Tag: Memphis Sand Aquifer

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Land Deal Could Create New State Forest, Protect Memphis Water Supply

Tennessee is working to purchase 5,477 acres of forest land near Grand Junction from the Hobart Ames Foundation. The land is part of the Wolf River watershed. (Photo: Wolf River Conservancy)

About 60 miles east of Memphis near the Mississippi line, verdant hardwood trees and ecologically exceptional streams weave through thousands of acres of rolling hills.

The land is home to a diverse array of aquatic and terrestrial life, decades-old archaeological sites and a watershed that feeds into the aquifer where hundreds of thousands of Memphians source their drinking water.

If all goes to plan, 5,477 acres of this land will soon become Tennessee’s newest state forest, securing its preservation for posterity.

The land is a portion of the 18,400-acre historic Ames Plantation, a privately owned tract in Fayette and Hardeman Counties amassed by Massachusetts industrialist Hobart Ames in the early 1900s.

For the last several decades, the Hobart Ames Foundation has partnered with the University of Tennessee’s AgResearch and Education Center to maintain and study the land and its history. The university’s website calls the center “an 18,400-acre laboratory” home to an archaeology field school, vet school, forestry camp, tree research nursery, row crop research fields and more.

When the roughly 5,500-acre portion of forest hit the market around early 2023, Tennessee’s forestry division rushed to piece together funding to buy it.

Deal cobbled together at ‘breakneck speed’

Work toward the purchase was already underway when State Forester Heather Slayton was appointed to her role this January. After calling her staff to inform them of her new title, “my second act was to call the Hobart Ames Foundation to let them know that we were hustling to get this project off the ground,” she said. “In the relative scheme of forest legacy projects, it was breakneck speed.”

A man paddles down the main stem of the Wolf River in West Tennessee. (Photo: Wolf River Conservancy)

The land was only on the market for a short time before the Hobart Ames Foundation agreed to remove it and allow the state “a little bit of time” to patch together the funds to “keep it protected and conserved in perpetuity,” Slayton said.

News of the project surfaced in August when the state Department of Agriculture brought an approval request to a State Building Commission subcommittee, warning that the land “will be under immediate threat of development if sold to a third party.”

The forest is located near Grand Junction, about 30 miles south of Ford’s new BlueOval City electric vehicle manufacturing plant.

“This tract is important and irreplaceable as it maintains the longest continuous research tree nursery in the country. It also contains one of the best examples of long-term, well-managed bottomland hardwood forest in West Tennessee,” the request states.

Slayton said an initial $16.9 million to secure the purchase will come from Tennessee’s Heritage Conservation Trust Fund, in addition to about $1.5 million in state wetland funding and help from other state agencies. Tennessee’s Division of Forestry applied to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service Legacy Program, which helps keep working forests kept intact. The program would cover 75 percent of the total $22.5 million purchase price, with state funds making up the remaining 25 percent. If the federal grant is approved, the plan is to repay the Heritage Conservation Trust Fund’s contribution, she said. Including additional costs, the total worth of the project is around $24.3 million, Slayton said.

The total worth of the project is around $24.3 million.

The Conservation Fund, a national nonprofit conservation group, will act as an intermediary to purchase the land from the Hobart Ames Foundation and sign over the contract to the state.

Zachary Lesch-Huie, Tennessee state director for The Conservation Fund, said the land is valuable for a multitude of reasons. It contains a major part of the upper fork of the Wolf River, which feeds the aquifer system responsible for Memphis’ water supply. It’s home to several species prioritized by Tennessee for protection, and features an “outstanding” forest habitat. There’s potential for future recreational and educational opportunities there, including hunting, river access, hiking, and continued archeological research on more than 40 historical sites on the property.

The purchase is not yet final — Lesch-Huie said the process is going well but could take several more weeks, barring any unforeseen snags. He said he credits the land’s excellent condition to the stewardship of the Hobart Ames Foundation and the University of Tennessee.

“I also want to give credit to … the Hobart Ames Foundation, because their willingness to even do this important deal for the state of Tennessee is what this (project) hinges on,” he said. “All these conservation deals rely on a willing landowner, and they are that.”

The University of Tennessee declined to comment on the pending deal, and the Hobart Ames Foundation did not respond to a request for comment.

Once the sale is complete, the University of Tennessee will continue to manage the property alongside the state and continue its tree nursery research project.

“The information that comes out of the research for tree genetics and how to produce healthier, more resilient trees helps the forests of all the rest of the State of Tennessee as well,” Slayton said.

Safeguarding the Wolf River and Memphis drinking water

The north fork of the Wolf River flows through this portion of bottomland forest — essentially a river swamp or forested wetland — on the Ames property. It meets the Wolf River in Moscow, Tennessee, and the Wolf River then flows into the Mississippi River at Mud Island, north of Downtown Memphis.

Wetlands are really integral to protecting and providing clean water, so this system helps to do that for about 2.8 million people downstream in the city of Memphis area and the surrounding counties.

– Heather Slayton, Tennessee State Forester

Memphis is the largest city in the country that relies fully on ground water, according to the University of Memphis.

Ryan Hall, director of land conservation at the Wolf River Conservancy, said the entire tract of forest land lies within an aquifer recharge zone for the Memphis Sand Aquifer. Rainwater is slowly filtered through layers of sand, purifying the water. Natural sand aquifers are separated by thick clay that protects water from contaminants, according to the University of Memphis. But thinning clay and breaks in its surface in several areas throughout Shelby County pose ongoing pollution concerns.

Ford megasite atop ‘recharge zone’ for underregulated Memphis Sands aquifer 

Tennessee Lookout

“Wetlands are really integral to protecting and providing clean water, so this system helps to do that for about 2.8 million people downstream in the city of Memphis area and the surrounding counties,” Slayton said. “So just being able to protect that wetland function of creating clean water for those people is really, really special.”

The Wolf River Conservancy aims to preserve the Wolf River watershed as a natural resource and provide conservation education. The organization is working to build a Wolf River Greenway trail through Memphis. The group has acted as supporters and advocates of transforming this land into a new state forest, Hall said.

“(The property) has been stewarded well for a long time, and now we know it’s going to be stewarded well in perpetuity, so that peace of mind is just — the Wolf River Conservancy and all of our volunteers, donors, we’re very grateful that this is happening,” he said.

A rich cultural site

The Ames property was one of several large plantations located in the area in the 1800s, Slayton said.

“This particular forest block and the larger Ames property has a very rich cultural history of enslaved people in this part of Tennessee,” she said.

The University of Tennessee, in partnership with the Hobart Ames Foundation, has done extensive research on the property, identifying historical artifacts and tracing ancestors who lived there.

The greater Ames property features the Ames Manor, a cabin, and the remains of multiple 19th-century buildings, including houses, stores, churches, schools, cotton gins, and the quarters of enslaved people, according to the university. There are 26 known cemeteries on the property, including up to six burial grounds for enslaved people, some of which have more than 100 graves.

“That’s another part of this project that’s super exciting: keeping it in public ownership so we can protect the cultural significance of the property,” Slayton said.

Tennessee Lookout is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Tennessee Lookout maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Holly McCall for questions: info@tennesseelookout.com. Follow Tennessee Lookout on Facebook and X.

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Questions Surround Musk’s xAI Plans

Elon Musk. Photo by Trevor Cokley / Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

(This story was originally published by The Institute for Public Service Reporting Memphis.)

Is Memphis moving too fast in its negotiations with Elon Musk?

The question troubles environmentalists like Sarah Houston as Musk fast-tracks plans to open an energy-intensive xAI supercomputer here later this summer.

“Data centers like this come with a lot of questions,’’ said Houston, executive director of the nonprofit group Protect Our Aquifer. Houston and others are concerned about xAI’s impact on Memphis’ resources.

