The Tennessee Clean Water Network is an environmental group located in the state of Tennessee in the United States whose principal focus has been the preserving the quality of the state's public water resources including its

drinking water Drinking water is water that is used in drink or food preparation; potable water is water that is safe to be used as drinking water. The amount of drinking water required to maintain good health varies, and depends on physical activity level, a ...

and its

waterway A waterway is any navigable body of water. Broad distinctions are useful to avoid ambiguity, and disambiguation will be of varying importance depending on the nuance of the equivalent word in other languages. A first distinction is necessary b ...

s. In 2016 the group published a press release directed at the State of Tennessee's Department of Environment and Conservation Division of Water Resources, claiming that the division, under the direction of the state's governor,

Bill Haslam William Edward Haslam (; born August 23, 1958) is an American billionaire businessman and politician who served as the 49th governor of Tennessee from 2011 to 2019. A member of the Republican Party, Haslam previously served as the 67th mayor of ...

, had shown a significant drop-off in the number of penalties for businesses committing clear acts of water pollution. The state issues a certain number of permits to businesses to pollute local water, and if those permit levels are exceeded, the state has the option to enforce a penalty, which it had largely decided not to do. In 2014 the group announced plans to file a lawsuit against a

Kingsport, Tennessee Kingsport is a city in Sullivan and Hawkins counties in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2020 census, its population was 55,442. Lying along the Holston River, Kingsport is commonly included in what is known as the Mountain Empire, w ...

ammunition plant over its continued pollution of local drinking water.

References

{{reflist Environmental organizations based in Tennessee Environmental organizations established in 1998 Organizations based in Knoxville, Tennessee Water in Tennessee Water supply and sanitation in the United States