- You know, one of the things that we really got to do better here in Memphis, all over the world actually, is to realize everything's connected.

So, you know,   building landfills   on the side of the Wolf,   taking over wetlands,   all of that is   potentially very harmful   to the aquifer and its health.

- Hi, I'm Bard Cole for WKNO.

In the next half an hour, I'm gonna be talking to Jim Kovarik, Executive Director of Protect Our Aquifer.

Jim, thank you for being here.

- Oh, glad to be here.

- First off, before we go any farther, the organization is Protect Our Aquifer.

Let's start with what is the aquifer and why does it need protecting?

- The aquifer is the very large bathtub of water that exists below Memphis and Shelby County,   as well as an eight-state area.

It's a huge mass   of very pure water.

We like to think of it as   thousand year old water,   pre-industrial,   pre-plastic, pre-PFAS,   pre a lot of stuff, and   it's our drinking water, and water we use daily basis in Memphis and Shelby County, and actually in a very large surrounding area as well.

- Most urban areas the size of Memphis get water from a variety of sources like reservoirs.

They have elaborate water treatment plants to make sure their water is drinkable.

Because of this aquifer, we don't have those same expenses in the same way other urban areas do.

So it's a great boon for Memphis.

- Absolutely, in fact, we sell it as free water, especially to private well users and a lot of industries in town.

We're working on that a little bit because it needs some management love and care, and that all costs money.

And we hope in the future to give it a little bit of more love and care.

- Now, Protect Our Aquifer is a fairly recently born organization.

Can you tell me about how it came into existence?

- Sure, December, 2016, we became aware of TVA about to start its new combined cycle gas plant.

And they originally, in the original plans, had decided they were going to use gray water from what's called the Maxson South Wastewater Treatment Plant, which is right onsite with their new gas plant.

They were gonna take the effluent from the wastewater, treat it, and use it to cool their large complex.

And we found out sort of through somewhat of a whistleblower that they were digging wells.

They decided that they needed cleaner water to cool their gas plant.

So they had dug three wells already.

They were on process of doing two more.

And we took great issue with that and appealed it to the Shelby County Groundwater Board.

And by January of 2017, we had officially formed, applied for our charter, applied for our nonprofit status, put together our board, and we were launched beginning of 2017.

And it was in response to TVA beginning to use drinking water to cool their plant, which was going to be 3 to 7 million gallons per day of cooling water using our drinking water.

We thought there was a better way to do it.

- I think the first time I heard of Protect Our Aquifer was an episode of "Behind the Headlines", which had Ward Archer represented Protect Our Aquifer, but we also had Dr. Waldron from CAESER, the Center for Applied Earth Science and Engineering Research, which is doing a lot of work to map the aquifer among other things.

That time there were a couple, I think, there were construction landfills that were being proposed for essentially, Wolf River Wetland areas within the City of Memphis.

- Correct, and over the days we've had three of those all in, quite correct, in wetland areas abutting the Wolf River.

And there's two real big problems with that.

One is the rivers are notorious for what's called scouring the clay layer.

There's a clay layer that protects our deep aquifer, our drinking water from the contaminants that are everywhere, in our surface water, on the land.

And in some places   there's gaps and breaches,   they call them windows   in the clay layer.

That's particularly true   of the river systems.

And so it's a really bad idea to be putting a landfill, even if it's only a demolition landfill,   alongside the river   for two reasons.

One is it could enter   in, the contamination   could get down into   the deep aquifer.

And also, a lot   of those wetlands   are flood reserve areas.

And the very first   one we encountered,   which was in the Nutbush   neighborhood, North Memphis,   that neighborhood   had flooded in 2011.

And here's someone   who's going to build   an 80-foot mountain of trash   in the flood reserve area,   which meant the next big rain,   that neighborhood   would flood even more.

So we fought it.

We made great allies   with the neighbors.

We had a Sunday   meeting in a church.

Two hundred and fifty residents showed up and we gave a lot of static to the fellow that wanted to build a landfill, and his lawyer that appeared in that meeting.

And he pulled his permit within the next few weeks.

And we've had two others just like that.

And we've been successful on all three cases.

Although at any time, that may pop up again.

The real story of those is no one else is looking, and we were the ones that were calling for those meetings.

Again, making alliance with the neighbors and stopping what we thought was harmful to the aquifer, as well as the neighborhoods.

- At that early stage, Protect the Aquifer really had a strategic reason for existing.

But since then, you've broadened your mission a bit.

- Yeah, well, what we found out is, you know, for instance, in the first instances with these landfills, we were the only ones showing up at those meetings.

The Groundwater Board, well, let me back up.