The artificial intelligence plant already under development in southwest Memphis will require enough electricity to power 100,000 homes and consume up to 1.5 million gallons of water a day to cool equipment.

Negotiations between Musk, the Greater Memphis Chamber, and city-owned Memphis Light, Gas & Water have moved swiftly and behind closed doors since the tech billionaire and his team first approached local officials in March.

Supporters view xAI as a catalyst for Memphis to become a technology hub that could infuse hundreds of new jobs and millions of investment dollars into the local economy. That includes the potential for other Musk-owned businesses to set up shop here.

But a litany of questions has unfolded about xAI’s energy use and environmental impact since negotiations became public last month. In response, Musk’s swiftly evolving plans have incorporated measures to allay those concerns.

Among them is a plan to build a 150-megawatt substation to reduce the chance of any future power brownouts or blackouts. Talks also are underway to build a gray water facility that would use treated wastewater rather than precious drinking water to cool xAI’s equipment.

Still, critics say the discussions spearheaded by the chamber and MLGW are proceeding with too little public input.

“This is a terrible idea for Memphis. MLGW’s CEO is not elected, and neither is anybody in the Chamber of Commerce last time I checked,” said state Rep. Justin J. Pearson, D-Memphis, whose district includes the industrial swath of land where xAI is located. “It’d be really wonderful if people who are unelected did start to talk to people who are elected to represent the communities that they’re seeking to do business in, because they would have heard from our community that we don’t want this.”

Environmentalists urge caution. They point to Texas, where two Musk-founded companies received wide criticism in 2022 for proposing to dump treated wastewater into Texas’ Colorado River.

“It’s just like, they need to be forced to do the right thing,’’ said Chap Ambrose, a Texas computer programmer and environmental activist who lives next door to two Musk-owned companies, SpaceX and Boring.

Knoxville-based activist Stephen Smith, who is no fan of Musk, says he sees a huge opportunity for Memphis if it takes the time to carefully structure this deal. That includes holding Musk, best known for development of Tesla electric vehicles and rocket manufacturer SpaceX, accountable to the public.

“The negatives could very well turn into positives,’’ said Smith, executive director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy.

Water concerns

Water falling at Sheahan Water Pumping Station in December 2023. (Karen Pulfer Focht)
Water falling at Sheahan Water Pumping Station in December 2023.  (Karen Pulfer Focht)

The announcement of xAi immediately triggered concerns about Memphis’ drinking water — sourced directly from the Memphis Sand Aquifer, which contains some 57 trillion gallons of millennia old, pristine water, a point of civic pride and the envy of many other cities.

There’s little chance of depleting that.

Even if xAI requires 1.5 million gallons of water a day — MLGW’s highest estimate —that would add only 1% to the city’s total daily draw on the aquifer.

“I’m not concerned with the quantity, I’m concerned with the quality,’’ said Daniel Larson, director of the University of Memphis’ Center for Applied Earth Science and Engineering Research or CAESER. 

Larson and others say a more realistic concern is that xAI’s demand for water could accelerate contamination of the Memphis Sand Aquifer.

The proposed xAI center would draw water from the Davis Wellfield in southwest Memphis, an industrial area that includes TVA’s Allen power plant and the city’s wastewater treatment plant.

CAESER studies have found large quantities of arsenic in the shallow aquifer above the Davis Wellfield. Studies also have identified cracks or breaches in the thick layer of clay separating the shallow and larger Memphis Sand aquifers.

“With an increased demand of one million or 1.3 million gallons of draw down, the question becomes what happens to the known contaminates just above our drinking water, like arsenic?’’ said Protect Our Aquifer’s Houston.

The greater risk of contamination could be alleviated by development of a gray water system that would use treated wastewater, rather than water from the aquifer, to cool xAI’s equipment.

MLGW is developing plans to build a gray water treatment facility to serve xAI and other industrial customers. Musk and his team are considering building their own gray water system, possibly by January, according to The Daily Memphian.

Amanda Garcia, a lead attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center, remains skeptical. “I’m concerned about a lack of commitment on the part of xAI in their use of reclaimed water,” she said. “We’ve seen other industrial users come in and say, ‘Oh, we’re going to use reclaimed water,’ and then back out of that commitment.”

Deficient Community Outreach

The former Electrolux plant at 3231 Paul R. Lowry Road where Musk is developing his xAI “gigafactory of compute”. (Karen Pulfer Focht)
The former Electrolux plant at 3231 Paul R. Lowry Road where Musk is developing his xAI “gigafactory of compute”.  (Karen Pulfer Focht)

Garcia’s concerns highlight a disconnect between xAI and the larger Memphis public. Companies that move to Memphis often forgo direct communication with neighborhoods surrounding their operations, and xAI is no exception.

To date, representatives with xAI have not held any townhall-style meetings with their neighboring communities. Media also cannot reach xAI directly. The company told the Memphis Chamber of Commerce that reporters can post their questions on X.

No representative responded to the Institute for Public Service’s questions posted on the public social media platform.

The lack of direct access means Memphians must learn about xAI through MLGW updates or an anonymous source that works exclusively with The Daily Memphian, which posts many of their xAI updates behind a paywall.

Houston said it would be up to organizations like Protect Our Aquifer to sustain pressure on xAI and Memphis officials to “keep the community informed and engaged on how we can truly ensure that this company follows through on a lot of really great things they said in the media. Because that’s not the track record the ownership (of xAI) has shown in the past.”

State Rep. Justin J. Pearson in southwest Memphis in March 2023. (Karen Pulfer Focht)
State Rep. Justin J. Pearson in southwest Memphis in March 2023. (Karen Pulfer Focht)

State representative Pearson says Musk can’t be trusted. He’s equally skeptical of local decision-makers securing the xAI deal, saying they haven’t given residents of Southwest Memphis — an area already disproportionately burdened by industrial pollutants — much thought. 

“Our resources are continuously extracted for the benefit of companies. And our community is not feeling any of those benefits,” Pearson said.

Checkered record

Critics’ concerns include the checkered environmental history of Musk companies in other parts of the country.

Business Insider reported earlier this year that Tesla’s “gigafactory” in Austin took advantage of a new Texas law that allowed the company to exempt itself from the city’s environmental regulations. While Musk promised an “ecological paradise” when Tesla first moved to town, the company appears to be free to skirt regulations meant to ensure one.

Two other Musk-founded companies received an outpouring of criticism last year for attempting to dump treated wastewater into Texas’ Colorado River, which flows southeast through the state, into the Gulf of Mexico, and is separate from the Colorado River that drains the southwestern United States.

When Chap Ambrose, a computer programmer, watched The Boring Company slowly come to life in the cow pasture across the way from his house in the rural countryside east of Austin, he was initially excited. 

He was a fan of Musk. He signed up for the yet-to-be released Cyber Truck and subscribed to the Musk-founded Starlink internet service. That was in 2021.  

Today, Ambrose serves as an informal watchdog over The Boring Company. The company specializes in building underground tunnel infrastructure meant to alleviate surface-level traffic, among other functions. 

Ambrose and some of his neighbors took issue with The Boring Company and another nearby, Musk-founded company, Space Exploration Technologies Corp., attempting to dump treated wastewater in the Texas Colorado River.

The Boring Company had applied for a permit to treat wastewater and release it onto its land or into the river, the Washington Post reported. The firm planned to build its own wastewater treatment plant without connecting to a treatment system run by the nearby city of Bastrop, The Post reported. Under public pressure it reportedly later dropped the plan and agreed to connect to the city system.

