A Nashville television station is alleging Tennessee State Rep. Andy Holt has committed violations and contaminated a creek while farming hogs in Weakley County. But state regulators haven’t taken any action against him.
The investigation found Holt dumped more than 500,000 gallons of hog waste in a creek contaminating it for more than a mile, sprayed manure on a neighbor's trees and didn’t properly bury hog carcasses. Yet a state inspector, now retired, wrote that a higher official at the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation discouraged him from taking any action.
Holt also operated the farm for several years without a proper permit and now the Environmental Protection Agency is looking into the matter.
Meanwhile, state regulators say special treatment wasn’t involved, and Holt says he stopped hog farming at the end of 2014.