The Groundwater Board in conjunction with the Health Department is supposed to be our management entity that takes care of the aquifer.

As it turns out, they're primarily focused on well permitting and that's about it.

They're not talking about contaminated spots.

They're not talking about conservation.

They're not even talking about the management between surface water and aquifer water.

So as we began to explore what was happening, we realized no one was in charge.

So here you have this incredible amount of drinking water that is really, in some, we have in our research, we have found perhaps that the aquifer is the most valuable natural asset in Shelby County.

Fifty-seven trillion gallons of pure water that lies beneath our feet, which will cover us for generations to come if we're careful with it and if we don't contaminate it.

So when we began to find all these skips and misses, we really call them skips and misses, we decided somebody needs to step up and do a little bit better job of loving the aquifer.

And that's why we're in this business.

- And it's certainly challenging because geology and political boundaries don't line up.

- Oh, absolutely.

And we had, you know, for instance, you're all probably familiar with the lawsuit between Mississippi and Tennessee, which has to do with the aquifer.

And really, it still has this last, it has to go to the Supreme Court.

But the Special Master in charge of that argument, Tiff, has decided that we all need to sit down and agree to equal proportionment.

In other words, we need to share it.

And what immediately for us, on the Shelby County side of that, is we don't even know how much we use right now because there are a thousand private wells and an awful lot of industries whose wells are not metered.

So every day, you know, in your house, you're metered, you pay per gallon, but there's a whole lot of folks in Shelby County that don't, aren't metered, aren't paying for that water.

And we really don't know the answer to that.

So if we were to sit down with Mississippi and say, "We'd like this much," we wouldn't even know how much.

We'd have to guesstimate that.

So there's a lot of things that we would have to do for that.

So yeah, and the politics are very dense.

And anyone that deals with water will also tell you that water is very complicated, and surface water, runoff water, storm water, wetlands, aquifer water, groundwater, recharge areas.

There's a lot going on in a water system.

And as the scientists at the University of Memphis at CAESER will tell you, it's complicated.

- The more I learned about it, I didn't have a lot of knowledge about our aquifer before I started paying attention to this story.

And I mean, it's amazing.

It's like a gigantic Brita filter that takes   thousands of years   for the surface water   to be processed   through all the sand,   to reach that place   we're drawing it from.

And it's very, it's   different from other places.

There's a Florida aquifer where a lot of people in Northern Florida get drinking water, but the way that that exists, some of it can be brackish, some of it requires treatment.

There's other places where they have beautiful, fresh water, but it's not really, it doesn't really get replenished.

So when they've used up their aquifer, they won't have anything.

- Right.

- And we sort of, I mean, we're lucky enough to have one that is almost perfect in the way it functions.

And I think in a way that makes it harder for people to understand how valuable it is and how much it needs, you know, what could happen to it if it was managed poorly.

- Surely, surely, yes, there are two different types.

The aquifer in Florida of course, would be a karst aquifer, which really fills, every time it rains, it fills.

And so you're using water that fell a week ago, a month ago, a year ago.

Again, in our aquifer, the water moves about an inch a year.

So from the recharge area, which is Fayette County primarily, and Eastern Shelby County, it takes a really long time for that water to get down there.

And we actually, CAESER age-dates the water.

And they know when the pumps are pulling up newer water, they know that perhaps there's a breach happening and it's not that old, old water that's taken so long to get down there.

And let me clarify one other thing too.

The aquifer is not just a puddle of water.

It is sand, and soil, and gravel that holds water.

And it is between that, that we pull that water out.

And that is the filtering system, the Brita filter if you will, that cleanses it as it percolates through the soil, the sand, and the rock, and then is pulled up by us.

- Well, I know that CAESER has given us a lot of really fascinating information about how the aquifer works, and its extent, and the places, the places where there could be contamination.

Wolf River Conservancy is another organization that's paid a lot of attention to the recharge areas where the new water comes in and preserving those in a proactive way.

What does Protect the Aquifer, how is your mission different?

What are you able to do that these other organizations are not able to do?

- Well, in one word, the word is advocacy.

We go to bat for the aquifer on a regular basis, filing lawsuits, protesting bad ideas like landfills, stopping things that could contaminate it.

CAESER, the scientists, have a very specific charge and that is to research, and study, and find out what's going on.

What's the reality there?

And the problem with CAESER of course, is that they don't really take a stand left or right, wrong or right.

They just say, "Here's what it is.

Here's the science, now make your decision," politicians, landfill operators, sand and gravel miners, whoever's gonna use, or, you know, potentially harm the aquifer.

And same thing with the Wolf River Conservancy.

