work on the three-mile segment of the MetroCenter levee along the Cumberland River.

“This is one of the, if not the, single-most significant levee improvement projects the corps has overseen in Davidson County,” Wilson said.

Wilson said the main focus is to remove trees from within 15 feet of the toe of the levee, the point at which the sloping face of the levee interfaces with natural elements and intersects the river.

Work on the massive levee, which is made primarily of impervious clay, initially began in 2001 and ran through 2004. Some additional updates have been done since then.

Unless "impervious clay" has a specialized, technical meaning at odds with the common understanding of "impervious" as "impenetrable" or "unaffected by", a look at this video shot on Sunday, May 2, 2010 of deteriorating soil (start at 2:42 for a close up of erosion in process) indicates to this untrained layperson that at least the top layer of this levee was not impervious to large amounts of water:

 


Lately, I can find no follow-up or other indication in the local news media that the historic project had been finished as per planning. Anyone aware of any follow-up stories on the MetroCenter levee renovations? Via private contractor website, the road was resurfaced. Here is a local blogger who posted last November first-hand descriptions of some of the levee reinforcements.

On a related note, this week the Army Corps of Engineers issued a "presolicitation notice" for private companies to submit bids on more levee repair by March 1, 2013:

The Nashville District U.S. Army Corps of Engineers intends to issue an Invitation for Bid (IFB) for a firm fixed price construction contract for slope repairs to the Metro Center Levee ....

PROJECT DESCRIPTION: The scope of this project is to repair and reinforce a section of levee embankment and clear an area of vegetation located at Metro Center .... The landward side of the levee has settled in the direction of a chain link fence which belongs to an adjacent property owner. The project includes excavation, installation of a gabion retaining wall, placing fill, clearing, grubbing, seeding, and an erosion control to be cleared and grubbed is approximately 320 feet in length and is located on the riverward side of the levee.

Any other links you know of on the progress of this project would be greatly appreciated by those of us who live near the levee.


UPDATE: Related article: Deficient Levees Found Across America

A carnival of contrasting perceptions of Nashville's Mayor in the wake of the NYT's "Nashville Itself"

Consider the analysis of New York Times southern bureau chief, Kim Severson, looking at Mayor Karl Dean with hindsight and outside-in in 2012:

Mr. Dean, a former city lawyer who became mayor in 2007 and led the city’s recovery from historic floods in 2010, said the [new convention center] project, which got under way during the recession, has been a fight every step of the way. “The gains for the city are real and tangible,” he said.

My observations and reflections on the Mayor's involvement in 2010:

I distinctly remember the Mayor laying low and putting news conferences and non-profits like Hands on Nashville...between himself and the relief effort. HoN did a lot of good, but it also took a lot of heat from some of us that Hizzoner chose not to face ....

Even as East Nashvillians mobilized 1,500 volunteers on their own to rescue neighbors and bring relief to their community, they watched Metro resources head west. Karl Dean may be Tennessean of the Year at 1100 Broadway, but he had very little impact at Moss Rose or near McFerrin Park outside of photo-op appearances when ... he decided to shed his "businesslike" style to get out and walk the neighborhoods ....

I watched TV reports of volunteers and Metro officials streaming into West Nashville, but then I drove Bordeaux neighborhoods that had huge piles of debris stacked at the curbs with no volunteers or Metro officials in sight. We took a car load of food and supplies to an Egyptian Coptic Christian community in South Nashville, where we saw few relief workers from Metro or Metro's non-profit contractors. It seemed like Metro-lead relief arrived late to and left early from poorer northern and southern neighborhoods ....

Less than a week after the 1,000-year flood, Karl Dean was on NPR whitewashing the destruction by claiming that 80-90% of Nashville was "untouched" by the disaster in an attempt to maximize future tourism revenue. It bears asking at this point: if only 10-20% of the city was "touched" by floods, why was the Mayor's performance heroic enough to be lauded as "Tennessean of the Year"?

That was 2010. Today local pastor Jay Voorhees blogged his own views of the Mayor's seeming blindness to disposable people with no power in the wake of the Music City Center construction:

For all of the hopes of some of my progressive friends back when he was elected, Mayor Karl Dean has had a dismal record of failure when it comes to dealing with the issue of homelessness in Nashville. One would think as a former public defender that he would have some sense of the issue and some of the needs of that community. Yet, outside of some basic lip service, Mayor Dean has not seemed particularly interested in the social safety net side of governmental services, and certainly not the challenges of the homeless community. In the days after the 2010 floods the mayor’s office was noticeably missing in trying to address the needs of the former tent city residents, leaving the question of how to deal with this population to a set of dedicated volunteers and clergy. The Metro Homelessness Commission has languished during the Dean administration, some of which can be attributed to its members, but part of which is reflective of a mayor who is more concerned with creating new business opportunities than assisting those who are down and out.