Monitoring the two companies is tedious, Ambrose said. “(It) continues to be an exercise of documenting and learning how these things work and how the regulations are split up across half a dozen different agencies. [You learn] who you have to talk to, where and what they care about, and what other people care about,” he said.

Following a series of complaints, the company received its first fine earlier this year from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, just under $12,000 for ineffective erosion control at construction sites and illegal dumping of storm water. 

Ambrose’s advice for Memphians concerned about xAI’s potential impacts in Southwest Memphis is simple. 

“Learn what will be cheap and easy for xAI, and what regulations stand in the way,” said Ambrose. “That will give you a start.”

Megapacks

Doug McGowen, president and CEO of MLGW, told members of the Memphis City Council on July 9 that xAI plans to build a 150 megawatt substation.

McGowen’s update included another way that xAI would impact Memphis’ occasionally strained power grid: Megapacks — a proprietary development by Tesla. Megapacks are shipping container-sized battery packs.

The Tesla dealership on Germantown Parkway near Wolfchase Galleria (Marc Perrusquia)
The Tesla dealership on Germantown Parkway near Wolfchase Galleria (Marc Perrusquia)

The Southern Alliance for Clean Energy’s Smith said the use of Megapacks would ease concerns about the need for brownouts.

“With the battery packs, they have developed this software that seamlessly integrates into the electric grid. You can charge those battery packs up at night or off-peak times, and then you can deploy them over an extended period of time during peak,” Smith said.

Megapacks  could significantly reduce the strain on MLGW’s  system during times of peak demand. And, from Smith’s view, a commitment from xAI to enhance the power grid’s capabilities could ultimately help MLGW break up with the Tennessee Valley Authority, which would be the biggest benefit possible with xAI, he said.

For myriad reasons, Smith has long advocated for MLGW to leave TVA. TVA produces the electricity that MLGW buys and distributes. Smith says  TVA is the biggest obstacle to investing in renewable sources of energy in the southeast region.

“xAI has the potential to breakthrough a lot of antiquated thinking,’’ Smith said.

“If the mayor, if Doug McGowen, if city council say, ‘Welcome to our community. Yes, we want you to figure out a way for it to work for both on the water and the energy side and be a sustainable leader. But we also want to partner with you to think bigger about what is possible in Memphis.’” 

On July 22, Musk posted on X the xAI supercomputer powered up, and training with supporting employees had begun.

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Connecting the Dots Between Wetlands, Builders, and a Mysterious New PAC

Tennessee’s home builders stand to gain the most from a bill to remove construction restrictions on the state’s wetlands, and they’re spending like it. 

The Build Tennessee political action committee (PAC) recently donated $186,000 to state lawmakers, making the little-known group formed in July 2022 the fourth-largest spender in the six months before this year’s legislative session. The organization also hired lobbyists starting in January. 

Funding for the PAC comes from 18 people, all of whom list themselves as owners or partners in real estate or construction companies, and a limited-liability corporation called Amber Lane Development. 

But, most of the spending has come following a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in May 2023, narrowing the definition of wetlands that the federal government can regulate, shifting much of the oversight to states.

The PAC has raised $312,000 since its founding 20 months ago, doling out around $245,000to more than 90 lawmakers from both political parties, with 76 percent of that spending coming since the ruling. 

The court decision left more than half of Tennessee’s wetlands under Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC) purview. A large portion of the wetlands are in rural West Tennessee, where real estate markets are heating up as Ford builds its new factory in Haywood County. 

Rep. Kevin Vaughan, R-Collierville, a developer, is sponsoring a bill that would benefit developers. (Photo: John Partipilo)

TDEC’s new control and subsequent rules around wetlands construction drew the attention of Rep. Kevin Vaughan, R-Collierville, who is sponsoring the legislation that would significantly limit the department’s ability to regulate them. 

A deputy commissioner at TDEC told state lawmakers that Vaughan’s bill could result in higher back-end costs because it could worsen flooding, while environmental groups have opposed it, raising concerns that it could impact drinking water, hunting and fishing.

“Tennesseans have a long history of being stewards of our environment to the benefit of both our souls and wallets,” said Grace Stranch, CEO of Harpeth Conservancy. “It is no wonder that we are one of the fastest-growing states in the country. Growth doesn’t have to be antithetical to conserving our natural resources. Removing the long-standing protections for our wetlands sets the wrong precedent and goes against the balance necessary for the long-term interests of Tennesseans.”

Read more: Developers seeking to gain from building boom tied to Ford plant, push for weaker wetland rules.

Vaughan and West Tennessee home builders

During his time in office, Vaughan has maintained a close relationship with home builders.

He is the the owner of Township Development Services, a real estate services company based in West Tennessee. The company’s listed address is located on the same block as the office of the West Tennessee Home Builders Association, roughly 367 feet apart, according to Google Maps. 

Several of Build Tennessee’s PAC donors and its lead organizer are members of the West Tennessee Home Builders Association. 

Keith Grant — whom Build Tennessee’s PAC listed as an officer and whose email address is on the group’s lobbying disclosure form — is a former president of the West Tennessee Home Builders Association. He also donated $24,000 to the PAC. 

Grant, a prominent Collierville developer, did not respond to a request for comment.

Vaughan and his political action committee have received $9,000 from Build Tennessee. 

Other influential groups backing the legislation include the Tennessee Chamber of Commerce, Tennessee Farm Bureau, and the Associated Builders and Contractors. Each business association has spent at least $1 million since 2009 on lobbying, donations and independent expenditures to influence state lawmakers, according to a political spending database maintained by the Lookout.

• The Tennessee Chamber of Commerce: $4.4 million

• Tennessee Farm Bureau: $1.9 million

• Associated Builders & Contractors (All Tennessee chapters): $1.5 million

Anita Wadhwani contributed to this report.

Tennessee Lookout is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Tennessee Lookout maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Holly McCall for questions: info@tennesseelookout.com. Follow Tennessee Lookout on Facebook and Twitter.

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Community Concerns Surround Velsicol’s Next Move in North Memphis 

Entrance to a Memphis Velsicol plant. (Photo: Ashli Blow)

A chemical company in North Memphis that spent decades dumping toxic materials into waterways is looking to renew a state permit that would allow hazardous waste operations to continue at its defunct facility. 

Unlike other Velsicol facilities across the United States that have become Superfund sites — a federal designation that allows the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to fund cleanup of contaminated areas — the Memphis location, 119 Warford St., has worked under a state-sanctioned permit since 2014. Under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) in Tennessee, companies can store, treat, and dispose of hazardous waste. The primary difference between the two is that RCRA addresses the management of hazardous waste and Superfund is geared toward the remediation of abandoned sites with contamination. 

Environmental advocates and residents question whether a hazardous waste permit is the appropriate avenue for Velsicol or whether the company is using it as a means to circumvent national Superfund site status. 

People will have a rare opportunity to ask during a public meeting on March 21 at 6 p.m. at the Hollywood Community Center, when Velsicol representatives plan to discuss its plans to renew and update its corrective action permit.

The public meeting comes in the wake of the company’s recent bankruptcy filing and their obligation to submit a new work plan to the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC) to address contamination at a neighboring property, an affordable housing apartment complex. 

“This [RCRA] permit is really supposed to be used for facilities that have hazardous materials on site … it’s not really supposed to be used for a long-term cleanup,” said Sarah Houston, executive director of watchdog group Protect Our Aquifer. “Really that should be something that has more federal oversight like the Superfund program, and we just see that this permitting structure has really made this a very slow cleanup process and isn’t doing the real due diligence of removing the toxins from the soil and the groundwater and really finishing the job.”

