Note the massive curtains to the left and right of the limestone pillar. This location, somewhere in East Tennessee, is purported to be a full two miles underground.
Unknown Location: former East Tennessee limestone mine being repurposed for…?
Category: The Oak Ridge Connection
Jonathan Swift’s Long Lost Silver Mine- Found?
A few years ago I got to experience a special secret very few know about in the southeast Kentucky-southwest Virginia-eastern Tennessee region: a very old mine hidden by decades of grown up brush cut into the rock of Cumberland Mountain. I have no idea who owns the property now, but I will re-tell the story as it was told to me by the owner at the time. (Names are changed in the interest of protecting privacy.)
The property owner’s neighbor, Cédric, worked the mine decades ago. He claimed there was a seam of silver that was discovered to rise one inch a foot back in the mountain, and the seam went on for miles.
The mine was being worked in approximately the 1930’s. Whether the ore being mined was silver or another type of valuable material, it was special enough that the miners placed the ore into wooden boxes before carrying it out of the mine and loading it into covered trucks, as if to keep the material being mined a secret. It was even more mysterious that the covered trucks waited until the cover of night had settled in to travel to their destination, never leaving the mine before midnight.
One night, the mysterious miners packed up and left without explanation. No one ever came back until approximately 20 years ago, when the owner received a sole request for permission to re-open the mine, a request which he denied.
Cédric, the old neighbor who had worked the mine, was rumored to have possessed a special healing ability. If a person got hurt and was bleeding bad, all someone had to do was tell Cédric and he could stop the bleeding, whether the person was in his presence or not.
The owner himself lived in the same valley as a child at the time the mine was being worked. He disclosed that he, his brother and father saw what he reported as a “searchlight in the sky, making a big, wide circle around them.” They witnessed this light several times in the night sky during the 1930s and 1940s.
UPDATE: November 1, 2019
Ronald, a reader in Arkansas, wrote in recently about an old mine he found in his state that bears a striking resemblance to the one pictured above. Below is his photo and story:
“Hi. I found an almost identical mine shaft here in Arkansas. Legend has it that a man named Tobe Inmon came from Kentucky and made bullets from lead he mined in nearby hills. As it turns out, the lead was actually silver. People around here have been looking since the late 1800s and I recently found it. Notice the similarly in shape and size…”
Fascinating find Ronald! Thanks for sharing. Hopefully we get more pics and details from you soon!
UPDATE: October, 2020
Samuel (from parts unknown) sent these pics in September, wondering if he might have stumbled on Jonathan Swift’s old mine:
Thanks for the pictures, Samuel. I see what looks like a turkey foot in the top photo. Please update us if you are able to get a look inside!
1950: Nuclear Facility to be Placed in an Arkansas National Park
Many dismiss the theory that the federal government would place a nuclear facility within a national park. After reading the 1950 newspaper article at left, I am even more convinced there could be such a facility at Cumberland Gap National Park.
The above article is taken from the Hope Star, an Arkansas newspaper, in August of 1950. Congressman Boyd Tackett has indicated that northern Arkansas would get an H-bomb plant. Although there is no formal announcement from the Atomic Energy Commission, Tackett said “his information came from that source.” Tackett said “the plant would be situated either in the Ouachita National forest or the Ozark National forest.”
Tackett said, “Arkansas has been selected as the proper area…because it has the necessary requirements.”
This story echoes the story of the munitions facility I believe was constructed at Cumberland Gap; the experts recommended the best suited place for the plant yet, in the end, their advice was supposedly unheeded.
The following article details the region’s frustration:
“Several months ago it was announced the government would build a large hydrogen bomb plant in the heart of the Ozarks…It was pointed out the plant would be located in the interior of the country, safe from possible attack from either coast. It would not be possible, it was declared, for an enemy plane to penetrate that far into the interior, or to inflict important damage on this important facility.
But the plans have changed, and instead of being located in this comparatively safe region the plant is to be built in the Savannah Valley, only minutes by air from the Atlantic coast. The proposed plant would be an easy target for enemy bombers.” (2)
The author laments that “politics” were the reason the plant location was changed; the Democratic party needed their southern voter numbers up. The author believes this was a move to win favor with those voters. I vehemently disagree. The likelihood the plant was installed there all along is a reasonable theory.
Just as President Wilson possibly visited a secret munitions facility at Cumberland Gap in 1918, did Truman visit a newly completed nuclear facility hidden in the Ozarks in 1952?
(1)”Tackett says state to get H-bomb plant.” Hope Star, August 26 1950.
(2)”Party must be served.” Terre Haute Star. December 14, 1950.
(3) “Presidential Pathways.” arkansas.com.
http://www.arkansas.com/!userfiles/presidential_pathways.pdf
Elevated Amounts of Chromium and Manganese Found in Gap Creek, Tennessee
There are some eye-raising National Park Service water quality reports from the 1990s concerning Gap Creek, which flows through Cudjo’s Cave (or, Gap Cave).
Chromium was found in the creek in measurements up to 70 ug/L (which is equivalent to 70 parts per billion) between the years 1991 to 1996.(1) This is nearing the EPA’s maximum contaminant level (MCL) for chromium in drinking water, which is 100 ppb.