Those comments are consistent with my perception that Hizzoner may not really care about people who do not have campaign cash to give or influence to lever. No doubt the MCC will provide a lot of wealth for a few tourism industry big shots to hoard without regard for Nashville's outcasts. To her credit at least Times journo Severson touches on some of the local perception of Karl Dean's benign neglect, even as the bare mention does not scratch the surface of the challenges Nashville faces:

“People are too smug about how fortunate we are now,” said the Southern journalist John Egerton, 77, who has lived in Nashville since the 1970s.

“We ought to be paying more attention to how many people we have who are ill-fed and ill-housed and ill-educated,” he said.

The paradox here is that the local social media (as well as the news media) that I see is running with smugness about the New York Times piece and its ingratiating airbrush of Music City. Instead of revealing something insightful--nay human--about Nashville, the piece is just another arrow in the branding quiver of self-conscious marketers and neurotic hand-wringers regarding Nashville's "image". Karl Dean and the journalistic tributes that continue to follow him will one day be gone and Nashville will be left with some stubborn facts about who is in and who is out in this city. We continue to deny those facts at risk of our own self-delusion.

That 2010 chip is still on your shoulder?

Photo credit:
Anthony De Rosa

New York City (and several other East Coast cities and towns) suffered one of its worst natural disasters yesterday when Hurricane Sandy barreled ashore. The "frankenstorm" killed a number of people, flooded subways, knocked out the power in Lower Manhattan, caused neighborhood destroying fires in Queens, and created a toxic spill of a designated Superfund site in Brooklyn. Well-known boardwalks were destroyed in Atlantic City and Rockaway. Countless building in multiple communities were flooded. Tunnels in and out of Manhattan were inundated and obstructed by floating cars.

Many of us here in Nashville watched from afar, expressed concerns and sympathies for New Yorkers and other east coasters. A few here filed on to social media and used the occasion of the spotlight turned on the Big Apple to vent their spleens about what little media attention Nashville got in 2010. As if Nashville's flood did not have to contend with the largest oil spill ever caused by BP off the Gulf Coast in 2010 as their platform hemorrhaged crude for days.

Nonetheless, some here chose to make the catastrophe in the northeast all about us while Gotham fell into cold darkness.

New York City is an international city. People from every corner of the globe live and visit there. If you travel the world over, you'll meet all kinds of people who know what New York City is but who may be more challenged to say what Nashville is. That's no slight against us. It's a simple reality. When one of the world's major cities is flooded it is paramount news. When a large city in Middle Tennessee is flooded it is big enough to warrant national attention, but to compare it to the attention New York City should get is unrealistic, whiny, and foolish.

And given that a big-city broadcasting corporation has given Nashville's music industry a gratuitous spotlight via a primetime weeknight soap opera, the resentment over someone else's tragedy makes us look like ingrates.

Remembering the May 2010 flood: after the long rains the Cumberland River backed up to the edge of Salemtown

Metro aerial photo several hours before the flood's crest in May 2010

Flooded Rosa L. Parks Boulevard

Nashville not ranked among most charitable cities

I take "rankings of cities" lists with an appropriate grain of salt, but local news media and city marketers inflate their importance when Nashville gets highly ranked and they ignore them when Nashville fails. So, it is important to point out news that you probably will not see in the local news media: Nashville did not make the list of "most charitable US cities," either in 2011 or 2010 (the year of our 1,000-year flood).

What is significant for me about our city failing to make the list in 2011, is that this year the news media marked the first anniversary of our flood with narratives about exemplary ways our city responded to the catastrophe. The celebration of local voluntarism does not bother me. What does is the comparative tone the media gives Nashville's volunteers, as if other communities are not as impressive or as strong.

Last May, for instance, WPLN reporter Blake Farmer speculated that Nashville serves as inspiration for rescue/relief response to tornadic catastrophe in Tuscaloosa and Birmingham. I responded thusly:

If anything, our experience of coming out the other side of the hells of destruction that other people are in or just entering ought to give us pause, the humility to figure out what we can do to support them, not promote ourselves. And using New Orleans again as our own personal foil is both ignoble and revolting. We should expect more from ourselves and demand better from local journalists.

Likewise, for these national rankings of most charitable cities: the fact that we do not make them ought to give us a sense of modesty, perhaps a sense of shame that our journalists and PR flacks overestimated our comparative worth in the charitable world in the name of commemorating our response to the flood of 2010.

Just like we continue to believe that our volunteer and donor spirit has worth beyond these year-end rankings that do not include Nashville, so do we need to accept that the same spirit does not need to inspire other cities (and distract attention from their response) to have worth.