By Mary Nicholas Johnson
Thirteen hundred stamped letters. One hundred forty-two unique signatures. Hundreds of volunteer man hours.
No response.
Are we starting to see a pattern here from our elected officials? I hope you are waking up to the reality that other forces are shaping the future of our community—and it is not you, the citizens.
March 30 concluded our Friends of Sharps Chapel official letter writing campaign to local, state and national politicians to ask for help in getting a nutrient management system in place to monitor the 6,000 - 11,000 pounds per day of chicken waste from the new Alpes-Sanfer SPF egg factory slated to start construction in May of this year.
Here is who we sent the letters to. Locally, the County Commissioners for Sharps Chapel / Speedwell were sent the following: Jeff Brantley 121 letters; Kenny Hill 89 letters; Mayor Jason Bailey 106 letters; the other commissioners were sent between 5 and 50 letters. Our Governor
Bill Lee was sent 146, Tennessee State Senator Frank Nicely was sent 90 letters and Tennessee House of Representatives Jerry Sexton and Dennis Powers were sent 135 and 87, respectively. And finally, both US Senators from Tennessee, Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty, were sent 15 letters.
The request was simple. Our letter asked that Union County and the State of Tennessee provide the following as a minimum to safeguard the health of our residents and to ensure that all state and federal EPA air and water requirements are met.
- Perform baseline air and water quality analyses on ground water, stream and lake before production begins.
- Require a Comprehensive Nutrient Management Plan (CNMP) from Alpes Sanfer which will detail oversight of manure, litter, and animal carcass disposal.
- Schedule periodic inspections to confirm compliance to the above plan and compliance to EPA requirements. And open all of these records for review by the community upon request.
Our wildest dream was that we could get some legislation started. Barring that, we were at the very least hoping for support from our local leaders to take a leadership role in approaching Alpes-Sanfer to implement a voluntary nutrient management plan to give us information to monitor and keep our community safe from air and water pollution that could potentially jeopardize our health, our property values, and our local economy which is heavily reliant on tourism. Having our local politicians behind we the people would be powerful.
The response was crickets.
In light of this, our Friends of Sharps Chapel volunteers requested, through an intermediary, that Alpes-Sanfer voluntarily implement a Nutrient Management Plan. So far, the company has responded that they will not agree to this.
What we have learned is that the manure will not be distributed to any local farmer that wants it, for free, as we were originally led to believe. Instead, one individual will be trucking the chicken manure away to store in another location. Where? We don’t know. Who will be the lucky ones that will have this stored near them? What will be done with the stored manure? We don’t know.
Why are we concerned? We still don’t know where the manure will be spread on fields. This is important so that the local creeks and wells can be monitored for contamination from runoff.
Why all the secrecy?
We, as a community, must continue to raise awareness of this issue. Copy this article and post it on bulletin boards. Talk with your neighbors, bring this up to local marina owners, local restaurant owners on the lake, and communities in other counties surrounding Norris Lake—all who potentially could be affected. Go to our website IsNorrisLakeNext.com and subscribe to our mailing list to stay informed and find out how else you can help.