The National Park service tells us that:
Rivers once flowed through the upper chambers of Gap Cave–and Gap Creek still flows through the lowest level of the cavern. Water flowing from the cavern was used to power several mills and the machinery at the Cumberland Iron Furnace in the 19th century. The creek was dammed inside the cave in the 1800’s to create a reservoir that still supplies the towns of Cumberland Gap and Harrogate, Tennessee with drinking water.(2)
When contaminant levels are approaching the maximum levels set by the EPA, and the water supply is a source of community drinking water, it would be reasonable to expect the continued monitoring of contaminant levels in Gap Creek. However, Jennifer Beeler, the Cumberland Gap National Park’s Resource Management Specialist, indicated the water quality reports stopped when the Tunnel construction ended:
That work was done during the tunnel construction with funding from that particular construction project. After the tunnel was completed that degree of funding for water quality work was no longer available. We do basic water quality work each month like e. coli, temp, dissolved oxygen, conductivity, ph, turbidity etc, but that is it right now.(3)
Remember when the Middlesboro Tannery was blamed for chromium found in Yellow Creek? Interestingly, it would have been impossible for the tannery to contaminate Gap Creek:
Gap Creek on the TN side of the park comes from Gap Cave, flows through the town of cumberland Gap than Tiprell and then eventually empties into the Powell River. Little Yellow Creek in the park goes into Middlesboro, flows into Yellow Creek and then eventually into the Cumberland River. So the two are not connected at all.(3)
Another possible contaminant of concern in Gap Creek is manganese. Overexposure can be responsible for symptoms similar to Parkinson’s Disease, most notably muscle tremors and other neurological damage. Manganese toxicity can also be misdiagnosed as Lou Gehrig’s disease or multiple sclerosis. Children are especially susceptible to manganese toxicity. Currently, the EPA has established a “health advisory level” of .3 mg/L, or, 3 parts per million. However, in 1996, a report by the EPA,
in developing an oral reference dose for manganese based on dietary intake, mentions an epidemiological study in Greece that showed an increase in neurologic effects such as weakness and fatigue, disturbances in gait, and neuromuscular effects, in people whose drinking water contained 1.6 to 2.3 mg/L.(4)
The water quality reports for Gap Creek, where the communities of Cumberland Gap and Harrogate obtain their drinking water, show up to 210 parts per billion, or, .21 mg/L on December 1, 1991 and 270 parts per billion, or, .27 mg/L, manganese on March 23, 1993.(1)
(1) STORET Central Warehouse, EPA.
https://ofmpub.epa.gov/storpubl/storet_wme_pkg.Display_Station?p_station_id=CUGA_CPSU_GC4&p_org_id=11NPSWRD
(2)Cave Handout, National Park Service.
https://www.nps.gov/cuga/learn/nature/upload/cave-handout2.pdf
(3) Email communications, June 23 2015, with Jennifer Beeler, National Park Service.
(4) Drinking Water Notification Level for Managanese, California EPA State Water Resources Control Board.
http://www.waterboards.ca.gov/drinking_water/certlic/drinkingwater/Manganese.shtml
The Airplane Room: Deep Under Cumberland Mountain
The following was written by a guest author who wishes to be known only as The Mysterious Man from Rose Hill. We’ve decided to name this huge underground cave “The Airplane Room” in memory of his father.
This is a story that was told to me by my father when I was 8 to 10 years old in the late 50’s. It was an exciting story for a young boy and I still have vivid memories of him telling it.
Please understand that everything I’m relating is hearsay as I have no way to verify or corroborate the account. My father was a very truthful person. In fact he would often admonish me as a child to never exaggerate or embellish a story. “If you stretch the facts, then no one will believe you when you do tell the truth,” he said.
Following is a recounting of the story as told by my father, as I remember it:
The setting is in Cumberland Gap, Tennessee where my father lived with his family. The time is the early 40’s. It was the war years, and my Dad was in his early teens.
One night, Dad and two of his friends decided to go exploring in Gap Cave, known at that time as Cudjo’s Cave. Arriving late at night, after everyone had gone home, they entered the cave and began their exploration to see how far they could travel inside the cave. After making their way through rough terrain, narrow passages, small openings, mud and water for nearly half the night, they were surprised to enter a huge room much larger than anything they could have imagined.
“We were so excited to have made this amazing discovery,” Dad said, “And to think we were the first people to see it.”
I said, “Dad, how did you know that you were the first people to discover it? How did you know no one else had been there?”
He said, “Well, when we first went in that big room, there was water dripping everywhere. The water had puddled on the floor, and on top of the water, minerals had hardened like a thin sheet of ice on a pond. Where we walked, we broke through the crystal, just like breaking though thin ice, and it left our footprints visible. When we first went in, there were no other footprints, so we knew we were the first.
“Dad,” I said, excited, “just how big was this room? How many feet across?!”
“I don’t know exactly,” he said, “we didn’t have anything to measure with, but I know how big a football field is, and you could put several in it.”
“How many?” I asked.
“Well, several, ” he said.
“Dad, could you see all the way across from one side to the other? Was the ceiling high enough to see the walls all the way around?”
“Oh yeah, he said, “it had a high ceiling.”
“How high would you estimate?”
He said, “Well, it was high enough that you could fly an airplane around in it!”
“Dad,” I asked, “could you fly a passenger plane in it?”
“I don’t know about that,” he said, “but there’s plenty of room to fly a small two-seater plane around inside!”
“Could a small plane take off in that room?” I asked.
“No,” he explained, “the floor is not smooth enough. There are big boulders strewn across the floor. We thought that, in time, there must have been an earthquake and part of the ceiling must have fallen.”
“Do you think that room might ever be open to the public?”
“I doubt it,” he said. “It’s too far back in the mountain and too hard to access. Some of the openings are very small.”
“How long were you there exploring?”
“Not too long,” he replied. “It was a long trek to get there, and we had to be out before morning.”
“Dad,” I asked, “did you carve your names and a date, so people would know you were there?”
“No, he said, “we didn’t do that.”
“Dad, if I ever had a chance to explore that cave, is there any way I could know you were there?”
