BY Warren Duzak & Anne Paine, Staff Writers, The Tennessean
NASHVILLE, Sept. 27, 2000, (Bell & Howell) — Drilling to install fiber optic cable under streams had crayfish literally crawling the walls yesterday and Metro officials ordering a company to halt its subcontractors' work.
Metro Public Works issued a stop-work order that was hand delivered yesterday to the Smyrna office of a Level 3 Communications Inc. representative. Weeks earlier Metro had asked for plans and more care in drilling.
State wildlife and environmental officials say this is one more and perhaps the most serious so far of a rash of water quality problems across the state as companies scramble to lay fiber optic cables.
In this case, drilling "mud" turned about one-quarter mile of a tributary of Mill Creek into a gray stream, killing crayfish as it headed toward the creek that is home to the endangered Nashville crayfish.
"Everything is suffocating," said Jon Essner, a state Division of Natural Heritage intern who assisted yesterday in netting crayfish many dead and other aquatic wildlife in the small stream.
The Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife were initially fearful the endangered crayfish species would be among the casualties, but the survey did not uncover any of the rare animals, a TWRA official said. Other species of crayfish crustaceans that resemble tiny lobsters were not so lucky.
TWRA officer David Sims waded portions of the creek where the sediment in places was 12 inches deep. Under a bridge on Foster Avenue, Sims said he saw the desperate efforts of the crayfish trying to escape the spill.
"When we first went in there, you could see them trying to crawl up the walls to get away from it," Sims said.
The severe siltation is believed to have happened when one of three drilling operations along Nolensville Pike hit a fracture in the rock. Boring horizontally under streams, drillers use a nontoxic drilling "mud" that's under high pressure to drive the drill bit. When a fracture in the rock is encountered, the pressurized mud can quickly escape through the crack and into a stream.
Sims said business operators along Foster Avenue said they first noticed the stream turning gray on Tuesday.
Dan Ryan, environmental coordinator for Gilbert Southern Inc., a Level 3 subcontractor, said his company does everything it can to avoid such problems. "We are getting manpower ready to mobilize and get in here and clean it up," Ryan said.
In the past two months, Sims said he has investigated 15 to 20 similar cases in Middle Tennessee, although this one may be the worst. He recently investigated a case in Richland Creek across from Belle Meade City Hall.
Sims said Gilbert Southern has detailed guidelines, but getting the subcontractors and company's inspectors to follow those guidelines is the problem. Since subcontractors began drilling, Metro has found proper precautions have not been taken, said Randall Dunn, interim Metro Public Works director.
"We've been asking them for plans and different things for a long time," Dunn said of Level 3.
Level 3 officials in their Colorado headquarters and in Nashville could not be reached yesterday afternoon for comment.
"We discovered they weren't maintaining the pressure on these drills like they were supposed to," Dunn said. "One problem is there will be one subcontractor out there today. You go back tomorrow and there's another. There's a lot of finger- pointing.
"Staff had a meeting with them on July 20, and they were sent a letter on the 24th confirming all these requirements and what we expected them to do and so forth. They didn't take prescribed precautions and respond to us like we required, and there was a problem.
"We'll be following up to be sure there's not work going on the sites until this situation is rectified and they have the people in place, and we're 100% satisfied that they are doing what they should do."
Fiber optic companies, bringing bundled services that combine, for instance, cable and Internet service, are running lines throughout the country. While at least two companies are laying lines along rights-of-way and under creeks here, more are likely to be doing so in the future.
Metro officials say they plan to revisit a 1994 ordinance that sets requirements for them. "We're going to take a look at this ordinance and see if it's tough enough to give us the teeth we need to protect the public," said Richard McKinney, director of Metro's information systems.
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