Velsicol created chemicals so dangerous that it changed environmental policy nationwide. Their pesticide production with chemicals like dieldrin and endrin became the center of Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring,” published in 1962 and credited with the start of the modern environmental movement. Carson described the chemicals as the “elixirs of death” and warned of its neurological effects on people and wildlife, as well as its nearly irreversible pollution in ecosystems. 

As America responded with federal regulation, such as banning chemicals for domestic use, Velsicol continued to make chemicals like chlordane through the early 1990s in Memphis — more than 30 years after the national reckoning. Meanwhile, the Black community around it was left to live with an enduring toxicity. 

The Memphis facility closed in 2012, but to this day, as people pass by Velsicol, the 62-acre site appears unchanged from behind the chain-link fence. Many think it is a Superfund site, because of its appearance resembling that of a desolate lot. 

The secretive operations of today’s Velsicol

In Southwest Tennessee, Velsicol is known for disposing of their chemicals in two landfills that became Superfund sites: One in the Hollywood community in Memphis and the other in Toone, an hour east of Memphis. Their cleanup at these dumps, and subsequent lawsuits and settlements, were heavily followed by mainstream media and politicians, but little public understanding exists about the facility where the chemicals were originally produced.  

In anticipation of its permit renewal, something that only happens once every 10 years, the Lookout conducted a months-long investigation into Velsicol in 2022. We reviewed 125 public records that documented 40 years of its cleanup efforts. Under RCRA, Velsicol is required to submit a yearly Corrective Action Effectiveness Reports (CAER). To accurately understand the technical data in these reports, the Lookout talked to lawyers, policy analysts, and chemists who work with site remediation. 

Velsicol closed its chemical plant 10 years ago. Memphis still endures its toxic legacy. 

According to those reports, since 1999, Velsicol has been trying to reduce a fluctuating plume of chemicals beneath the facility that’s mass measured around 126 acres, which is roughly the size of Liberty Bowl stadium. The company calls the plume “under control.” It monitors a network of wells to calculate the boundary and weight of the plume, made mostly of carbon tetrachloride – a chemical used as house cleaner that is now also banned for consumer use by the EPA.

Their plume has decreased from over 80,000 pounds to 7,000 pounds of chemicals over 20 years. 

“The fact that they have removed 90 percent doesn’t mean that it’s 90 percent less toxic. There’s much more in terms of threat and potential injury than just the total,” Christopher Reddy, a marine chemist who analyzes drinking water for pollutants, including pesticides, told The Lookout in 2022.

Velsicol reported to TDEC that it extracted another 2,659 pounds as of 2023, and it is unclear how much of the plume remains.  

Scientists such as Reddy and advocates like Houston express concern about lingering chemicals and the groundwater’s flow, as these concentrations of chemicals may move downward into the ground and potentially reach layers of the Memphis Sand Aquifer, the primary drinking water source for over one million residents in the region.

But there are even more concerns about what lies above the surface. 

Bankruptcy, residential contamination

Guided by RCRA regulations, the remediation for topical contamination in soil has unfolded gradually, marked by a series of inspections, investigations, action plans, status reports, and investigations. 

During their permit tenure, Velsicol incurred minor violations from TDEC for mislabeling materials. However, following The Lookout investigation, Velsicol faced a different array of violations and deficiency notices from TDEC.

Last August, when attempting to file its latest CAER, Velsicol submitted a document that did not include analytical laboratory reports. This January, TDEC gave Velsicol a violation for not having documentation of hazardous waste management training in recent years. According to monitoring reports filed over the last decade, Velsicol employs two people at its Memphis facility. 

The fact that they have removed 90 percent doesn’t mean that it’s 90 percent less toxic. There’s much more in terms of threat and potential injury than just the total.

– Christopher Reddy, marine chemist

TDEC is also now requiring that Velsicol submit an interim measures work plan by the end of April to address contamination at the neighboring Cypress Gardens Apartments on 1215 Springdale Street. The property manager of the affordable housing apartment complex hired an independent environmental consulting agency, Tioga, to collect soil samples. The Lookout reached out to the property manager, but they did not respond to comment. 

Tioga took the tests to a lab that found several pesticides including aldrin and endrin with dieldrin exceeding the EPA’s contamination limit for residential properties. 

“The findings of this assessment indicate that soil contamination associated with the former Velsicol plant still remains on the property and could potentially post a continued risk,” said the report, signed by Tioga Geologist John Luke Hall. 

The report specified that the western building alongside Cypress Creek, where Velsicol disposed of their hazardous waste for years, was most at risk. The environmental consultants recommended the removal of the soil between the apartment building and Cypress Creek.  

It would be a part of existing work that Velsicol does to extract patches of contaminated soil on its property, where a baseball diamond-shaped consolidation pile at the northwest corner of its property Each time soil is added to the pile, a tarp-like impermeable liner is put over it and welded into place. Eventually, the pile will be capped and “monitored in perpetuity to ensure the cap is not compromised. 

“[The permit] comes around every decade,” said Kathy Yancey-Temple. “So we’re here again, and we have to fight them off again.” (Photo: Ashli Blow)

The Lookout reached out to Velsicol’s Vice President George Harvell for comment, but he had not responded to our request by the publication of this article. 

Velsicol Chemical LLC and its parent corporations filed for bankruptcy in September, and Harvell wrote in a letter to TDEC that the company plans to reorganize. It’s a similar step that the Velsicol plant in Michigan, which operated under a different corporate parent, took, also filing for bankruptcy and relying on the EPA and State of Michigan for funding to clean up its site. It’s now one of the country’s costliest Superfund sites. 

“[The permit] comes around every decade,” said Kathy Yancey-Temple. “So we’re here again, and we have to fight them off again.” (Photo: Ashli Blow)

Kathy Yancey-Temple lives near the Velsicol facility in Douglass Park, a historic community established by a formerly enslaved individual to provide safe property ownership for Black families during the Reconstruction era. The neighborhood is now surrounded by industry. 

Yancey-Temple believes that Velsicol’s toxic practices have been at the expense of her community’s health and livelihoods. 

As an organizer for the Center for Transforming Communities, Yancey-Temple has had difficulties in getting clear answers about the company’s actions over the past decade, submitting her own public record requests to the state for information. Despite her efforts, neither she nor other community members have received outreach from the company about health implications of the contaminants that linger. 

Years of committed environmental justice advocacy efforts played a crucial role in the company’s closure. Yancey-Temple is confident that continued community organizing can be instrumental in navigating this next phase and advocating for a thorough cleanup to conclude, allowing the property to be redeveloped. 

“[The permit] comes around every decade,” she said. “So we’re here again, and we have to fight them off again.” 

Tennessee Lookout is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Tennessee Lookout maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Holly McCall for questions: info@tennesseelookout.com. Follow Tennessee Lookout on Facebook and Twitter.

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Aquifer Gets Continued Scientific Oversight With New Contract, New Hire

Schoefernacker I Credit Protect Our Aquifer

The Memphis Sand Aquifer will get continued scientific oversight with a new five-year contract awarded to a group at the University of Memphis (U of M) and a new science director at Protect Our Aquifer (POA). 

Researchers with the Center for Applied Earth Sciences and Engineering Research (CAESER) at the U of M will continue to monitor the aquifer’s water quality for the next five years. The group recently won an updated contract from the city of Memphis, the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, and Memphis Light, Gas & Water (MLGW) worth $9.75 million. 

Earlier this year, the group reported that the protective clay layer that protects the Memphis-area’s drinking water was once thought to “have a few holes in it” but they thought at the time that “it’s looking more like Swiss cheese.” Before the study, the aquifer was thought to have two to six breaches, now researchers believe the figure could range from six to 36.

“In the past, we probably thought of this clay layer as protective of our groundwater supply,” CAESER’s director, Dr. Brian Waldron, said during an MLGW meeting in April. “It was a continuous layer of clay with a few holes in it. Well, we’re starting to believe that it’s looking more like Swiss cheese.”