“Well…” he thought, “we did leave one thing behind. We noticed how heavily everything was mineralized, and we wondered how long it would take for the mineralization to occur. We left a coke bottle under a dripping stalactite thinking that we might come back some day.”
“Dad, how did you get inside the cave?”
“Well,” he said, “there are several ways to get in, but that’s a story for another time, and I have a hard day tomorrow. It’s bedtime and we’d better turn in.”
Second Nuclear Reactor Pressure Vessel Missing from Phipps Bend
In April 2015 I published an article about the “Incredible Disappearing Nuclear Reactor” from the Phipps Bend Nuclear Plant in Surgoinsville TN. To recap: in 1980, a 2.3 million pound pressure vessel, the housing in which the nuclear fuel core itself resides, was transported from Knoxville to Phipps Bend over a period of several weeks, the heaviest load ever to travel across Tennessee roads. It took months of preparation to reinforce roads and bridges; when the convoy finally started, roads had to be shut down and power lines lifted for the 100 foot long, 26 foot wide, 30 foot tall load to move through at 3 mph. In other words, you couldn’t miss it.
At some point however, that huge reactor pressure vessel disappeared into thin air.
Now I’ve found a second nuclear reactor pressure vessel that was supposedly transported to Phipps Bend in 1981. It too, is nowhere to be found.
The disconcerting part about the transfer of this second nuclear reactor pressure vessel to Phipps Bend is that there was virtually no media coverage of it. Whereas the first pressure vessel was watched by hundreds of people gathered along the roads, it’s like this one slipped by unnoticed. The first pressure vessel’s voyage was covered in local media: newspaper photos taken, many news articles written, and there was even video coverage.
I’ve found one article about the second pressure vessel in Kingsport’s paper, the Daily News. Here is the June 1981 article in its entirety (click here for link to paper):
Unit 2 on Way
The Reactor Pressure Vessel now en route to Phipps Bend Nuclear plant near Surgoinsville is identical to the one at left, moved the site in 1980. The 92-mile trip by barge and overland for the vessel to be placed in Unit No. 2 of the two-unit nuclear facility began Monday and will take several more days, perhaps another week, to complete.
That’s it. Not even a picture of the event or the RPV itself. To add insult to injury, a photo of the first pressure vessel reactor was used for the story. Note the time of transport, ‘several more days, perhaps another week,’ is a substantially shortened amount of time for the vessel to reach its destination compared to the amount of time it took the first pressure vessel to arrive. Quite simply, it was a ghost when it arrived, and it was a ghost when it left. No photos. No video. Seemingly no eyewitnesses.
One of these pressure vessels were transferred to Dewberry and Davis, who claim they don’t know what happened to it. Below is a link to the only document the TVA FOIA officer could find relating to the sale, disposal or other transfer of the vessel.
1989 Letter: TVA Transfers Nuke Reactor Pressure Vessel to Dewberry and Davis
I will rephrase the original question:
How do you make two, 2.3 million pound nuclear reactor pressure vessels, disappear into thin air?
Update: Chicago Bridge and Iron worker confirms 2nd reactor vessel never shipped to Phipps Bend proving the above newspaper article was disinformation.
Delmar Partin: Murderer? Or Wrongfully Convicted?
Most people in Bell County Kentucky are familiar with the unsolved murders of Jennifer Bailey and Greta Henson. There are many other unsolved murders or missing persons cases in which the families have no closure, like the case of Robbie Hoskins or the case of Katherine Heck, both missing now for several years.
One murder case I came across that left me scratching my head was the conviction of Delmar Partin for the beating and beheading of Betty Carnes, a crime that occurred Sept. 26, 1993 at a manufacturing plant in Barbourville, Kentucky.
Tremco Inc. is a manufacturing/military-industrial contractor for Oak Ridge laboratories as well as a former contractor for the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion uranium enrichment plant. At the time, Tremco was located thirty miles away from Cumberland Gap, which explains how I initially stumbled onto this 20 year-old murder case: I was searching for local companies with ties to the nuclear industry.
Partin and Betty, coworkers at Tremco Inc., were previously involved in an affair. A Daily News August 18, 1994 newspaper article states:
Handy [the prosecuting attorney] said Carnes and her husband were separated in January 1993, and that she and Partin had an affair from that time until around Easter that year.
It is unclear if the affair precipitated the separation. We do know the timing of the separation of Betty and her husband coincides with the timing of the affair with Partin. The prosecutor is quoted in the same news article, saying:
This defendant, Delmar Partin, was the person who had the motive, and the person who had the last opportunity, and the person who had the will to commit that murder of Betty Carnes.(4)
Except this is not entirely true. Other people could also have been very angry with Betty: her husband Phillip, as well as Partin’s wife. Had Betty been romantically involved with other coworkers?
Beating, decapitating, and cleaning house- all in under 25 minutes
The prosecutor brought up Partin’s opportunity to commit the crime. However, the evidence presented at trial immediately raises doubt that Partin could have committed this crime. The question remains: how could the jury convict so quickly when the case is littered with reasonable doubt? The circumstances concerning the crime which clearly raises questions about Partin’s guilt are as follows:
-September 26, 1993: Betty Carnes was murdered, supposedly at the Tremco plant in Barbourville
-September 26, 1993- Delmar Partin is seen at the Tremco plant. Although it is his day off, he is there to drop off a magazine and some ammo to a coworker. There was no report of a gun used in the commission of this crime. What were the circumstances under which Partin was bringing these items to his co-worker on his day off? Was Partin actually lured to the plant the day of the murder?
-September 27, 1993: Betty’s body is discovered at the Tremco plant, beaten and decapitated, stuffed in a hazardous waste barrel slated for incineration. Delmar Partin is later arrested for the crime. (*Note: what prompted the employee to open a barrel that was scheduled to be incinerated?)
