Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC) officials have said they will not attend any more town hall meetings in Polk County, and County Executive Robby Hatcher has no faith in their suggestion where citizens can get the answers they so desperately seek.
Hatcher confirmed last week that in a phone conversation with three TDEC representatives he was told by the agency’s executive director, whose name he could not remember, that the state agency would not send its representatives to a town hall meeting because of the “hostility and threats toward them” that have come from area citizens.
Hatcher said the executive director offered for questions to be forwarded and those questions would be answered. He said the executive director also offered meetings with county officials.
Hatcher said the executive director also suggested any questions should be directed toward Denali Water Solutions, the company operating the pilot program at Copperhill Industries.
This was confirmed by TDEC’s communications office that, responding to a question from The News Observer as to whether or not TDEC would, in fact, not attend town hall meetings, wrote, “The most appropriate entity to provide information to residents about this project is Denali Water Solutions.”
The email from TDEC continued, “While the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) did not list the site on the National Priorities List (NPL), the agency considers it an NPL-caliber site and is addressing it through the Superfund Alternative Approach. As they are the primary regulatory agency overseeing this site, they would also be the more appropriate entity to provide information.”
It was the suggestion that citizens contact Denali Water Solutions that Hatcher sees as a waste of time.
He related how he told his experience seeking information from Denali to the three TDEC officials on the phone call. It’s a story he has told many times since the incident happened.
When Hatcher toured the Copperhill Industries site in June with officials from Denali, TDEC and Copperhill Industires, he asked Denali officials for a copy of the Pilot Program Project paperwork they had submitted to TDEC and were operating under. It was 18 days before he received that paperwork.
Hatcher backed that delay up with recent experiences. The county executive said he had received many phone calls from concerned citizens. As he had been told by Denali representatives, he directed those citizens to contact them directly. But within three to five days, without exception, citizens called Hatcher back to say Denali would not or had not responded.