Results of CEASAR’s full study of the layer is expected next month.

City leaders and MLGW officials hired the group in 2018 to study water quality and the protective clay layer, concerned about impacts to water quality. While the water “is safe for now,” Waldron said, the clay layer is not as protective as once thought. For this, he suggested a proactive approach to leaders and they awarded his group the renewed contract.  

 The money will support programs to develop technology to remotely sensing breaches in urban areas, developing computer models to better understand the movement of water and contaminants, and the movement of water between the many aquifers below the city’s surface. 

The aquifer will have another scientific eye upon it as POA recently hired its first scientific director. The group hired hydrogeologist and state licensed professional geologist, Dr. Scott Schoefernacker earlier this month.

Schoefernacker spent the past 11 years with CAESER investigating, protecting, and sustaining

groundwater resources in Shelby County and West Tennessee. Prior to CAESER, Schoefernacker worked as a geologist for the Memphis-based environmental consulting firm EnSafe conducting various environmental investigations and site assessments across the United States.

“We’ve been fighting with our science hand behind our back since the beginning”,  said POA founder and board chair Ward Archer. “Although every decision we’ve made has been science-driven, having a scientist of Scott’s caliber on our team is going to strengthen our organization.”

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Cover Feature News

Sun Block: Memphis’ Hard Road to More Solar Power

Vaclav Volrab | Dreamstime.com

Blue Oval City, the planned automotive assembly plant operated by Ford Motor Company and SK Innovation, supercharged local imaginations. Jobs, business, and money — sure — but this project could allow West Tennessee to be a rugged, “built-Ford-tough” cowboy from the past and Captain Planet for the future at the same time.

The project proves Ford Motor Co. is dead serious about that marriage of ideas. The 1,500-acre campus will cost $5.6 billion to build, the biggest manufacturing investment in the company’s history. The planned megacampus in Haywood County is the first Ford will build “in more than a generation.”

This bold pivot to electric vehicles was a hard-to-miss shift in the wind. It’s a massive bet that customers still want the mythical, American self-reliance projected by its iconic F-150 truck — but they also want it without the gas-guzzling, planet-choking, tailpipe fog of most cars made in the last 100 years.

The moment was bold enough that Ford CEO Bill Ford told reporters, “We’re on the cusp of a revolution,” one that would help “build a better future for America.” It doesn’t stop at trucks.

“The all-new megacampus just outside of Memphis, called Blue Oval City, aspires to have 100 percent renewable energy, zero waste to landfill, and reusing every drop of water, to ensure our planet is in it for the long haul,” Ford Motor Co. tweeted at the time.

But if nothing changes, and without help from other programs, the all-electric F-150 Lightnings that roll off the line here first will be ready for antique Tennessee license plates by the time that plant is powered entirely by renewable energy. Blue Oval City sits squarely in the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) service area, and that power provider says it won’t be carbon-neutral until 2050, about 25 years after the Ford plant is expected to open.   

If TVA’s power mix remains the same, that cutting-edge factory — and those Earth-saving trucks — will be charged with a mix heavy with nuclear power, coal, and natural gas. Only 14 percent of TVA’s power-generation portfolio is renewable, including hydroelectric (11 percent), wind and solar (3 percent), and some energy-efficiency programs (1 percent). But TVA says their Green Invest turnkey solar program “can help businesses like Ford achieve their sustainability goals using 100 percent renewable energy.” TVA says it leads its Southeastern peers with a generation portfolio that is already 63 percent carbon-free.

Throughout the Tennessee River Valley, major corporations, big Tennessee companies, cities, counties, and more have publicly stated environmental goals. They all want to reduce waste and reduce their carbon footprints, meaning they want less reliance on fossil fuels and more on renewables, like wind and solar.

TVA knows this, according to internal documents, and considers it a threat to its bottom line, one it means to fix. If this sounds off, U.S. House members thought so, too, enough to launch an investigation into TVA’s business practices on renewables.

Joined at the Hip on Climate Change
Memphis and Shelby County’s climate goals around renewable energy will depend much on TVA, and some say that could be problematic.

Greenhouse gas emissions from energy accounted for nearly half (46 percent) of all of the Memphis area’s total emissions, according to the latest environmental inventory taken back in 2016 for the Memphis Area Climate Action Plan adopted in 2019. Energy emissions include those in buildings: houses, apartments, stores, salons, banks, museums, restaurants, warehouses, factories, and more. The rest were emissions from two other major categories: transportation (52 percent) and waste (like landfills and wastewater treatment) at 12 percent.

The climate plan — approved by the Memphis City Council, the Shelby County Commission, Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland, and Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris — commits these governments to developing renewable energy generation at key facilities (like solar panels on government buildings) and/or buying renewables through energy certificates, green tariff products, and participating in community shared solar projects.

But those are details. The plan and, therefore, everyone who approved it, agreed on one thing: “grid decarbonization — or increasing the carbon-free energy sources in our electric supply — has the greatest impact on reducing greenhouse-gas emissions in our community.” They all agreed, too, that there was little they could do about it.

“As noted in the discussion of community-wide education targets, a large portion of these 2020 reductions are expected as a result of actions outside local control,” reads the plan, “for example, TVA’s planned increase in carbon-free energy sources in their energy portfolio.”

To see just how closely the city’s goals are dependent on TVA, consider their timelines to carbon-free energy. The Memphis Area Climate Action Plan calls for the electric grid to be 80 percent carbon-free by 2035. So do TVA’s plans. (Even though President Joe Biden’s climate goals want totally carbon-free energy by 2035.) Memphis-area leaders want a completely carbon-free electric grid by 2050. So does TVA.

A mix of solar and wind projects helped the TVA to reduce carbon emissions by 63 percent from 2005 to 2020. But solar leads the way in the Southeast, and TVA says it’ll be mainly solar projects that will aid it in its future reductions.

But environmental watchdog groups claim TVA has thrown up roadblocks to solar projects, especially for homeowners and business owners, to protect its finances. The reasons are complicated, but one thing is clear to Maggie Shober, research director with the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE).

“TVA is behind,” Shober said on solar energy. “TVA is behind the Southeast, and the Southeast is behind the rest of the country.”

However, TVA says it is now building the “energy system of the future,” which aspires to net-zero emissions by 2050 and to add 10,000 megawatts of solar.

Where Do We Stand?
When it comes to solar, Tennessee (with about 390 megawatts of solar capacity) ranks third to last in the Southeast, ahead of only Mississippi (362 megawatts) and Alabama (319 megawatts). Florida leads the region with 7,765 megawatts of solar capacity, followed by North Carolina (7,460 megawatts) and Georgia (3,444 megawatts). All of this is according to late-2021 figures from the Solar Energy Industries Association.

Among power providers in the Southeast with more than 500,000 customers, TVA ranks 10th of 13 on solar watts per customer, according to SACE’s annual “Solar in the Southeast” report. The Southeast average of watts per customer is 423 watts. TVA provides 105 solar watts per customer, according to the report. The highest is North Carolina’s Duke Energy with 1,952 solar watts per customer. The lowest is Tampa, Florida’s Seminole Electric Co-Op, providing only 45 solar watts per customer.   

Among TVA’s biggest Tennessee customers, Memphis Light, Gas and Water (MLGW) ranks second for solar watts per customer. MLGW offers 66 solar watts per customer, only slightly behind Nashville Electric Service, offering 67 solar watts per customer. These figures fall below the Southeast average of 423 solar watts per customer and the TVA average of 90 watts per customer hour.

So, Tennessee ranks near the bottom on solar. TVA ranks near the bottom on solar. And MLGW ranks below TVA’s average for access to solar power.