They do a wonderful job of establishing the Greenway, and Land Trust, and making everything accessible for Memphians and people in Shelby County.

But they don't take an advocacy position.

They have helped us in certain times when it's been critical, but for the most part, they would rather avoid the controversy because when you're a nonprofit and you're trying to raise money on one hand, and scream and holler about something going wrong on the other hand, being an advocate for something, they don't match.

And so they're a very quiet, in the background, they assist and help us all the time.

But we're the forward thinking, no, forward acting group in those three.

We're the ones who go to bat when someone needs to stand up and say something about what's gonna happen to the aquifer.

- Well, Jim, let me ask you, let me ask you about yourself.

How did you come to be involved in this cause?

- Well, [chuckling] I've been working with nonprofits for 30 years in Memphis and I had dinner one night with Ward Archer.

And he was, he was the founder of Protect Our Aquifer.

He was worried about the aquifer.

The TVA thing was on the table and he asked for some suggestions of a good, diverse, knowledgeable board.

And I gave him 20 names that I thought were good.

Well, about a week later, I got a call from Ward who said, "Would you be on the board?"

And that's how it started.

[chuckling] So it was, if you ask and tell, you're probably gonna get sucked in.

[laughing] So I agreed.

I've always felt really strongly myself, about the water and the aquifer.

Again, I understand it's wonder and beauty.

I've lived in a lot of places that had, where you could not drink the tap water, or if you did, it had a sour smell, or you needed a softener or whatever kind of device to make it palatable for residents.

And I've always loved the fact, I've been in Memphis now for 40 years, and I always talk about the water wherever I go.

And, you know, I've been to different places, New York City, and talk to my friends in New York City and say, "Come to Memphis, drink the water out of the tap.

"It's beautiful, you don't have to buy bottled water."

[laughing] So yeah, it's an acknowledgement of how beautiful and what a resource it is for us here.

- And I mean, that's been behind our new, our brewery revival as well as less conspicuous industrial uses that-- - That's right.

- Rely on clean water.

- And Pyramid Vodka as well.

[laughing] - So what is on Protect Our Aquifer's agenda for the immediate future?

- Well, for the immediate future, we're trying to improve management, this joint management of the Groundwater Board, which really hears appeals and writes and rewrites the regs, and the Health Department, which is the staff for the Groundwater Board, again, have a very narrow approach to protecting the aquifer.

And that approach is only when you put a well in the ground.

And so for us, we want a stronger, better, more holistic approach to that management.

So for instance, two items in that regard, conservation and management.

We just had a situation where Wesson Oil, all the Wesson Oil in the world is made in Memphis, Midtown, Memphis.

They wanted to replace a well that was using a million gallons a day for one use.

A million gallons up, cool their equipment, then they put it in the sewer.

And we said, "Well, you need to do a better job than that.

"You need to use it more than once.

Could you think about recycling?"

And they said, "Okay, could you send someone to help?"

And we said, "The Groundwater Board, but we'll send the Health Department."

It turns out the Health Department doesn't have a conservation expert on staff, and they don't have an extra budget to even hire that as a contractor.

So conservation from large industrial use all the way down to how you manage your household use, that should be something every Memphian should be involved in and we are not.

So that's, we got a lot of work to do in that regard.

And secondly, management.

Eventually someone should be able to say to a person putting a landfill next to the Wolf River, "You can't do that, that's a bad idea.

You are at risk of contaminating the aquifer."

That person, that entity does not exist right now.

And we hope to build that with the help of the County, primarily, although we're thinking even larger over the days to talk about bioregional management of the aquifer.

In other words, going beyond just Shelby County, and perhaps even going interstate eventually, but that's a long haul.

Our immediate aim is better management in Shelby County, put our own house in order.

- Looking back on the history of environmental regulation, the 70s and the early 80s was a period of great bipartisan cooperation on taking action against, particularly on pollution, but other environmental concerns as well, with Nixon and Reagan both signing very important legislation to clean up our water and our air, and prevent chemical dumps, and other dangerous situations.

What would it take to get us back to a bipartisan approach to environmentalism, do you think?

- Good question, yeah, you're absolutely right.

The 70s were great for water, particularly, water and air.

Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act.

What it takes is for us to get back to those original ideas.

And we've actually taken some stabs in that direction.

Under Governor Haslam, our last governor, he formed what was called Tennessee H2O.

And he assembled all the experts in the state, all the three Grand Divisions.

And they met very regular for, I think, more than a year.

They came out with a wonderful document.

If you read the Tennessee H2O plan, it makes a whole lot of sense.

It hearkens back to the Tennessee Quality Control Act of 1977 which has all kinds of great stuff in it that we have gone away from.