-Despite the bloodiness of the crime, the area in the plant where the crime allegedly occurred was surprisingly clean, save for blood spatter on the ceiling above the 55-gallon drum where Betty’s body was found. Barbara Wheeler, the KSP crime analyst at the time, said hair found in this blood spatter was determined not to belong to Betty. However, Wheeler said no DNA testing of the hairs were performed because no follicles were present. No mention is made if the blood spatter on the ceiling was DNA tested to determine if it actually belonged to Betty or an assailant. (1)
-Conveniently, a bloody apron and gloves were easily located in a room adjacent to where the body was found, which led investigators to conclude the murder took place at the plant. (1)
– No blood was found on Partin’s clothes, car or home.(2)
-The most time Partin had to commit this crime was 25 minutes. 25 minutes to bludgeon, decapitate, scour the crime scene area of blood, launder or change his clothes, wash up, and “pull himself together” after such a dramatic act. If Partin did commit this crime, and completed such an effective cleanup job, why would he leave bloody gloves and an apron behind to be found? I believe this evidence was planted to frame Partin. Otherwise, Partin would have placed the gloves and apron in the drum with the body to be burned.
-A coworker testified “there was nothing unusual about [Partin’s] demeanor when he left the lab area.” (1) In my opinion, this is because Partin did not commit the crime, had no realization Betty had been murdered and was stuffed in the drum in the plant, and therefore had no reason to behave any differently.
-Betty was missing almost an entire day before her body was discovered.(4) To assume this murder was committed and cleaned up in 25 minutes of those missing 24 hours, is incredibly irresponsible of investigators.(3)
Opportunities to acquire important evidence were ignored
-No DNA testing was performed on a hair follicle found in Betty’s hand.
-KSP Detective Grant Adams admitted under oath he did not take fingerprints at the scene, saying he assumed the assailant was wearing gloves. This immediately raises reasonable doubt that Partin was the murderer. Without fingerprints from the crime scene, we’ll never know how many other individuals were in that room with the drum containing the murdered body of Betty Carnes.(3)
-From what I can ascertain, no DNA testing was performed on the blood spatter on the ceiling above the crime scene that contained an unknown person’s hair. Clearly the presence of a third, unknown party whose hair is found in blood spatter at the crime scene, establishes reasonable doubt.
The truth is simple: there is no clear, convincing, let alone convicting evidence that Delmar Partin is Betty Carnes’ killer. Until this case is re-opened and evidence finally tested for DNA, Partin sits in a prison convicted of a crime I believe he did not commit. There is no honor, no justice in imposing a life sentence on a person, with not one speck of blood evidence or DNA to convict.
Assumptions make a mockery of justice
There were so many presumptions made in this case, and no physical evidence to support them. I’ve outlined several of these glaring assumptions that may have helped send an innocent man to prison:
1. Investigators assumed Betty never the left the plant in the almost 24-hour long time period she went missing.
2. Investigators assumed Betty was murdered at the plant.
3. A fiber found in the barrel containing Betty’s body was assumed to be from the same shirt Partin was wearing that day. However, the defense attorney revealed “many people at the plant wear such work shirts.”(4) There was also conflicting testimony on the color of the shirt Partin was wearing to and leaving the plant. If they cannot even decide what shirt he was wearing, how can they say definitively, this fiber was from his shirt?(1)
4. Delmar Partin was assumed to be the only person angry with Betty, because she supposedly ended their affair. Yet no mention is made if investigators assumed Betty’s husband was angry, who had to endure her affair with Partin. Or if Partin’s wife was angry. I would wager neither of these people were happy about Betty and Partin’s relationship. This establishes even more reasonable doubt, and certainly excludes Partin as the only suspect with motive.
5. Hair fragments found in a pocket knife and paper towels in Partin’s home were assumed to be Betty’s, even though there was no DNA proof of this. (1) Did the prosecutor expect the jury to believe that Betty’s decapitation in which “…head had been severed from her body…cut along the chin line to around to the shoulders…[and] it was an even cut,” (4) had been accomplished with a mere pocket knife? I submit that would be impossible. Messy, and impossible. Not to mention, no one is cleaning up a decapitation done with a pocket knife in under 25 minutes. Not even if they had the whole crew of Merry Maids to help.
August 1990: Jennifer Bailey violently murdered
January 1992: Greta Henson violently murdered
September 1993: Betty Carnes bludgeoned and decapitated
All three of these murders were violent, bloody, and involved some kind of dismemberment or mutilation.(7) Were these murders, coincidentally occurring during the Cumberland Gap Tunnel construction, connected?
The Sarasota Herald-Tribune reported in 2005 that Parsons Brinckerhoff had hired at least 30 inspectors with criminal records to work in a subsidiary of the company that held a $150 million contract with FEMA.(5) Interestingly, Parsons Brinckerhoff was one of the main contractors at Cumberland Gap Tunnel. If Parsons Brinckerhoff will hire inspectors with embezzlement, drug and robbery charges to ensure the safety of citizens, do you think they are above hiring construction personnel with criminal records to work on a tunnel?
Did law enforcement investigate or interview any of the out-of-state workers who were in the area at the time working on the Cumberland Gap Tunnel construction?
