I Asked for a Cumulative Environmental Study. They Called Me a Liar.

I have been called a liar. A luddite. A sensationalist. I have been threatened. Not for doing anything wrong. For asking questions.

That's worth sitting with for a moment.

All I have asked is this: before major industrial development moves forward on land adjacent to an active Superfund site, can someone please tell us what the cumulative environmental impact will be on the contamination mitigation work already underway at the DOE site? That's it. That's the whole ask.

The Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant site has active contamination plumes. Technetium-99. PFAS. Trichloroethylene. Cleanup is projected to run through 2065. Decades of work. And now we are being asked to simply trust that new industrial development next door won't complicate any of that. No cumulative impact analysis. No independent review. Just trust us.

Yes, there are environmental reports. Dozens of them, I'm told. Each one looks at a single project, a single permit, a single moment in time. Not one of them asks what all of this looks like together, on land adjacent to an active Superfund site with cleanup running through 2065. That is what a cumulative environmental impact study does. And that is what nobody wants to produce.

I don't think that's an unreasonable thing to push back on. Most people, if they understood what was actually in the ground out there, would be asking the same questions.

What has surprised me is the response. And let me be clear about who is behind it. Not our county officials. The people working on these projects. The ones with a financial stake in making sure this moves forward without too much scrutiny. When someone with skin in the game calls a private citizen a liar for requesting an environmental review, they are not defending a project. They are defending a secret. They are trying to end a conversation that hasn't even really started yet.

It won't work.

I live here. My neighbors live here. This is our county, our water, our air, and our future. The people who want to build on that land will eventually move on. We won't. Which means we are the ones who have to live with whatever decisions get made right now, and we deserve to have those decisions made in the open.

I am not anti-progress. I am not anti-development. I am not afraid of the future. I am asking for basic transparency from the people who want to profit from our community's land and our county's goodwill. A cumulative environmental impact report is not a radical demand. It is the bare minimum.

If that makes me a luddite, I'll wear it.

The June 11 and 12 public sessions are coming. Show up. Ask your own questions. See what kind of response you get.