So what do you want me to do protest TVA becasue they arrested you!! I think you are one fry short of a Happy Meal to get on here an publicize your wrongdoing.... Just plead guilty so I know my tax dollars will not be wasted with a court appointed attorny...anyways Bodines Cab company I believe is 865 882 1000 they will pick u up

There's a curious dynamic going on here. Anyone whoo knows the specifics of this incident knows that TVA should never have ordered these folks arrested, but that's not what I'm interested in... Why, AS, do you want people like Matt who are working to better our County's situation arrested and prosecuted for nonsense like sitting in the back of a car parked just off the County right of way? At the same time you don't seem interested in shining the light of day on TVA's actions, which have greatly harmed the people of Roane County?

I would like to see all the charges against these kids dismissed and costs charged to TVA.

Matt and other members of the UMD were on site the first morning passing out bottled water, and information. It took TVA two weeks to do that. I was there every day and witnessed this personally. They gave me water while I was with the press. He and Bonnie Swinford helped some groups organize, aquired funds for early metal testing for impacted residence, and was just there trying to help in any way.
Thanks Matt and Bonnie for the early concern and assistance to this community.

Well said, Rick and WC! I am with you too. :)

-- OneTahiti

As an outsider and observer, I too wonder at the reaction of some people vis-à-vis a public service facility that has covered public roads, private property and homes with their junk ash last year but seems to forgive their private police for tracing lines in the sand, uh, ash, then defying people that dare check up on them to cross those "private property" boundaries. Seems to me TVA's negligence in the maintenance of their waste disposal structures is reason enough for their neighbors and society in general to keep a close eye on them, and not the other way around!

When they were arrested they were not there for "good of the people". They were over there interferring with people trying to do their jobs. Do you think clean-up efforts could go a little quicker if TVA did not have to deal with people interferring with their work? If the individuals working the site didn't have to go through a security check-in and spend and an hour each day (1/2hr in the morning, 1/2hr in the afternoon) going through the processes of getting on and off property they could have 1 more hour of productivity for EVERY PERSON there working. Doesn't sound like much? 100 workers(just an estimate, I don't know how many people are working the site) with and extra hour each day could easily shorten clean-up time by a year! 100 workers w/ 1 additional man hour per worker = 100hrs per day = 500hrs per week = 26,000 hours per year of additional productivity. Instead there are people like Matt Landon causing issues, and making it harder for everyone invovled. It's no different than honest people having to go through 2 hours of security to get on a plane, because of the careless actions of a few. Let's give TVA some support. Let's stop being part of the problem, and start helping with the solution!

I have full faith in Judge Wicks! If this is bogus charges and over reaching he will throw it out. Least we forget there is always 2 sides to every story.

Randy Ellis
randyellis@gmail.com

I saw a show on TV (Mysterious Diseases) recently about a high school boy who has Porphyrin Disease. It is so horrible for him that his parents have to keep him out of the sun. He does play football in the daytime at school for one hour and that is only with 65 pf suntan lotion on his body. He also has to wear two layers of clothes and his helmet has to have a dark visor on it. He can't let the sun touch his skin. His skin breaks out in rashes and blisters if the sun touches his skin. It took his parents a long time to find out how what he had because the disease is so amazingly rare. This disease cannot be cured. It is hereditary and can be passed on to their children.

Last January, 50 of us were tested for heavy metal poisoning and out of the 50, thirteen of us have signs of the Porphryin Disease. That is 20% of the people tested. There are thousands of people who live in the vicinity of the Kingston Coal Ash Plant. There needs to be a testing of any people who live within a certain vacinity of the plant and who want to be tested. You could get a grant and get someone to test their blood.

If it could be proven that there is a high percentage of people with Porphyria Disease within a certain distance from Kingston Coal Fire Plant or any Coal Fire Plant for that matter, I think that people and communities would listen. No one whats to have a rare disease like that nor do they want to pass it on to their children. I have it and it has drastically changed my life. If I had stayed at my lake front home on Emory River Rd. after the Coal Ash Disaster, I think that I would be dead by now. The Porphyrin Disease affects the liver. The whites of my eyes turn yellow, within one hour of being at my lake home, every time that I try to go home. The ash affects my liver, and I have to leave. That is why it is horrible to have this disease. It will kill me if I stay in a toxic environment as in Kingston with so much ash blowing in the wind.

Matt, if you and UMD could get a grant for this testing, it could be the beginning of stopping Porphyria Disease in communities surrounding Coal Fire Plants. I talked to a doctor who used to be in Oak Ridge, and he said that he started finding signs of Porphyria Disease in his patients in Oak Ridge. Oak Ridge has a Coal Fire Plant (Bull Run). This disease is so rare that most doctors don't even know what it is nor do they ever test for it.