There is one more coincidence between the Bailey, Henson and Carnes’ murders. Even though the Carnes murder allegedly took place one county over, in Knox County, it was a Bell County judge who was appointed special judge over Partin’s bond hearing. The judge even rejected a request from the prosecutor to reinstate a higher, original bond of half a million dollars for Partin. Thus, Partin was freed on bond after “six properties and an unspecified amount of cash were posted to allow for Partin’s release.”(6) To tie in to the Bailey and Henson murders, the two women were cousins from Bell County; and one of the judge’s family members were associated with one of the cousins.(7)
References:
Tremco Commercial Sealants and Waterproofing: a “frequent partner in military construction projects”
(1) “Decapitation case defense rests quickly.” Daily News, August 23, 1994
(2) “Decapitation case deliberated.” Kentucky New Era, August 24, 1994
(3) “Time now a key in decapitation case.” Daily News, August 21, 1994
(4) “Decapitation trial begins in Knox.” Daily News, August 18, 1994
(5) “Some FEMA inspectors had criminal records.” Sarasota Herald-Tribune, April 25, 2005
(6) “Man who allegedly decapitated co-worker freed.” Kentucky New Era, January 17, 1994
(7) confidential source from Bell County with credible knowledge of the victims
Nuclear waste from Three Mile Island dumped in KY?
The Middlesboro Tanning Company and Yellow Creek
Back in the eighties, a Middlesboro, Kentucky tannery that processed leather hides was under fire as perpetrators of massive pollution in Yellow Creek.
A Middlesboro Daily News article dated April 8, 1990, “Yellow Creek: Microcosm of environmental movement,” states high levels of chromium were found in the creek bed of Yellow Creek in 1987:
A study by a University of Louisville chemist discovered the pockets of chromium, a byproduct of the tannery process that can cause cancer.
and
Three health studies of [Yellow] creek residents investigated elevated rates of cancer, leukemia and intestinal problems. (1)
Chromium use in the Middlesboro Tannery began in 1965. Dr. Lorann Stallones research, “Final Report on Cancer Mortality in Bell County 1979-1985” indicates
Two studies performed in the early 1980’s reported waste waters flowing through and being discharged from the [sewage treatment plant] were highly toxic to aquatic life….the actual cause of toxicity was not determined….(13)
The first study (that I can find) that shows deposits of chromium in Yellow Creek occurred in 1984, coincidentally after the Three Mile Island cleanup began:
Settleable solids deposited in Yellow Creek were shown to contain chromium, copper, nickel, lead and zinc. (13)
In defense of the Middlesboro Tanning Co.,
Dirk Anderson, manager of the Middlesboro Tannery Co. , says it ‘has done an excellent job in meeting state and federal guidelines’ and ‘installed the most efficient pretreatment system in the tanning industry today’. (15)
Could the federal government have asked the tannery to accept contaminated water from Three Mile Island under the pretense the tannery’s pretreatment system could handle it? Remember- the tannery’s pretreatment system was designed to deal with chromium in the wastewater. Did officials think it could also “pretreat” the chromium from the contaminated water at Three Mile Island? If so, were Middlesboro officials aware of it as well? Remember, there had never been a nuclear disaster of this proportion before Three Mile Island. I could just imagine the panic, and mistakes that most likely were made.
Or, could the chromium in Yellow Creek possibly have trickled out of Cumberland Mountain from buried nuclear waste? Research carried out by Zachara et al. tells us this very thing occurred at another nuclear facility where waste was being stored, the Hanford nuclear site:
Chromate (hexavalent chromium as CrO42-) is a significant groundwater contaminant at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Hanford Site in southeastern WA.
and
Chromate in ground water is readily transported through flood deposits…resulting in groundwater contamination plumes…”(2)
Interestingly, there continues to be elevated amounts of chromium in the eastern Kentucky water supply, even after the environmental cleanup of the tannery and Yellow Creek. This is evidenced in the Division of Water’s report, “Potentials for Levels of Arsenic and Chromium in Drinking Water Contribute to the Higher Cancer Rates Found in Eastern Kentucky as Compared to the Rest of the State.”(11)
Sobering data from the Environmental Protection Agency shows elevated levels of chromium in Gap Creek and its tributaries within the town of Cumberland Gap as well as the National Park. See STORET’s data here.
In addition to the the continuing presence of chromium found in the creeks, tributaries and water supply, a nuclear waste site upstream would explain the sicknesses reported by those living downstream: eerily, they match the same ailments as radiation poisoning. The National Institutes of Health states:
The bone marrow and gastrointestinal tract are especially sensitive to radiation injury…(3)
The Center for Environmental Health studies continues:
Strong evidence has been recorded of a possible connection between forms of leukemia and exposure to ionizing radiation. …These findings are consistent with the National Research Council’s determination that radiation can cause acute leukemia and chronic myeloid leukemia.
In a Los Alamos Science piece, “Low-level radiation: How harmful is it?” author Roger Eckhardt points out
Nearly all tissues and organs of the human body are susceptible to radiation-induced cancer….Leukemia was at one time thought to be the principal type of radiation-induced cancer; however, solid cancers, such as lung, breast, and thyroid cancers, are the more numerous result…(4)
Remember the Department of Defense sponsored lung cancer study?
In 2011, Arnold and her colleagues were awarded a $1.43 million grant by the Department of Defense to study potential environmental reasons — such as trace elements in soil or water — for the high lung cancer rates in Eastern Kentucky.
“We know that tobacco is the number one cause of lung cancer, but that isn’t the only factor causing the high cancer burden for southeastern Kentucky,” Arnold said. “So we started to look for other possible reasons. Could environmental carcinogens play a role?”(12)
A coincidence that cannot be ignored: the timing of the Cumberland Gap Tunnel construction in relation to the Three Mile Island incident.
March 28, 1979– Three Mile Island experiences partial meltdown of Unit 2’s reactor core
October 1979– Although Congress approved the construction of Cumberland Gap Tunnel in 1973, funds were not authorized until October 1979.
July 1980– the first time personnel were able to venture inside the Three Mile Island reactor building.
