When I first moved up here in 1998 my kids and I hunted the hell out of the Steam Plant property, archery only, and it was an absolute paradise with little pressure due to the archery only regulations. We hunted the edges of the ash ponds and they were teaming with geese, ducks and fish. Yes, there are many rock holes throughout the property but it is like the land in Wilson County and Cedars of Lebanon, 1" of soil over rock with cedar trees everywhere. Since the EPA has required TVA to install dry ash storage, virtually the entire property has been stripped and there remains very little wooded acreage to bow hunt. It is amazing how many tress and how much ground has been altered for this EPA "solution".
I hate to see what has happened to the land but I can't quit get my head around the claims of such significant arsenic and lead outside of the boundaries of the existing ash ponds. If it has leached into the groundwater, there are numerous homes on Odoms Bend Road that I would bet are on well water systems. Have any of those wells been tested? Taking the report for face value it would seem you should not keep fish from the GST downstream to the dam. Maybe we should all be fishing upstream of the GST to prevent the growth of a third eye?
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