January 23

United Mountain Defense volunteers have been waiting to get new carpet put in the UMD volunteer house since we had an indoor flood on sunday night. We've still been helping organize between vacumming water and working with carpet specialists, and the insurance man.

So we have also been hounding TVA about the Material Safety Data Sheets AND WE FINALLY GOT A COPY OF IT TODAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The copies that we have are for Class F fly ash and for bottom ash. The main chemicals listed are aluminum oxide, iron oxide, calcium oxide, magnesium oxide, titanium oxide, and inorganic arsenic at varying ranges. We will try to get these sheets up on UMD's website and this blog.

We have also spent the day working on figuring out the air quality thing. WE HAVE GOOD NEWS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The Swan Pond community is so much further ahead than other communities because of all their documentation, diaries, doctor's visits, and keeping track of their symptoms. The community listserve serves as a historical document because people keep posting their health issues there.

We have been working on formulating an air quality monitoring program. We want to bring down the Bucket Brigade? These are low volume air monitors that each citizen could recieve training to use. We could set them up inside local houses and also outside. We are looking into Summa containers to test for Volitile Organic Compounds and other gases. We are also looking into high volume air monitors and TEOM infra red scanning particulate monitors. CTEH/ TVA and TDEC are only testing to PM10 which is okay but we want to test for Total Suspended Particles which will give us a fuller air quality picture.

We have learned that TDEC has still not installed the two high volume air monitors they promised on Jan 15, 2009 but instead only installed one on Lake shore Drive. Can anyone verify that a big loud vaccum air monitor is plugged in to an electrical outlet out on Lakeshore drive with a smaller CTEH monitor next to it?

Yesterday I tried to find the air monitor on Berkshire Drive and only saw and video taped the small low volume CTEH/ TVA monitors. Is there a big air monitor plugged in to an electrical outlet there on Berkshire? So CTEH/ TVA is using low volume air monitors that would typically be used for indoors. The equipment they are using can not show compliance or non compliance with the EPA ambient air quality standards. Basically their equipment is too small. If you are so inclined you should call Tom Welborn of EPA at (404) 562 9354 and tell him that TVA is using low volume monitors to say they are achieving EPA ambient air quality standards. Request more high volume air monitoring equipment now. TELL HIM ABOUT THE HEALTH IMPACTS OF THE COMMUNITY including nose bleeds and respiratory problems. The air is also turning gold and silver jewelery black. Ask to file an official complaint.

Also call TDEC at (615) 532 0562 and tell them they need to order TVA to install more high volume air monitors as per the EPA's and TDEC's monitoring and reporting requirements. TDEC is the lead enforcement agency right now so we should focus our energies on them. Tell them about your communities health. Call TDEC and file a complaint, ask them to install more high volume air monitors.

Also we made a call today to OSHA about the fact that a lot of the independent contractors did not give TVA's MSDS sheets to their workers. These workers aren't informed about the toxins they are working with and their employers are not supplying them with the appropriate safety equipment. We called Phillip Harrell of OSHA at (615) 232 3803. OSHA needed to know the names of the contractors so that they could follow up on getting MSDS sheets out to the workers. Either call OSHA with the names of the contractors or email us and we will call them for you.

Also about the dump trucks tracking coal fly ash out onto the roads. We need to be more diligent about the trucks because we witnessed trucks traveling out of the disaster site without being washed. We were able to identify them because they had mud caked up on the sides, back, and wheel wells of the trucks. This has and will continue to be an ongoing problem for your community, but we can put a stop to it by reporting the dirty trucks. The following is a breif history of the dirty dump truck situation. On Jan 6, 2009 Mr. Graves first recorded and made official complaints to the TN Highway Patrol, TDEC, EPA, TVA, and Howie Rose of Roane County Emergency Management Agency. On Jan 9, 2009 we reported dirty dump trucks. On Jan 12, 2009 Howie Rose told me TVA had purchased three truck washers to be installed. On Jan 15, 2009 we told Gill Francis of TVA not to forget the truck washers. On Jan 22, 2009 we called to report dirty dump trucks. As of Jan 23, 2009 TVA had still not installed the truck washers and Howie Rose said TVA will be installing them by this coming Tuesday Jan 27, 2009. This means that all of these agencies and TVA have knowingly been tracking coal fly ash out onto your roads for more than 17 days. This is unacceptable.