And so even today, we're aware of the fact that we have drifted away from clean water and we need to get back to those original sentiments.

Tennessee H2O plan does a great job at that.

And by the way, you know, our president, Ward Archer, was on that H2O committee.

It was part of the reason that he got involved in this.

It was one of the inspirations for him to do more after he saw what was on paper, what should be done, and in reality, what's not being done.

And we have a problem in Shelby County, not only the aquifer at risk, we have a huge amount of contamination being an urban village we are, and our surface water really doesn't have good management either.

And as an indication of that,   there's a ban on fishing   in all moving bodies   of water in Shelby County.

And just think about that.

Tennessee applauds   itself for being   the great natural state it is,   and yet we can't even   fish in Shelby County.

Now, people do fish.

- They certainly do.

- Even though there's a,   you know, a order not to,   people do that anyway,   we know that happens.

But we need to do a better job.

Our stormwater system is,   we're operating on a   law that was passed   in 2007, 2008 for   our stormwater.

We need to do better   on stormwater.

So our whole   system, you know,   operates in a very frail state.

And water needs to be put   at the top of our list as we enter the eras of climate change, enter an era where water may become more important than oil.

There's a whole lot of things on the future that we need to be careful of to protect our resources in that regard.

- There are business people who are afraid, who don't like the idea of environmental reviews because for them, they think of that as, "Well, this is red tape that is designed fundamentally to stop me from doing something."

What would an environmental review process look like that, you know, it's fairly considered what things would, could actually create harm, but move along fast enough, so that the business people would be a little happier with it?

- Yeah, well, you know, one of the things is the public needs to be involved.

There's no way around that, and that takes some time.

So you have to have an open period.

You have to educate the public.

You have to engage the public.

You can't avoid the public and do this stuff, and announce it later.

So that's a really key feature of any environmental review.

And again, these environmental reviews are not meant to hang you up, and it would be good if we could shorten them.

And I, you know, I think in the future, we can work towards a shortening of that with the cooperation of industry and business, but it is not to hang an industry up.

It is to protect the resource that they wanna use.

And, you know, the water that we have is held in common.

It is a common resource for us all to use, all to share it, and to think that any one person or one industry should be able to just have at it and ignore contamination, conservation, good management is really wrong for all of us.

So we all have a stake in this and, you know, business and industry have gotten away with a lot of free water over the days.

And in fact, you know, people come here and say, "Free water, are you kidding me?"

And we talk about what it costs in New York or California or in other countries.

And it is, it's nigh unto free other than, you know, putting in your well and powering it up to the surface.

We all need to be contributing.

Just as the water is a commons, we should all have that burden of paying for it along the way.

This isn't gonna break the back of industry.

And in a lot of ways, a lot of industries, I'll cite Nucor Steel as one, have built a huge conservation system that they're very proud of, and it costs them a lot of money.

And, but other industries that don't build that, we should be able to help them with that.

And again, we can work on how long this stuff takes, but they have to have skin in the game.

And I think that's where it begins and ends.

- What is your vision for 10, 20 years down the road?

- Ten, twenty years down the road, I think there should be, I think everyone should have a much better understanding of the aquifer.

We've talked about what's called the Freshwater Institute here in Shelby County, where all of the water features would come under one roof, Army Corps of Engineers, CAESER, Protect Our Aquifer, Chickasaw Basin Authority, surface water, stormwater, and begin, not only to study it, but to engage the public with that, and to become a model for the world in the sense of showing our goodness, showing how we care for it, conserving it into the future, 'cause we're not talking 10, 20, 30 years.

We should be talking 50, 100, 1000 years, if we wanna keep this thing that is so wonderful and valuable beneath our feet.

- If viewers wanna know more, what is the website that they can go to?

- Protectouraquifer.org, and by the way,   there's an incredible amount,   we have a library at   protectouraquifer.org,   and there's more reading there   than you'd ever care to do.

Huge, large,   scientific documents, as well as comment letters, and a lot of the work that we've done.

And we have a couple of Facebook pages as well, which again, keeps you on a very current with what's happening and how you can contribute and participate in some of these issues that pop up because we don't do it alone.

You know, we're just, we're a volunteer board of directors with two part-time staff.

We hope to improve that in the days to come, but still it is the public that has the skin in the game on this one, and that they have to come to the forum when we have these problems like landfills or pipelines or contaminated sites.

- Well, thank you, Jim.

This has been a very informative talk.

Thanks for making time for me.

- Well, anytime Bard.

[laughing] Yeah, it's been wonderful.

- And thanks everyone for watching.

This has been a conversation with Jim Kovarik.

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