1981-1985- Officials, with the help of Oak Ridge National Laboratories, must remove the “high (radio)activity level water (HALW) at TMI-2” which “includes approximately 2650 in3 (700,000 gal) of contaminated water in the floor of the Reactor Containment Building (CB) and approximately 340 m3 (90,000 gal) of circulating cooling water that remains in the closed-loop Reactor Primary Coolant System” (14)
October 1985– Five years later, fuel removal from the melted core of Three Mile Island Unit 2 can begin.
December 1985– a 10 foot x 10 foot pilot bore is in progress under Cumberland Mountain in order “to incorporate data” for engineers in charge of the tunnel project.
July 1986– Off-site shipment of reactor core debris from Three Mile Island begins.
December 1986– The pilot bore under Cumberland Gap is complete. We know from previous accounts from engineers this initial 10 x 10 tunnel must have intersected the “maze of limestone caverns” located underneath the area of Cumberland Gap which then would afford endless underground storage for any nuclear waste.
1986-1990– cleanup of the Three Mile Island meltdown continues, yet Cumberland Gap Tunnel engineers indicate in spring 1987 that construction of the main corridors of Cumberland Gap Tunnel will not begin until 1989 (8). Even more noteworthy is the notice to proceed was issued even later: February of 1991 (see pdf file here). If nuclear, even transuranic waste from TMI-2 was being buried under Cumberland Mountain, the pilot bore permitted access under the mountain to the limestone caverns; this must be why the main tunnel corridors were not started until four years after the initial bore. I am confident the matching dates are more than a coincidence.
August 1993– Processing of radioactive, contaminated water from Three Mile Island is complete. This would include the transuranic sludge that must be disposed. Schmitt et al. states in “Historical Summary of the Three Mile Island Unit 2 Core Debris Transportation Campaign” that
As the cleanup progresses, some waste materials, (e.g., sludges) may be found to be contaminated with transuranics at levels above which commercial low-level [radiation] burial facilities are authorized to accept. Alternatives….could include archiving, R & D evaluation or temporary storage onsite, or at a DOE facility awaiting further processing and/or disposal in a permanent repository offsite. (5) page 234
December 1993– monitoring of Three Mile Island stored waste begins.
Both main corridors of the Cumberland Gap Tunnel are completed.
*The timeline for the Three Mile Island cleanup can be found at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s website here.(9)
What is transuranic waste?
Transuranic waste, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, is
Material contaminated with artificially made, radioactive elements, such as neptunium, plutonium, americium, and others—that have atomic numbers higher than uranium…. (6)
The EPA states
Some TRU waste consists of items such as rags, tools, and laboratory equipment contaminated with radioactive materials. Other forms of TRU waste include organic and inorganic residues or even entire enclosed contaminated cases in which radioactive materials were handled…(7)
Transuranic waste is not considered low-level radioactive waste.
Taking Possession of The Nuclear Waste from Three Mile Island
The Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory took possession of the core debris. (5) ch 2, p 2. We know the cleanup contractors and General Public Utilities used evaporative measures to remove as much of the contaminated water as possible.(9) But we don’t know what happened to the rest of the radioactive waste, especially the more deadly transuranic sludge and materials:
The accident’s radioactive waste was shipped off-site to an appropriate disposal area…(9)
but the NRC doesn’t tell us where.
If Yellow Creek is carrying chromium in its waters from Cumberland Mountain, it can only be coming from the Dark Ridge area:
…the valley of Yellow Creek at the end of Dark Ridge, a spur from the main Cumberland Mountain…(10)
The final piece of evidence I have that supports my theory that southeast Kentucky and Cumberland Gap was sacrificed as a nuclear waste dump is this: the military industrial complex contractor who was put in charge of the Three Mile Island cleanup was none other than Oak Ridge-based and the DOE’s primary contractor, Bechtel Corporation.
Evidence is circumstantial but heavily suggests that the Cumberland Gap region of southeast Kentucky and East Tennessee was a repository for radioactive waste from the Three Mile Island meltdown. The chromium in the creeks: the cancers and sickness… identical to those who have been exposed to radiation in a nuclear setting. Undeniably, the timeline for the Cumberland Gap Tunnel construction matches perfectly with the Three Mile Island cleanup. Then Bechtel, a local, primary contractor for the Department of Energy, becomes responsible for the plant’s cleanup. The pieces of the puzzle fit.
At this point I am pleading for help from the professional community. Scientists, chemists, geologists, doctors…whoever would come to my town and do a comprehensive study of my area to determine if our soaring rates of cancer and connective tissue disease could be related to radiation exposure. The people of southeast Kentucky have been carpetbagged and took advantage of by government entities and conglomerates and corporations for two hundred years.
I have had enough.
These people and their children deserve better. Will you help?
(1) “Yellow Creek: Microcosm of environmental movement.” Middlesboro Daily News; Wells, Rob: April 8, 1990
(2) “Chromium Speciation and Mobility in a High Level Nuclear Waste Vadose Zone Plume.” Zachara et. al, March 2004
(3) “Radiation Sickness.” U.S. National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health.
(4) “Low-level radiation: How harmful is it?” Roger Eckhardt, Los Alamos Science, 1981
(5) “Historical Summary of the Three Mile Island Unit 2 Core Debris Transportation Campaign”. Schmitt, Quinn, and Tyacke, 1993
(6) U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission website
(7) Environmental Protection Agency, Radiation Protection, Transuranic Waste.
