January 18

United Mountain Defense's Harriman field team traveled to Knoxville for a board meeting that also served as a planning meeting for the next week. It was good to see our Knoxville friends and catch up on the latest news from the BIG city.

Later in the evening we traveled to the United Mountain Defense volunteer house to discover that a minor flood had occurred inside the house. We found a copper pipe fitting that had come loose and had been flowing for an untold number of days. There was about 3 inches of water in the wall to wall carpet. It has added another level of disaster to our list of tasks. We got 4 hours of sleep this night. 

January 19

Happy MLK day!! So as the United Mountain Defense volunteers were vacuuming water logged carpets a lively statewide protest against TVA was occurring. There were protests in Johnson City, Knoxville, Chattanooga, and Nashville, TN.

There was an incredible amount of media coverage on the Chattanooga protests. There have been two Youtube videos created about the Knoxville protests. The Nashville protesters infiltrated the MLK Day March and distributed information about TVA's coal ash disaster. 

January 20

It has been interesting and hard to continue working on the TVA coal ash disaster while taking care of the flooded United Mountain Defense volunteer house as well. None the less United Mountain Defense volunteers set up a media messaging workshop and a citizen's press conference in Harriman, TN.

United Mountain Defense volunteers emailed out a press release announcing the citizen's press conference to all the media outlets that have been reporting on the TVA coal ash disaster.

Hey we need independent air quality monitoring!!!! Local residents are reporting that their gold and silver jewelry is being turned black and the tarnish can not be removed. They are reporting that they and their animals are having uncontrollable nose bleeds. There is one report of one dog's black nose turning red. Local residents are missing work because of respiratory distress. They are reporting shortness of breath. As soon as they travel out of the immediate disaster area some of these resident's symptoms clear up. I got a phone call yesterday from a lady who lives in Rockwood about 10 miles southwest of the disaster site. Rockwood is located in the path of the prevailing winds. The woman has an evacuation notice from her doctor because of respiratory distress. 

There is no shortage of a need for project funding. United Mountain Defense is a 501c3 and we are seeking funding or co-sponsoring organizations to help fund personal protection equipment, bottled water, independent air and water monitoring, and real time web cams.

If you are a resident impacted by TVA's coal ash disaster please contact us at 865 689 2778.

If you can make a donation of money or other resources please send a check to United Mountain Defense P.O. Box 20363 Knoxville, TN 37920 or use our PayPal account at www.unitedmountaindefense.org

Ed note:  Matt Landon, a full time volunteer with United Mountain Defense, is reporting from the ground in Harriman, TN.  Because of his chaotic schedule, we've just received a batch of diary posts from the past week, which we'll be re-publishing in chronological order. Here are all of his posts.