“TVA will be quadrupling solar capacity by 2024, yet continues to trail the other large utility systems in the Southeast,” reads the SACE report. “By 2024, SACE projects TVA to reach the 2020 region average.”

Winds Don’t Blow
In 2010, Houston-based Clean Line Energy Partners answered a call from the U.S. Department of Energy for a new project to modernize the country’s electric transmission structure, increase domestic energy sources, support new jobs, and do it all without taxpayer money. Clean Line proposed a $2.5 billion, 700-mile-long transmission line from Oklahoma to end at a connector near Millington. 

If the deal was done, 3,500 megawatts of clean wind power from Oklahoma and Texas would have pumped through Memphis and into the TVA service area and beyond starting in 2020. But it wasn’t. So, it’s not. And TVA was the deal-breaker.

The connector project alone was valued at $259 million. It had broad support here from government, civic, and business groups. It was even supported by the Memphis and Shelby County Economic Development Growth Engine (EDGE) with $23.3 million in tax breaks, which the group said would yield $37.1 million in benefits back to the community.

Then-Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Maryville) opposed the project, claiming the power was unreliable and that, over decades, it would increase TVA rates. Then-Shelby County Commissioner Terry Roland (R-Millington) fired back at Alexander, a fellow Republican, claiming the project would be a financial boon for the area and that Alexander “put his own agenda ahead of what’s best for West Tennessee.”

For TVA, though, the clean-energy deal got down to economics. After nearly seven years of study — with the company spending money to move the project forward — TVA said it didn’t really need any extra power, no matter the source.

Bill Johnson, TVA president at the time, told the Chattanooga Times Free Press in 2017, “We’re looking at a power demand in the future that is flat, or declining slightly, so we don’t anticipate needing major additions to power generation for a decade or more.”

While TVA said the move did not make financial sense at the time, it welcomed Clean Line to come back with a new proposal. They did not. The company withdrew its proposal at the end of 2017 and sold the land for the project to NextEra Energy, the world’s largest utility company, to divert more wind power to the Southwest.

Environmentalists blasted TVA’s “thanks, but no thanks” on the wind-energy project. Others, like Alexander, celebrated it as a solid example of financial stewardship. Either way, it remains TVA’s highest-profile example of saying “thanks, but no thanks” to renewables, especially ones it does not own.  

A Rate-Making Rubik’s Cube
While the Clean Line dismissal was a high-dollar, high-profile deal conducted largely in public, some say TVA is still blocking renewables, especially solar, in a smaller, more complicated way. But it’s a way that directly affects and involves its customers.

In 2018, TVA approved a “grid access fee.” With it, TVA charges MLGW the fee to use its electricity grid and 7,000 miles of transmission lines. If demand for TVA’s power will stay the same or go down in the future, as former TVA CEO Johnson said in 2017, then that means fewer dollars for TVA as expenses rise. Fixed fees, like the grid access charge, ensure a steadier stream of dollars, instead of the up-and-down whims of market demand. 

The Sierra Club explained grid access fees this way: “TVA’s board of directors today approved a mandatory fixed fee that will force customers to pay more on their electric bill before they even flip a switch.”

MLGW spokeswoman Stacey Greenberg said the utility, TVA’s largest customer, paid $59.1 million in grid access fees in the 2021 fiscal year. When asked if those fees were passed on to MLGW customers, Greenberg said, “As stated in the response to the first question, the change was a revenue neutral change at the system level and MLGW did not change the fixed or variable portions of any retail rates.” After press time, Greenberg clarified that the fees are passed on to MLGW customers. She said the average residential customer pays about $6.24 each year for the grid access fee.

So, what does this have to do with solar? These fees will remain the same no matter how much solar you sell back to the grid. Solar advocates say these fees undercut savings on electric bills and, therefore, cut the amount of clean, renewable solar power that businesses and homeowners will install on their buildings.

But in 2018, TVA said solar projects for specific sites were not fair and that its current energy prices “over-incentivize consumer installation of [distributed energy sources like solar] leading to uneconomic results for the people of the Valley as a whole.”

“Over the next decade, forecasted load is expected to be flat or declining, resulting in little need for new energy sources,” according to a 2018 TVA report. “At the same time, consumer interest in renewable energy continues to rise. The imbalance created by uneconomic [on-site solar projects] investment means that costs are shifted to consumers throughout the Valley who cannot afford [on-site solar projects] or otherwise choose not to invest in [on-site solar projects].”

But it came to light that dissing these solar projects was about more than economic justice for TVA. A Freedom of Information Act request by SACE found an internal TVA PowerPoint presentation. It claimed that distributed energy resources (like solar panels on homes or businesses) present “a threat to our business model.”   

“Essentially all ‘normal’ large commercial customers would benefit economically from some amount of on-site solar installations,” reads the PowerPoint published by SACE.

The presentation then listed several major corporations with renewable energy goals, companies like McDonald’s, Walmart, Amazon, Cargill, FedEx, Google, Unilever, Hilton, and more. TVA identified its customers with renewable goals. If they met their goals on renewables, the utility projected losses of up to $500 million. If they passed the grid access fees, “the number of economic [solar] installations decrease by [about] 40 percent.”

It wasn’t until January 2022 that all of it caught the attention of members of the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce. Four ranking Democrats on the committee issued a letter to TVA president and CEO Jeff Lyash that month. They sought an explanation of TVA’s rate changes and whether they “were intended to interfere with the deployment of distributed energy resources.” The group also wanted “an explanation for TVA’s comparative underinvestment in solar and wind generation.”

“TVA has also interfered with the adoption of renewable energy by its commercial and residential customers,” reads the letter. “TVA has also permitted local power companies to impose new fees on distributed solar generation in order to lessen the potential decrease in TVA load that may occur through the adoption of [behind the meter] generation.”

In a February 22nd letter to the House committee, TVA said, “The 2018 rate change that included the grid access charge (GAC) better reflects the wholesale cost of energy and recognizes the value of the grid’s reliability and associated costs. The primary objectives of the 2018 rate change were to continue to improve the alignment of wholesale rates with their underlying costs to serve and to facilitate measured, managed changes in LPCs’ [local power company’s] retail rate structures.”

TVA says it will achieve its clean-energy goals, especially the 10,000 megawatts of added solar, in a way that will not “put the financial burden on other consumers while maintaining our 100 percent reliable delivery of electricity to Memphis and Shelby County.”

“Reliable electricity is extremely important, not only for homes and businesses in our region but also for attracting jobs and industry,” TVA spokesman Scott Brooks said in a statement last week. “While other regions like Texas had blackouts and failing power grids in the last two February storms, TVA’s delivery of power to Memphis remained intact. And we’re doing all this while holding wholesale power rates steady for a third year in a row, with a commitment in our strategic plan to maintain rates for the next decade.”

Power and Water
Another way TVA could block renewables, according to an ongoing lawsuit, is through the length of TVA’s new contracts. These 20-year contracts replace previous seven-year contracts, enough for plaintiffs in the suit to call them “never-ending.” The plaintiffs — Protect Our Aquifer (POA), Alabama Center for Sustainable Energy, and Appalachian Voices — say these long-term contracts lock customers in and lock out other providers who may be less reliant on fossil fuels than TVA.

“There are growing calls in the Tennessee Valley for cheaper, cleaner, and renewable power options — but the Tennessee Valley Authority is able to ignore these demands through the use of its long-term agreement program,” said Southern Environmental Law Center Tennessee Office director Amanda Garcia. “These contracts automatically renew each year and require 20-years notice to terminate, making it practically impossible for local power companies to leave TVA. By locking its customers into these never-ending contracts, TVA is able to bankroll new fossil fuel plants and slow-walk its transition to clean energy solutions — like solar and wind power, energy efficiency, and battery storage technology — that are effective, affordable, and available right now.”

