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• The building of an EZ Stop gas station (in Old Concord along Concord Road) has three possible impacts on Fort Loudoun Lake. These impacts would be the result for the potential of spilling fuel.
-When semi-trucks are off loading gas (a hazardous material) and filling underground tanks there is the possibility that spills can get into the groundwater and contaminate the lake.
-The close proximity of the train tracks to the gas station is a problem for the following reasons: railroad train traffic causes seismic waves that would cause the peak particle velocity to impact the underground fuel storage tanks and underground fuel lines by possibly cracking fuel lines, contaminating ground and surface waters. The surface impoundment structures would not mitigate the underground impacts.
-The reason that the Sinking Creek Embayment to the lake is called Sinking Creek is because, before the construction of Fort Loudon Lake, Sinking Creek would go underground due to sinkholes that were breached and flowed to the Tennessee River. This area lies within a geologic district of a Karst ecosystem with sinkholes and caverns.
Sinkholes are formed by loss of subjacent support and internal soil erosion, called piping, to caverns. Placing a water retention structure over a sinkhole will feed the soil piping problem causing a catastrophic collapse.
A 4-plus-feet deep closed-depression, a.k.a. sinkhole, exists in the construction area. The proposed underground fuel storage tanks and as well as the restaurant, lie within the sink hole boundary.
The collapse will take-down the building and underground fuel storage tanks resulting in a massive pollution of the groundwater and the lake.
