Dear SOCM members,

It is with great pleasure and tremendous excitement that I greet you this New Year. I am extremely excited to introduce myself as the Executive Director for Statewide Organizing for Community eMpowerment. I am looking forward to working with all the members, staff, allies, and funders of our remarkable organization.

SOCM has been important to me for many years. My involvement with SOCM started with the threat to my home in Campbell County from a large Mountaintop Removal coal mine.  

I learned many things from the extraordinary members and organizers I met while fighting that destructive coal mine. I learned how to research mining permits and how to make a citizens complaint. I learned that the agencies that are supposed to protect our home places don't always get the job done - they need a little nudge (sometimes a hard shove) from time to time to do their jobs, and SOCM was there to provide that nudge (shove). The most important thing I learned was that I have power! We have power! We can make a difference! I learned that, working together, SOCM members become a potent force for dealing with our community problems. Through organized planning, research, training, and action, our members can and do accomplish what individuals working alone can not attain.

I also learned that meetings are more productive when you bring food, preferably BBQ... smoked pork.

I am looking forward to starting in my new role as Executive Director. It is a great honor to dive into this position, which I'm sure will challenge me, educate me, and lead me to grow in important and unforeseen ways.  I hope to help challenge and help educate members who will grow SOCM into an even more effective and powerful organization.

Sincerely,

Ann League 

SOCM joined a number of partners in late December to challenge TDEC and TVA over TDEC's approval of modification permits to the Kingston's gypsum disposal facility on the eastern side of the power plant, about half a mile from the site of the 2008 coal ash waste spill, the largest environmental disaster in America, of its kind.

Our members attended a poorly advertised public hearing on December 9th along with our partners in which only 2 community members were in attendance.  Surprisingly, not even the Roane County Community Advisory Group (CAG) on the Kingston Ash Spill Remediation Project were informed of the public hearing. In addition to lack of adequate public notification and access to documentation*, major questions exist around the geological suitability of the site. (*under the SWM Permit tab, type IDL730000211 in the search function to link to the TVA Fossil Plant Gypsum Landfill information)

Unwilling to let this issue pass quietly, SOCM and its partners began a campaign to bring this to the attention of the Roane County community and other groups across the state.  We jointly turned to media to raise awareness to ensure that the public had the tools necessary to let TDEC know their thoughts.  

Kingston coal ash spill

As a result of the outcry, TDEC extended the comment deadline from December 19 to December 30, but we, along with our partners and the Roane County CAG, called for an extension to the comment deadline (to March 30, 2015), along with a request for TDEC to hold another public hearing.  We have not yet received acknowledgment of this request. 

 An article in the December 29th edition of the Knoxville News Sentinel revealed that "TDEC was so comfortable with the design of the expansion that TVA was allowed to build the landfill expansion before the permit was approved," an issue which we are investigating.  Join us and our partners in continuing to press TDEC and TVA for accountability to the community and transparent communication.  

 Write to:

TDEC - Email: Greg.Luke@tn.gov or Pat.Flood@tn.gov Phone: 615-532-0874  Fax: 615-532-0938  Address: Division of Solid Waste Management, William R. Snodgrass Tennessee Tower, 312 Rosa L. Parks Avenue, 14th Floor, Nashville, TN 37243