As for the public’s interest, POA executive director Sarah Houston said TVA’s new natural-gas-power Allen Combined Cycle Plant is a threat to the sustainability of the Memphis area’s drinking water. That plant used 653 million gallons of water in 2020, according to a report in The Commercial Appeal, to cool its turbines.

That water comes from the Memphis Sand Aquifer, albeit delivered from the Davis and Allen well fields a few miles from the gas plant. While the pumping is not directly next to the toxic coal ash pits, Scott Banbury, conservation program coordinator and lobbyist with the Tennessee Sierra Club, said drawing water there could still bring toxic elements into the aquifer. In general, though, Houston said, “with renewables, you have a lot less local water use and water impact compared to frack-gas plants and coal plants.”

In August 2021, United States District Judge Thomas Parker dismissed TVA’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit.

“The LTP was developed in collaboration with local power companies, and 146 of them have voluntarily signed the contract implementing it,” TVA said in a statement. “TVA disagrees with the allegations and will appropriately reply through the court.”

Big Decision
All of this comes in the backdrop of MLGW’s historic decision on whether or not to break with TVA and find another power provider. In its search, MLGW makes it clear it wants more solar power, too.

MLGW’s request for proposals says it’s looking for someone to install 1,000 megawatts of solar power, divided equally between two facilities in North Memphis and South Memphis. 

As MLGW’s search goes on, the path to more renewable energy for Memphians is still unclear, but with a commitment to more solar power, the sun may still shine on a more renewable, less fossil-fuel-dependent future. 

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News The Fly-By

Protect Our Aquifer Teams Up With NASA For Aquifer Study

NASA’s Global Precipitation Measurement satellite will soon begin to image parts of 12 West Tennessee counties. (Photo: NASA)

Satellites from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) will soon point their cameras at West Tennessee to better understand and protect the area’s drinking water.

Protect Our Aquifer (POA) teamed up with NASA for a research project starting this month to monitor the recharge zones of the Memphis Sand Aquifer. The project is part of NASA’s DEVELOP program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to address environmental and public policy issues through Earth observations around the world.

NASA will employ its Global Precipitation Measurement satellite, another tool from the International Space Station, and more to study the recharge zone, which spans 12 West Tennessee counties. The study hopes to find “hot spots,” where more water enters the recharge zone, and, then, to protect those hot spots.

These areas are important to a water system that supports more than 1 million people and industries, companies, and farms. These zones are where rainfall directly replenishes the aquifer.

“We have a valuable collection of remote sensing acquisitions, and we are excited to use this data over the Memphis Sand Aquifer to guide stakeholders,” said project adviser Kerry Cawse-Nicholson of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

The study will last five months, and findings are due this summer.

We caught up with POA executive director Sarah Houston to talk about the project. How do they hope to use the information and how could it inform development in the region, especially around Ford Motor Co.’s Blue Oval City to built be close to these recharge zones?

Memphis Flyer: How did this collaboration with NASA come about?

Sarah Houston: It was actually through a Rhodes College graduate Erica Carcelen [project manager for the NASA DEVELOP program]. She had heard of Protect Our Aquifer and our work and is now working at NASA full-time. She reached out to us to apply for a program that pairs new hires with NASA with seasoned scientists to do really applied science research projects to take a lot of this information and available tools and apply it to a community need.

What do you hope to learn?

We are hoping that we can get a sense of these new technologies that can be applied to understand the aquifer system, not only for this study but future studies. This is the first time these satellite tools have been used for a study like this here.

We are hoping to get a sense of where our recharge zone hot spots are. Where the sands come to the surface, that’s where our water supply is being sustainably replenished.

We don’t want to pave over the recharge zone. So, we’re hoping to find specific areas that are our hot spots where more rainfall is directly re-entering the system compared to others. Those areas, we know, are very important for our water sustainability portfolio.

How do you hope to use the information?

This is going to be helpful, not only as Ford actually develops their property, but it will also be informative for the broader region as we start to see more development, like suburbs coming up. If there are areas that are really important to recharge, could those be conserved? So, how do we still grow the region sustainably and use best management practices as we’re building out these communities?

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No ‘Oil in the Soil’: Byhalia Pipeline Project Gets Lengthy Council Review

CREDIT: Protect Our Aquifer

Protect Our Aquifer

The proposed route of the Byhalia Connection Pipeline.

A Memphis City Council committee will reconvene in two weeks to reconsider a resolution to oppose the proposed Byhalia Connection Pipeline that would run through southwest Memphis.

A joint venture with two companies — Valero and Plains All American Pipeline — began surveying here last year for a project to build a 49-mile pipeline from Memphis to Marshall County, Mississippi for a new pipeline that would connect to other crude-oil pipelines in the area. Plains All American spokeswoman Katie Martin told council members here Tuesday the company hopes to begin construction of the pipeline within a few months and then wrap up the construction within nine months.

A resolution opposing the plan from council members Dr. Jeff Warren and Edmund Ford got a lengthy hearing Tuesday of more than one hour. In the end, council members voted to hold the item for two weeks to allow for more testimony and more time to gather facts.

The resolution specifically asks Memphis Light, Gas & Water (MLGW) to refuse an easement across any of its property for the project. While MLGW officials said the utility only owns a small portion of the land on the pipeline route, Warren asked that they deny the company rights to it.

Warren and Ford oppose the pipeline as it would sit above the Memphis Sand Aquifer, the source of the city’s famously pure drinking water, and the Davis Wellhead, where some of that water is drawn. The pipeline would also run through Ford’s mostly Black district.

The resolution says African Americans were and are 75 percent more likely to reside near “toxic” oil and gas infrastructure. It points to data from the Journal of the National Cancer Institute that living within 30 miles of this infrastructure increases the risk of developing cancers including lymphoma, lung cancer, breast cancer, colon cancer, and prostate cancer. Susceptibility to these diseases increase with age, according to the resolution. More than 35 percent of Memphians living in that proximity to the proposed pipeline are 50 years old and above, the resolution says.
[pullquote-1-center] “I do not want to be Flint, Michigan,” Ford said. “Flint, Michigan, was Black people and my district is Black people and that ain’t going to happen.”

Martin, the Plains All American spokeswoman, claimed the company’s pipelines are safe, protected by the “latest and greatest technology,” including constant pressure monitoring and weekly inspection flyovers.

Martin said the economic impact of the pipeline could be as high as $3 million. The company has already given $1 million to local charities. Also, she said 94 percent of landowners on the pipeline route have agreed to sell the company easements across their land. Though, she admitted some land would likely have to be acquired through eminent domain, or taken by the government or by a purchase forced by the government for the public benefit.

In the resolution, Ford and Warren say the pipeline “fails to confer some benefit or advantage to the public” in Memphis and Shelby County. For this, they said arguments for eminent domain are “spurious.”

Protect Our Aquifer, a Memphis group seeking protection of the Memphis Sand Aquifer, asked its members to lobby their city council representatives to join the resolution and oppose the pipeline.

“This is what environmental injustice looks like,” reads a Monday email from Protect Our Aquifer. “They are asking a poor African American neighborhood — once again — to bear the burden of invasive construction, the potential of pollution, reduced property values, and quality of life to help a Texas corporation make billions of dollars.”

“There is no community benefit for this pipeline. Only risk to our drinking water. The crude oil in this high-pressure pipeline is headed for the Gulf of Mexico for export.”
[pullquote-2-center] The sentiment was echoed in a fiery speech Tuesday from Justin Pearson, who leads a group called Memphis Community Against Pipeline. He said the route was picked because those along it were majority Black, a process of “racist capitalism” through the “path of least resistance.”

