“Behind The Headlines,” hosted by Eric Barnes, CEO of The Daily Memphian, airs on WKNO Fridays at 7 p.m. and Sundays at 8:30 a.m. Watch the program now via the video link at the top of this article or hear the expanded podcast version of the show with more discussion via the link at the bottom of this story.
A proposed review board and permitting process for pipelines near or over the city’s underground water supply has been evolving since the ordinance and plans for the Byhalia Connection Pipeline were all put on hold this spring.
Third and final vote on the city ordinance is scheduled for the July 6 Memphis City Council session.
Sarah Houston, executive director of the nonprofit “Protect Our Aquifer,” says the provisions aren’t as broad as they were in the original version.
“It’s not about every single shovel that goes into the ground,” she said on the WKNO Channel 10 program “Behind The Headlines.”
Sarah Houston
“We want to be able to ensure that the community can maintain current infrastructure and growth,” Houston said. “But when it comes to the larger question of would we want more of that oversight − short answer − yes.”
Council member Jeff Warren, who is a cosponsor of the ordinance with council member Edmund Ford Sr., has said he will likely have more precise wording for the latest version some time in the next week.
Houston has also been part of the discussions about changes to an ordinance about which FedEx and other businesses with existing pipelines expressed some concerns initially. “I think that really broad view was really an attempt to be kind of a band-aid in this longer term discussion of how do we really take our aquifer resources into consideration,” Houston said.
Meanwhile, the County Commission is scheduled to take a final vote next month on another ordinance that would require oil pipelines to be at least 1,500 feet from schools, parks, churches and family recreation centers.
Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris said earlier this month the votes shouldn’t be delayed when it comes up for a vote at the July 26 commission meeting nor should a council vote on the setback proposal that would make it a joint city-county ordinance.
“Our message is merely that we have to follow this process,” Harris said on The Daily Memphian Politics Podcast. “I know that there are lots of interests at stake but the delay and what appears to be a special process here is something that worries me.”
Harris proposed the setbacks as an amendment to the countywide Unified Development Code.
Plains All American Pipeline, the company proposing a new 49-mile pipeline with a path through southwest Memphis, proposed what amounts to a truce in May as the final votes neared on both measures.
The company said it was looking at alternative routes. Company spokesmen also vowed to stop actions in Circuit Court to use eminent domain to get rights-of-way for the pipeline with property owners who have refused offers from the company.
But some of those landowners fought the move to withdraw the lawsuits, saying they want to see the courts rule on them.
Plains All American has also warned that the city review board proposed would hold up routine maintenance and expansion of existing pipelines and even underground tanks for gasoline pumps.
Houston says that is no longer the case and Warren has confirmed the review board’s scope of authority would be more specific.
“Through this process, we’ve seen they have been issued quite a few permits,” Houston said of the current process for pipelines. “But none of these permits have taken our city’s water supply into account. They’ve considered surface water impact. They’ve considered wetlands impact. They’ve considered general things with land development but not our aquifer system.”
Meanwhile in Washington D.C. Thursday, June 24, U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen of Memphis was critical of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for granting a crucial national permit for the Byhalia Connection Pipeline earlier this year.
“The Corps is committed to an environmental policy and being a good partner on the environment,” Cohen said during a subcommittee session of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.
“And yet this project did not take into consideration community issues,” he said. “The Corps has an obligation to consider those effects now.”
“Protect Our Aquifer” was founded four years ago to oppose plans by the Tennessee Valley Authority to drill its own water wells in southwest Memphis.
TVA later agreed to leave the wells unused and buy the water for its $1 billion Allen Combined Cycle Plant that opened in 2018 from Memphis Light, Gas and Water Division instead.
That decision came after indications of coal ash from the old Allen plant, which is near the new wells, were found at significant levels.
TVA is developing a plan to clean up the toxic coal ash at the decommissioned power generating plant.
The Byhalia Connection Pipeline drew the attention of Protect Our Aquifer as the group looks at a longer-term mission.
Protect Our Aquifer recently developed a five-year strategic plan that includes building a regional groundwater trust centered in Memphis with partners in seven other states.
Houston is the group’s first full-time employee and executive director.
“One of our goals is to build support and awareness for a regional groundwater trust,” Houston said. “I don’t think there is an easy definition of what that really looks like.”
The eight-state area that would be involved takes in the massive underground area that the aquifer covers. Parts of the underground eco-system are just now being mapped and understood, including locating breaches in the clay layer between the upper level aquifers that take in ground water and the aquifer below that is the city’s water source.
“The majority of water you drink at home fell as rain 2,000 years ago,” Houston said. “It’s an out-of-site, out-of-mind amazing water source. We really haven’t had to worry about it. But time is kind of catching up with us.”
“We are really seeing the impact of legacy pollution that we are going to have to figure out how to deal with as it is slowly making its way further and further down,” she said.
Longer term issues identified in the five-year plan include development over recharge areas for the aquifer and whether industrial uses of the water from the aquifer that requires little treatment should come with some kind of fee.
“We haven’t really been very vocal about that yet,” Houston said. “We’ve been a pretty scrappy organization just putting out fires where we can.”