My eyes grew weary

February 26, 2020 by Ken Leinart

I don’t think the information age is all it’s cracked up to be.

Sure, there’s a lot of information out there.

Too much, actually.

I mean, I’m trying to find the amount of land TVA purchased for its proposed landfill next to the Bull Run Steam Plant.

Know what I’ve found?

(But first, here’s a meme of a cat. Smarting off to a woman eating a piece of cake. While they both sit at a table.)

I found zilch. I found all kinds of information that a person with a degree in chemistry, or engineering, or radical particle distilling might be able to decipher.

Any mention of acreage?

Yeah, I wish.

There’s like 4,898,633 pages of information out there — of course, about half of them are blank pages with a notation “This Page Left Blank Intentionally.”

I think that is TVA’s effort at being kind.

It’s like getting a break from pounding your head against a wall.

“Here, take a break, rest your weary eyes. We have your back.”

Thank you, TVA.

(And now, watch a dog chasing a ball through a house and knocking stuff over. And a child laughing at him.)

What we do know is that this property, still not found but is somewhere, I’m guessing, at about 20 acres (maybe more, maybe less), was bought in 2013 and the permit process for a landfill started in something like 2015, and in 2019 TVA decided to shutter Bull Run.

But TVA still wants a permit for the landfill.

Because, well … You never know, do you?

Now, not all of the 4,898,633 documents on the internet relating to the proposed new landfill for the Bull Run site belong to TVA.

That’s one thing about the internet — seems like it never runs out of space. You never hear anyone say, “Wow, I used up all of my internet juice today.”

Some are articles that have appeared in local papers, as well as newspapers across the globe.

That globe sitting on your table, between the stacks of newspapers.

(And now we have another cat meme. This time the feline is chastising a baby for doing what babies do best — fill a diaper.)

There are other “information” web pages like “Power Engineering,” which just sort of retread what TVA has.

No blank pages though.

My eyes grew weary.

Then there is the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC) site.

A search for “Bull Run Steam Plant” came up with 54 matches. All with names like, “https://www.tn.gov/content/dam/tn/environment/water/watershed-management/wqm-plans/wr-ws_watershed-plan-loosahatchie-2003.pdf”

Fifty-four of these things.

I kid you not.

What in the world is that about?

I gave up after 30. TDEC doesn’t have blank pages, either. Didn’t find one (yet) about Bull Run. Maybe it’s not ready yet.

My eyes grew weary.

(Here’s a video of a raccoon getting into the neighbor’s trash cans. It sure is cute. There is a child laughing in the background. While it fills its diaper.)

Bottom line is — I still don’t know how many acres this proposed landfill is. I do know that a stream needs to be diverted. I read the exact length of the amount of stream that needs to be diverted, but I don’t remember it (I didn’t write it down) and I don’t want to go back and look through the 356,711 of the 4,898,633 documents on the internet I have thus far looked through. Although about 5,748 were blank documents with “This Page Left Blank Intentionally” written on them (so, they’re not really blank, are they?).

And yes, I have sent several e-mails and have not received any replies to my queries. I obviously have not sent an e-mail to the person I need to be sending an e-mail to.

Silly me.

(And now, here’s a meme of a cat sitting on a table with a raccoon covered in garbage and holding a ball once chased by a dog. A baby is in the background laughing.)

I have discovered something else about the ever-abundant and space-without-limits internet: It’s pretty easy to get sidetracked.