“This is the community speaking back,” Pearson said of his testimony during Tuesday’s hearing. “The community is saying we don’t want oil in the soil. These people are being picked up by a billion-dollar corporation because they are the path of least resistance.”
[pullquote-3-center] Scott Crosby, an attorney with the Memphis law firm Burch, Porter & Johnson, told council members he is now representing private landowners along the pipeline route in the Boxtown area. He said some there refused to sell their land and were sued in condemnation proceedings. Others, he said, agreed to Byhalia’s terms because they thought they had no recourse. Several cases related to pipeline land acquisition there have been rolled into one, Crosby said, and hearings are set to begin on the matter next week.

“What we are asking council to do is to support this resolution and step in for individual landowners,” Crosby said, “and say to Byhalia Connection, ‘Memphis doesn’t want this pipeline.’”

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Environmental Groups Oppose Pipeline Project

CREDIT: Corey Owens/Greater Memphis Chamber

Corey Owens/Greater Memphis Chamber

A diagram shows the layer of aquifers underneath Memphis.

Environmental advocates urged against a crude oil pipeline that they say will cut through several Black neighborhoods and could endanger drinking water.

Two companies began surveying here last year for a project to build a 49-mile pipeline from Memphis to Marshall County, Mississippi to connect to other crude-oil pipelines in the area. Plains All American Pipeline and Valero hope to begin work next year on the new Byhalia Connection Pipeline to bring more crude oil through Memphis to other places in the U.S.

A website for the project said the Byhalia Connection project is in the “pre-construction and easement acquisition phase of the project. We’re targeting to start construction in 2021 and be in service approximately nine months later.”

The plan was been questioned by Shelby County Schools (SCS), property owners along the proposed route, and by protestors last week.

On Friday, four local environmental groups asked the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to deny the federal permit for the pipeline. The Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC), Protect Our Aquifer, Tennessee Chapter of the Sierra Club, and Memphis Community Against the Pipeline (MCAP) argued the “pipeline that would cut through several Black communities and the municipal wellfield that provides their drinking water, which is drawn from the Memphis Sand Aquifer.”
byhaliaconnection.com

The proposed Byhalia Connection would run through Black communities and across drinking water intake wells.

”We’re alarmed that — so far — no local, state, or federal agency is looking out for the groundwater that serves as Memphis’s drinking water,” said George Nolan, SELC senior attorney. “The nationwide permit the companies have applied for under the Clean Water Act states in very plain language that this type of permit does not allow for the construction of pipelines near drinking-water intakes, like the municipal well field it will run through.
[pullquote-1-center] ”If this oil pipeline leaks or spills, as many have done before, it could have devastating effects on the residents that live in southwest Memphis and their drinking water source.”

The groups argue that the pipeline would cut through many Black communities in southwest Memphis, including the Boxtown neighborhood. They claim that neighborhood is already “burdened” by dozens of industrial facilities. The area is home to the Valero oil refinery, Tennessee Valley Authority’s (TVA) shuttered, coal-burning Allen Fossil Plant, TVA’s gas-powered plant, and more.

“This resilient community, where many of our loved ones live and our ancestor’s bones rest, is being treated this way because of economic racism and environmental racism,” said Justin J. Pearson, a lead organizer of Memphis Community Against the Pipeline. “We care about the water that we drink, the land we live on, and the air we breathe, but too often our lives are deemed expendable by our own elected officials and company’s insatiable quest to profit off our very lives.”
[pullquote-2-center]
Southern Environmental Law Center

This image shows how the pipeline would cut through a drinking-water well field in southwest Memphis.

The groups say that because the pipeline would cross wetlands and streams, it would have to get a permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers under the Clean Water Act. While the companies are trying to get a permit, they’re asking for the wrong one, according to the groups, because of the pipeline’s proximity to a drinking water intake source.

The pipeline would cut through a drinking-water well field in southwest Memphis, operated by Memphis Light, Gas & Water. The wells there draw water from the Memphis Sand Aquifer, the famously clean source of the city’s drinking water. The wells in southwest Memphis supply drinking water to the primarily Black communities there.

“We think the Corps should consider the risks to our drinking water plus the environmental injustices this pipeline poses to residents,” said Jim Kovarik, Executive Director of Protect Our Aquifer. “This area of the Memphis Sand Aquifer is known to be vulnerable to contamination due to holes in its protective clay layer. In fact, there is a known breach in the Davis Well Field, near the pumping station. On top of that, the route is also near an earthquake fault line known as the New Madrid Seismic Zone. This is the wrong place for a pipeline.”

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Lawmaker Pauses Bill to Strip Local Groundwater Control

CREDIT: Tennessee Valley Authority

Tennessee Valley Authority

TVA workers install water quality monitoring wells near the now-idled Allen Fossil Plant.

A bill that would have threatened local protection for the Memphis Sand Aquifer has been delayed for this legislative session.

The bill was filed by two West Tennessee Republicans, Sen. Delores Gresham (R-Somerville) and Rep. Curtis Halford (R-Dyer). The bill would have prohibited cities and counties from exercising authority over a landowner’s water rights on “certain drilling requirements.”

Little information about the bill was divulged by the sponsors before its introduction Wednesday in the Senate Energy, Agriculture, and Natural Resources Committee. When asked about specifics last month, Molly Gormley, the deputy press secretary of the Tennessee Senate Republican Caucus only explained that the bill at the time was a caption bill and that “there is no intention for this legislation to move forward in its current form.”

U of M’s Scott Schoefernacker conducts a water quality test.

“The purpose of a caption bill is to open a part of Tennessee Code Annotated with the intention of bringing an amendment to provide specific content or address specific needs later,” explained Gormley. “While this caption bill opened the caption on water rights, the intention of this bill has not yet been determined. If the bill moves forward, an amendment will be forthcoming to provide further clarity to the subject.”

Gresham did not bring any such amendment forward during her brief explanation of the bill Wednesday. She explained only that rights to water adjoining or under land precede Tennessee statehood. She said water is necessary for agriculture, for irrigation and livestock. 

Gresham

She said Shelby County Health Department’s well construction codes seek to “exercise control over all groundwater in Shelby County.” She said such a move “may be the first documented situation in Tennessee history where riparian [basically, water ownership] rights are effectively removed.”

Gresham noted that Memphis Light, Gas & Water has said the Memphis Sand Aquifer contains more than 100 trillion gallons of water and that it sits under eight states. She said Shelby county sits next to the Mississippi River, the “15th largest river in the world.” Gresham said restricting landowners’ water rights here needed a public policy debate.

She introduced the bill this year “in the event legislation was needed to protect riparian rights.” But she said Shelby County leaders have heard her concerns and those of the Tennessee Farm Bureau and pulled the bill from consideration.

While the bill was not debated Wednesday, Sen. Raumesh Akbari (D-Memphis) published her opinion of the bill via the Medium website Wednesday morning.

Corey Owens/Greater Memphis Chamber

A diagram shows the layer of aquifers underneath Memphis.

“I will oppose any legislative effort to strip away of the rights of Memphians to protect our aquifer from unwanted drilling,” Akbari said. “For generations, the Memphis Sand Aquifer 
Tennessee General Assembly

Sen. Raumesh Akbari

 as provided the people of Shelby County clean and safe water at an affordable price.”

“The aquifer is essential to the health and well being of nearly 1 million Tennesseans and protecting this natural resource, which cannot be replaced, must be a top priority.”

Local environmental advocates in Shelby County said the bill would effectively “un-protect our aquifer,” giving rights to any landowner who wanted to drill into the aquifer, the source of the Memphis’ famously pristine drinking water.