By Mary Nicholas Johnson

WE CARE. DO THEY? Zero Union County Commissioners attended the March 8 Friends of Sharps Chapel meeting. All were publicly invited at the last Commissioner’s meeting in February. Their “no show” sent a message that was received loud and clear – “We Don’t Care What You Think”.

The March 8 meeting had close to 150 attendees – a huge increase over the prior month’s meeting. This was due to increased awareness by the public after seeing the five WVLT segments and the one WBIR segment on TV. Additionally, the Friends group has increased their social media presence by creating a website (http://IsNorrisLakeNext.com) and a public Facebook page (Is Norris Lake Next) to help citizens get up-to-speed on the issues.

In the March 8 meeting we shared details from our meeting with Shawn Hawkins, Associate Professor, and Tom Tabler, Professor, both from the UT Institute of Agriculture. Professor Hawkins was the individual who recommended three counties for the Alps-Sanfer SPF egg factory to consider for development of their production facility. He admitted he had never been to Sharps Chapel and was not aware that so many residences were within a few miles of the potential location. He said he lives in a suburb and would not want this facility to be near his home. Professor Hawkins has been working with the Mexican company to provide guidance but confirmed that neither TDEC (Tennessee Department of
Environment and Conservation) nor the EPA have any regulations governing this facility. There is no chain-of-custody monitoring where the manure goes once it leaves the facility. Our
Friends of Sharps Chapel group has requested that Professor Hawkins communicate with Sanfer that we would like them to implement a nutrient management plan and be a “good neighbor” to our community.

Who will get the many tons of manure? It will be provided to area farmers to transport to their farms to be used as fertilizer. Nothing is free – there would be a need for those
farmers to build a proper storage facility for the manure to keep any water from hitting the chicken litter (both floor and roof). Again, there are no rules that the farmers MUST follow, but
the caveat is that if any manure reaches the groundwater, this would be considered pollution and be illegal, opening up the farmer to possible prosecution and fines. Our Friends of Sharps Chapel believes in prevention – not a wait-until-algae-blooms and fish kills ruin our lake before any action is taken.
Remember, much of our drinking water comes from Norris Lake via Hallsdale-Powell or wells from the water table.

One new issue that caught the attention of the attendees was the air pollution by ammonia. Sanfer has not committed to any installation of ammonia filters on their eight concrete-block hen houses. Too expensive? When asked, Professor Hawkins said it would be about $10,000 to install these filters. Considering that Sharps Chapel Elementary School is only 1.7 miles, as the crow flies, from where the ammonia would be generated by the typical flock of 54,000 hens we have to ask the question, “What price can you put on the health of our children?” COMMISSIONERS. WHERE ARE YOU? Mayor Jason Bailey did come and he did take some questions from our audience at the end. Mayor Bailey, we formally request that you, as a leader, provide a more active role in getting all of our County Commissioners to do the right thing and start listening to the concerns of its citizens. We want you to work with us to come up with solutions – not just rhetoric. That’s what a leader does.