(8) “Contracts seen for Cumberland Gap Tunnel.” Kentucky New Era, March 5 1987
(9) “Backgrounder on the Three Mile Accident.” U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission website
(10) 1869-1870 Annual Report. Louisville and Nashville Railroad Company
(11) “Potentials for Levels of Arsenic and Chromium in Drinking Water Contribute to the Higher Cancer Rates Found in Eastern Kentucky as Compared to the Rest of the State.” Commonwealth of Kentucky, Energy and Environmental Protection Cabinet, Department for Environmental Protection and Division of Water. June 2013
(12) “Tracing Lung Cancer in Appalachian Kentucky.” K. Bowman. July 2013, University of Kentucky
(13) “Final Report on Cancer Mortality in Bell County 1979-1985”. Lorann Stallones, PhD. MPH, August 1988
(14) “Evaluation of the Submerged Demineralizer System (SDS) Level Water at the Three Mile Island Unit 2 Nuclear Power Station” Campbell, Collins, King, and Knauer. July 1980
(15) “Yellow Creek: Grassroots environmentalism at work.” Rob Wells, The Times-News, October 5 1990
The Incredible Disappearing Nuclear Reactor
How do you make a 1150-ton nuclear reactor pressure vessel disappear?
In 1980, the heaviest load in state history crawled through East Tennessee toward the Phipps Bend nuclear plant, a TVA venture located near Surgoinsville. A nuclear reactor pressure vessel so large strengtheners had to be added to the roads and bridges to prevent crumbling and collapse.
The nuke plant never materialized, supposedly due to falling energy prices.
If you were old enough to remember the reactor coming to Hawkins County, chances are you still haven’t forgotten it. Power lines had to be raised up and roads were shut down for the reactor and its entourage. Person after person I’ve talked to vividly remembers the reactor arriving…but no one knows when it left.
Missing documents about Phipps Bend reactor
I sent a Freedom of Information Request to TVA to determine the fate of the reactor pressure vessel. After several weeks, the only document the FOIA officer was able to find was a letter from the Chattanooga TVA office to Chris Umberger of Dewberry and Davis. The letter first noted the original transfer of the reactor (and land surrounding it) from TVA to Phipps Bend Joint Venture; it then went on to indicate PBJV was going to sell the reactor to Dewberry and Davis for scrap.
1989 Letter: TVA Transfers Nuke Reactor Pressure Vessel to Dewberry and Davis
At the least, it is an interesting chain of ownership. The problem is, Dewberry and Davis is not a salvage company (now known as Dewberry). They are major players in the military industrial complex. See “Wright receives President’s medal from the Society of American Military Engineers” -dewberry.com
Mysterious buildings constructed near the reactor
Without any other documentation existing, it is hard to know precisely when Dewberry took possession of the reactor. But we do know that by April of 1990, Claude Cain, a member of the Industrial Board and contractor himself, had begun work on a spec building at Phipps Bend that comprised 50,000 square feet.
To “spec” means building something and speculating that someone looking for real estate will find it desirable and purchase it after it was built. In other words, there was no buyer, there was no interest, yet it was built anyway under the guise it would help attract businesses to the area.
Chris Umberger, of Dewberry and Davis, oversaw this Phipps Bend development project including the spec building built by Cain. Incidentally, Mr. Umberger later went on to work for Barge, Waggoner, Sumner and Cannon, Inc., a governmental engineering company based out of none of other than Oak Ridge, Tennessee. From bargewaggoner.com:
As the industry revives nuclear power generation options, we have provided critical studies in support of new nuclear reactor permitting. Barge Waggoner offers a wide array of planning, permitting, design, compliance, and remediation services for new energy facility startups and modifications to existing facilities engaged in coal-fired, hydroelectric, natural gas, solar, and nuclear power generation.
Eight months after the TVA letter was written, Dewberry and Davis secured approval from city council to spec a second 40,000 square foot building at Rogersville Industrial Park, a mere fifteen miles away.
To sum up, Dewberry, a well-known military engineering company, ends up with possession of the nuclear reactor at Phipps Bend. Almost immediately construction of a massive building with seemingly no purpose begins. Then a few months later, Rogersville City Council approves Dewberry and Davis’ bid to build another massive spec building a few miles away, again, without a buyer.
Al Gore arrives to the Phipps Bend site
Interestingly, a few days before the city council voted their approval on the second mysterious building at Rogersville Industrial Park, Senator Al Gore came to town to hail the development of Phipps Bend. Coincidence? Gore was a member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee as well as the Armed Services committee. One of the aspects of defense the Armed Services committee oversaw was nuclear energy and its role in national security. Did Senator Gore come to Hawkins County to look in on the progress of the nuclear reactor’s relocation? Did Senator Gore come to town to meet with council members and persuade them to put the vote for Dewberry and Davis’ spec building through? “Senator Gore says Phipps Bend park is a ‘great site’“, Rogersville Review, Thurs. Aug 16, 1990
I have called the actual Phipps Bend Industrial Park. I have called the Hawkins County Sheriff. I have posted messages on the internet asking members of the Hawkins County community to come forward with any information about the missing reactor. I have called the courthouse. I have called environmental health. Each time I have received the same response- no one knows what happened to the 2.3 million pound reactor pressure vessel.
Even Chris Umberger, the Dewberry and Davis project manager at Phipps Bend and the recipient of the TVA letter that indicates his company was to take possession of the reactor, claimed he did not know what happened to the reactor during an April 16th phone interview. (Telephone interview transcript available upon request.)
Did the U.S. government utilize the engineering firm of Dewberry and Davis to place the the reactor underground using the spec buildings in Phipps Bend and Rogersville Industrial Park as cover? Once underground, were engineers able to use the massive caverns, underground river (it stretches almost the entire length of Cumberland Mountain), and possibly even old mines to move the reactor precisely where they wished? Did the reactor end up 40 miles away, near Cumberland Gap National Park? Perhaps one building was used to modify the reactor to make it more easily transported to the second site. I’m unsure. I just know that reactor pressure vessel has vanished into thin air, leaving behind the biggest elephant in the room for the United States government in 99 years.
