Germantown sued for records about diesel fuel spill into city water supply

An attorney in Germantown filed a lawsuit Monday after he said the City of Germantown did not fulfill a public records request for documents relating to a diesel fuel spill that leeched into the city's drinking water supply.

Kevin Snider filed the records request at the start of an investigation into potential actions the people that retained his firm may take in the wake of the city's tap water being contaminated.

Germantown residents first reported smelling diesel fuel when using their water on July 20, and shortly after the city issued an alert that told residents to avoid drinking, and using, tap water. Many residents spent the next week without access to tap water in their homes and the all-clear was given July 27.

Initially, Germantown officials said the diesel spill was around 100 gallons, but that number was later upgraded to "no more than 300 gallons" at a town hall event hosted by the city.

At that event, multiple residents said they still smelled diesel in their water, even though panelists at the town hall said water from fire hydrants was tested and was drinkable.

The city also said that the employee responsible for the diesel spill was no longer working for the city during the town hall.

The Tennessee Public Records Act requires a response within seven business days. When Snider did not get one, he filed the lawsuit.

After learning of the lawsuit from The Daily Memphian, the City of Germantown sent Snider a letter saying that the city responded properly, but that the records would not be available until Sept. 5. In the letter, Germantown City Attorney John R. McCarroll III said Snider's request was "exceedingly broad."

"Why in the world would we have to wait until Sept. 5?" Snider said. "At the very least you should have some documents here that are available now. In particular, if you said that the water was clear to drink on July 27, I would like to believe that those documents backing up that claim would be available right now because that was some time ago."

Snider said he filed the records request prior to the start of the business day July 27, the same day the water was cleared to be used again. He said the response deadline began when the city's records department opened that same day. His lawsuit was filed on Aug. 7, eight business days after his records request was filed.

In its letter to Snider, McCarroll wrote that the documents requested would be made available on a rolling basis, with the first batch being made available by the end of the week.

Snider's lawsuit, filed in Shelby County Chancery Court, requests judicial intervention to gain access to the documents, but he said he would drop the lawsuit if the City of Germantown began giving him the documents.

"Candidly, if you want the lawsuit to be done, deliver us the documents," he said. "It really is that simple. This is not a lawsuit that is seeking monetary damages and claims. It's a lawsuit to get the documents you have."

Snider's lawsuit, though not asking for an explicit monetary amount, does request that the court grant "all reasonable costs involved in obtaining the records, including reasonable attorneys' fees" if it finds that the City of Germantown knew the records were public and "willfully refused to disclose it."

More: Germantown residents, businesses begin return to normal after water restrictions lifted

In response to that clause of the lawsuit, McCarroll said the city had not violated the Tennessee Public Records Act and "demands" that the lawsuit be dismissed.

"The city has not violated the TPRA at all, much less knowingly and willfully," McCarroll wrote in the letter. "Given these circumstances, the city demands that you promptly dismiss the lawsuit filed earlier today. Otherwise, the city will seek an award of attorney fees and expenses for having to defend this baseless lawsuit."

Germantown officials have argued that they were, and continue to be, transparent about the fuel spill, but Snider said the slow pace at which the city will release records does not indicate transparency.

"The information so far that has been, for lack of a good legal term, slowly trickling out by Germantown, in our opinion, doesn't make a lot of sense," Snider said. "They're not giving out the documentation to back it up. There doesn't appear to be any transparency here. If you're saying this is what happened, show us the documents to back up your version of events."

Snider said confusion and uncertainty over the safety of their drinking water has residents fearful that their water might not be completely clean.

"I've never seen anything like this," he said. "There are residents in Germantown legitimately scared to death right now. I had an elderly woman come to our front desk at my office this morning and say she saw some of the news clips and said, 'I just don't know what to do.'"

Lucas Finton is a criminal justice reporter with The Commercial Appeal. He can be reached at Lucas.Finton@commercialappeal.com and followed on Twitter @LucasFinton.

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Germantown sued over records about diesel spill into water supply