Please call TDEC (865) 594 6035
EPA (404) 562 9354
TN Highway Patrol (865) 594 5793
Howie Rose Roane County Emergency Management (865) 250 7347
TVA (865) 717 4006
File official complaints and make a paper trail for these injustices. 

January 24

A good portion of the day was spent helping get the carpet installed in the United Mountain Defense volunteer house. Chris Irwin, UMD staff attorney, took GQ magazine in a Southwings flyover of the TVA coal ash disaster site, the windfarm on Buffalo Mountain, and the surface coal mines of East Tennessee. GQ is writing about coal from the cradle to the grave with surface mines and destruction of the highland watersheds being the cradle. The TVA coal ash disaster shows the end product of coal cycle, the grave.

January 25

Today we celebrated Tom's birthday. Tom is Bonnie's dad and he recently chose to move down to TN from Indianapolis. He was temporarily living at the UMD volunteer house until he found a house of his own. He did find a house and then this coal ash disaster occurred and he has been on the ground since Dec 22, 2008.
Matt Landon of United Mountain Defense sent out a procedure for doing a swipe test to the Swan Pond community email list serve after receiving multiple requests.
Chris Irwin, UMD staff attorney took a Gentlemen's Quarterly reporter and photographer up to the King Mountain Mountainside Coal surface mine in Claiborne County near Eagan, TN to photograph the complete cycle of coal, from the cradle to the grave.

Later in the evening UMD had a board meeting where a plan of action was generated for the upcoming week. 

January 26

Bonnie Swinford, UMD's volunteer coordinator and grant writer has provided major support of ALL of the work that has occurred around TVA's coal ash disaster. Today Bonnie submitted receipts for multiple grants, updated UMD's project budget, and made copies of TVA's Material Safety Data Sheets.
Matt Landon got an email from TDEC about their air quality monitoring after calling TDEC to figure out why they had not installed the high volume air quality monitors around the disaster site. He learned that TDEC had chosen to not install more than one high volume air monitor.
Matt Landon got background air monitoring data from the Great Smoky Mountains National Park for the past 20 years after emailing Jim Renfro for assistance in Harriman, TN.

It was finally time to get back down to get back to the disaster site. Matt Landon had promised to take a Eva to the doctor on the previous Friday due to her deep lung cough. Unfortunately he was not able to take her on Friday and so awoke early Monday morning and drove her to the doctor. Her doctor could not give her a diagnosis but did offer to set up an appointment with a lung specialist in Oak Ridge, TN and gave her a prescription for Cipro, a strong antibiotic. The doctor thought that her deep lung cough was caused by a bacteria. Eva was not able to afford the anti biotic so she had to wait until Feb 1 to get the prescription.
After the doctor's visit I offered to drive Eva around to see the rest of the disaster site. Eva does not have a vehicle and walks everywhere because she is legally blind in one eye. Her grand daughter is not old enough to drive either. Even though she lives within ½ a mile of the disaster site she has not seem it yet as no one helped her get there yet.

As we drove around the Swan Pond Community we saw that one of the local churches driveways was open after being blockaded for the past four weeks. As we drove up to the cemetery overlooking the disaster site Eva gasped as she saw the destruction. She commented that she had fished many an afternoon in that part of the lake that was now completely filled in by TVA's coal ash. She just kept repeating that TVA had made such a mess, TVA had made such a mess.
While we were peacefully observing the work at the disaster site a TVA police officer came up the driveway and pulled to a halt in front of our vehicle. Matt Landon was recording and turned the camera on the TVA officer. This officer did not like the camera and asked for identification which Matt Landon produced. The officer got back in his vehicle and drove away with his ID. Upon returning the officer instructed Landon and Eva to evacuate the premises. Of course they complied immediately.

The whole time the video tape was rolling UMD was recording dirty dump trucks and other unwashed vehicles leaving TVA's coal ash disaster site while tracking coal fly ash out onto the public roads of Roane County and East TN.
As Landon and Eva drove around on the public roads of Roane County they videotaped the work at TVA's coal ash disaster. Upon driving on Berkshire Rd they were once again pulled over by the TVA police and Landon was given a citation for trespassing, his second citation for trespassing from TVA. Later Landon found out that TVA has bought all of the property along Berkshire Rd so it is their property.
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.