By Tabitha Evans Moore | Editor & Publisher

LYNCHBURG, Tenn. — Each creek in Moore County exists as a complete, unseen ecosystem unto itself.

There’s the visible part — the water column — that carries oxygen, nutrients, leaf particles, and tiny organisms downstream. There are also the parts that require you to look more closely — like the gravel, sand, and cobble that serve as valuable real estate for insect larvae, as well as algae and biofilms that process nutrients. It’s also a spawning habitat.

During heavy rain, it’s normal for a creek to temporarily run muddy. But excess sediment behaves like a pollutant because of volume, timing, and particle size. It smothers habitat in the streambed. It clouds the water and stresses the food chain. Over time, it can change the creek’s physical shape.

For weeks, residents and county officials have raised concerns about one of Moore County’s most important waterways, Hurricane Creek, which runs near the site of the Silicon Ranch solar farm currently being constructed along Highway 55 near Cumberland Springs and Cobb Hollow roads.

At last week’s Metro Planning meeting, Tony Grow — the environment engineer hired by Metro Moore County to oversee the project and protect local interests — said the solar construction site is currently out of compliance with its stormwater permit because runoff controls aren’t consistently keeping stormwater and sediment on the property. He told commission members that weekly inspections have repeatedly found problems at drainage points where water leaves the site, and that while the contractor has been making fixes, the corrections haven’t been happening fast enough to prevent continued issues.

He also said there has already been sediment discharge off the site into nearby creeks, requiring cleanup more than once, and he singled out the side of the project that drains toward Hurricane Creek as the most sensitive area because it is designated an Exceptional Tennessee Waterway.

Now, the issue is moving into a new phase: compliance enforcement. According to local officials, a TDEC representative is expected in town this week to assess compliance. For many locals, that visit will be a moment of truth: do protections on paper translate into consequences in real life?

Construction will happen and stormwater must be controlled

This story isn’t a referendum on solar power. It’s also not intended to re-litigate the validity of the project. There is no straightforward local mechanism to halt the project at this stage. The plain truth is that construction will happen and stormwater must be controlled.

 Hurricane Creek is one of Moore County’s most protected waterways. Its state designation as an Exceptional Tennessee Waterway means the state judged it to have unusually high water quality, ecological value, or special recreational/biological significance. In plain terms, it signals that this creek is one of Tennessee’s “keep it clean” waters — and that new pollution or degradation is not supposed to be treated as an acceptable cost of doing business. That matters in Moore County because once a creek is repeatedly stressed by sediment and runoff, the damage can linger: habitat gets smothered, water stays cloudier, and the stream’s natural balance can shift for years — long after the construction is complete and the panels are generating energy.

Hurricane Creek isn’t just “a ditch with water.” A creek like that is a living system — a moving, breathing network that runs on relationships: water, stone, insects, fish, plants, microbes, and the surrounding forest and fields. When it’s healthy, it quietly does a ton of work for Moore County.

When you build near an exceptional waterway, you must control stormwater, so sediment and pollution don’t become the price the creek pays. The health of Hurricane Creek is crucial to local resident.  Water quality isn’t a vibe — it’s infrastructure for wildlife, land stability, and the long-term health of this place where we live.

What will TDEC do while in Moore County?

Later this week, a TDEC official will take a boots on the ground approach. They will likely visit Hurricane Creek to inspect the site. Once we have a rain event, they may also return to take water samples, according to Grow.

They’ll also likely walk the disturbed areas and check to see whether Silicon’s best practices — things like silt fence, basins, stabilized entrances, and temporary stabilization — are installed correctly and maintained. They could also follow the paths to see whether stormwater is staying on-site or escaping and look at outfalls and ditches where runoff leaves the property.

If they haven’t already, they’ll also likely ask for site records because permit coverage comes with duties: keep records of checks and repairs to comply with permit provisions.

Their potential finding will fall into a few buckets.

If TDEC finds deficiencies but believes they’re correctable quickly, the most common outcome will be to assign corrective actions with deadlines. TDEC could also give Silicon Ranch a formal Notice of Violation (NOV). TDEC’s own permitting page is clear that permittees who violate statutes/rules/permit terms can receive penalties, and the Division may take action up to terminating permit coverage. The state could also issue a “stop work until stabilized” order that would effectively pause work under the construction permit until erosion controls are corrected.

If TDEC escalates to an enforcement action, those actions can become searchable in TDEC’s enforcement database / enforcement orders system.

We’re keeping a close watch on this issue and will follow up with TDEC’s findings once they are available. •

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