Sevier County utility fined more than $20,000 for violating Safe Drinking Water Act

SEVIER COUNTY, Tenn. ( WATE ) — The Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC) has issued a fine for the East Sevier County Utility District for violating the Safe Drinking Water Act.

According to an order issued by TDEC , the district did not maintain 20psi for extended periods, meaning customers were out of water for weeks at a time. Other violations included missing disinfection byproduct (DBP) sampling, missed monitoring for chlorine residual leaving the treatment plant, missed bacteriological sampling, and missed duplicate disinfection. TDEC added that workers didn’t repair lines correctly and repairs were not documented.

The district has been issued a fine of $20,480 with $4,096 due within 30 days. According to TDEC, the remaining $16,384 is based on complying with the order.

The district is required to submit a corrective action plan within three years, report any major breakdown or failure of equipment to the TDEC within 48 hours and properly disinfect line repairs, new lines, and perform required disinfection for line repairs, and document all disinfection procedures. Within 60 days, the district is required to prepare and submit a standard operating procedure, maintain duplicate disinfection, submit a summary of customer complaints, and timely publish Consumer Confidence Reports.

WATE has reported customer complaints for several years. In 2016, a resident provided photos of brown water in a glass that the East Sevier County Utility District said was safe to drink. In 2013, Don Dare spoke with several people served by the utility after they had been without water for 10 days .

In December 2022, a state review board approved a recommendation to oust the entire East Sevier County Utility District Board and to seat a new one. The recommendation from the State Comptroller of the Treasury followed complaints about extensive water outages and poor water quality from the utility’s customers on English Mountain.

The board members were replaced. According to the district’s website, Lisa Hawthorne is the board president, Dan Barnett is the board vice president, and Louie Fromm is the secretary/treasurer.

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