The Tennessee Clean Water Network’s recent report that the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation’s enforcement actions have dropped 75 percent during the first five years of Gov. Bill Haslam’s administration shocked the public at large, but came as no surprise to those who deal with the agency regularly.
Steve Scarborough isn’t shocked. A founder of the Dagger Kayak Company, he used his retirement funds to buy a scenic, 1,500-acre swath of woodlands along the old Gordon’s Turnpike in the White’s Creek gorge. He and his wife, Annie, live on the property, which stretches into Cumberland, Roane and Rhea counties. His long-range plan includes securing conservation easements and selling large lots to like-minded buyers (on a portion of the property) and getting the creek declared a scenic river, which would require discharge permit holders to release effluent as clean as the water in the creek.
And how clean is White’s Creek?