Update December 2015: a second reactor pressure vessel is missing from Phipps Bend- find the story here.
Nazi Germany, Vemork, and Cumberland Gap
What do the Nazis, a Norwegian hydroelectric plant, and the saltpeter caves of southwest Virginia (including Cudjo’s) have in common?
The ability to make heavy water.
Water contains hydrogen. Normally, the hydrogen in water contains no neutron in its makeup, just a proton. Heavy water, however, contains hydrogen that has the added “weight” of a neutron in addition to the proton, hence the name “heavy water.”
Deuterium is another name for heavy water.
During WWII, Allied forces learned of Nazi interest in a Norwegian hydroelectric plant that also produced fertilizer (specifically, calcium nitrate, or saltpeter). Heavy water, or deuterium, was a by-product.
To Norwegian Resistance fighters during World War II, heavy water was a mysterious substance considered so perilous that they were willing, under orders from the Special Operations Executive in London, to sacrifice the lives of their countrymen in order to keep it out of Nazi hands. – (1) PBS, Nova, “Hitler’s Sunken Secret”
The Allies surmised the Nazis wanted the factory for its by-product of deuterium, which is critical to creating weapons-grade plutonium-239.
I believe the United States knew of the potential of creating fertilizer with hydroelectric power when the National Defense Act of 1916 went into effect.
Col. J.W. Joyes…was instructed to inspect sites [for the location of the nitrogen/fertilizer plant] extending from Roanoke, VA., to certain Alabama sites…(2) 66th Congress, Second Session, War Expenditures Ordnance
The nitrate supply committee recommended this to the 66th Congress:
That the construction of the initial plant be started at once at some point to be selected by the War Department in southwest Virginia or adjoining territory in West Virginia reasonably near to the sulphur, sulphuric acid, and coal supplies of that region. (2)
The hydroelectric U.S. Nitrate plant was eventually built in Sheffield, Alabama with the help of a Norwegian named Berg. (I suspect it is the same Berg who would later be associated with the Vemork plant in his home country.)
Clearly the experts thought President Wilson was misguided when he chose the Alabama location:
Why the President selected the site at Sheffield Ala., for nitrate plant No. 1, contrary to all reports and recommendations, is not known. (2)
I think the President chose Sheffield Ala. to direct attention away from the southwest Virginia saltpeter caves and the real work of munitions production. He visited Lincoln Memorial University in 1918 under the guise of receiving an honorary law degree. (8) It’s certain the trip was actually a visit to the saltpeter/nitrogen operations in Cumberland Mountain, a few short miles away.
It is important to note that TVA was successful at large scale fertilizer production in the Alabama plants (see Dr. Jeremy Whitlock’s statement near the end of the blog post.)
Below describes the way limestone is used to help manufacture saltpeter:
[Nitric] acid can be neutralized with ammonia to form ammonium nitrate or with calcium hydrate to form calcium nitrate (Norwegian saltpeter).
and
…we allow the acid to pass through open towers, filled with limestone, and afterward we destroy the small amount of remaining acid…. (3) Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering, Vol. 24
According to the above journal, this process takes 15,000 tons of limestone, 500 tons of lime, and 2500 tons of soda to produce 29,000 tons of saltpeter.
The November 2001 issue of Virginia Minerals “Geology and History of Confederate Saltpeter Cave Operations in Western Virginia” states:
In the 1860s the southern war machine benefited immeasurably from the conditions of climate, vegetation and geology that gave it the greatest concentration of saltpeter cave deposits in North America. (4)
Luckily for the U.S. Government limestone was abundant in western Virginia as well:
Cumberland Mountain has an extensive limestone cave system on the Virginia side. – Sherpa Guides, “Highroad Guide to the Virginia Mountains” (5)
But the government struck a home run when they discovered a small college named Lincoln Memorial University already had a hydroelectric plant deep inside one of these limestone saltpeter caves: Cudjo’s Cave.
…an active stream runs inside the cave, and was harnessed for drinking water and hydroelectric power. – us-highway.com (6)
It is unknown if it is the same hydroelectric plant mentioned in the 1911 edition of Southern Electrician:
Plans are underway for the erection of a hydro-electric plant for the purpose of supplying power to manufacturers near Cumberland Gap. The plant will be located on the Cap creek.(9)
It is not known if “Cap” is a misspelling of “Gap”.
All three elements needed to produce deuterium are located right here in southwest Virginia: the naturally thriving saltpeter, a catalyst (limestone) that would replenish and produce even more, and the power of hydroelectricity.
I asked Dr. Jeremy Whitlock, a Canadian reactor physicist with decades of experience, how the massive amount of heavy water needed for pressurized heavy water nuclear reactors, or PHWRs, is produced today:
In the future if industrial-scale production is needed again (and I hope it is), we will likely use a catalyzed exchange process attached to an existing process based on electrolysis or hydrogen reformation (e.g. fertilizer production). (7)
SOURCES:
1. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/hydro/water.html#h06
2. http://tinyurl.com/sheffield-nitrate
3. http://tinyurl.com/chemical-saltpeter
4. http://www.dmme.virginia.gov/commercedocs/VAMIN_VOL47_NO04.pdf
5. http://www.sherpaguides.com/virginia/mountains/app_plateau/cumberland_mountain.html
6. http://www.us-highways.com/cgap25.htm
7. Personal email, April 9 2015; copies available upon request
8. http://tinyurl.com/wilson-at-lmu
9. http://tinyurl.com/hydro-electric-gap