Leaked audio reveals the day care is committed to keeping the day care open no matter what test results reveal about the coal ash buried underground.
“I will be damned if this school closes down,” Tammy Southers said in the recording. “I will keep this motherf—–g school open if there is nothing but three (?) kids and there are three staff kids. I don’t care.”
(Tammy Southers is the person who tried to have me arrested, for being in the street near the Tutor Time)
As WCNC Charlotte first reported in July, children have spent years playing on top of the coal-burning byproduct that contains known carcinogens, including one that is radioactive. After WCNC Charlotte’s “Buried” investigation aired, parents reached out to say the day care failed to disclose the coal ash beneath the ground, placed there decades ago as fill dirt, until WCNC Charlotte pointed it out.
Following WCNC Charlotte’s investigation, Tutor Time hired crews to cover a section of exposed coal ash along the fence with sod and moved forward with soil testing plans “out of an abundance of caution.”
“You’re walking on grass. You’re not walking on coal ash,” Southers can be heard telling employees during the staff meeting. “I’ve been here for 10 years and I have not had any symptoms of anything that I would say is because of coal ash.”
In a statement, Tutor Time pointed to a recent visual state inspection of the day care that concluded “there is no risk to children at our site”.
“After an unannounced visit stemming from a third-party allegation, representatives from both (the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality and the North Carolina Division of Child Development and Early Education) concurred on Aug. 13, 2024, that our facility complies with current state environmental quality requirements, and that our team has fully cooperated with and followed all directives provided by the NC DEQ,” the statement said, in part. “As is evidenced in the report, they do not believe that further coal ash testing is necessary.”
-Note the key words -VISUAL state inspection. That means the NC-DEQ looked around the daycare, confirmed there was exposed coal ash, and told them to cover it up. That’s it.
No radiation testing. No testing of the exposed coal ash for toxins. No real scientist brought in. No warning signs required. Nothing.
We have taken the steps, that the state and the EPA have refused to take. Working with Earthjustice and Nate Morabito, we have obtained two sets of samples from this coal ash site. Results to be released soon.
