Talk:Bumpus Cove

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. Track your hook after promotion. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: rejected, closed by Launchballer (talk) 06:18, 2 May 2026 (UTC)

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• Article history

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• ... that Wasteplex tried to dump 350,000 pounds of contaminated chicken in Bumpus Cove?

• Source: https://dc.etsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1848&context=etd, page 19

• • ALT1: ... that Bumpus Cove was a Superfund site? Source: https://cdn.ymaws.com/aipg.org/resource/resmgr/documents/publications/tpg_1984-1993/1991_tpgnov.pdf, page 12
  • Reviewed:

5x expanded by Kingsmasher678 (talk). Number of QPQs required: 0. Nominator has fewer than 5 past nominations.

Kingsmasher678 (talk) 18:54, 27 March 2026 (UTC).

• @Kingsmasher678: I'll review this!

Newness: Yes, expanded 5x between 23 March and 27 March, and nominated on 27 March.

Length: Yes, long enough.

Sourced: Yes, at least one citation for every paragraph; no direct quotes to cite.

Neutral: Yes, coverage seems fair.

Plagiarism free: No copyvio detected.

Hook cited: Yes, both are cited

Hook interest: Both of these seem a bit opaque to a reader not familiar with this topic. Looking at the source related to the chicken incident, some of the other material in that document is more astonishing. For example, the following quotes are interesting, so I'd consider something like this, if you also add this material to the article: " ... that the operator of a landfill in Bumpus Cove, a rural part of Tennessee, illegally allowed burning and flammable waste to be dumped in the landfill?"

• "Inspectors from the Tennessee Department of Public Health found a truck loaded with burning waste dumping the waste with no attempt to extinguish the blaze."
• "There were several barrels of liquid industrial waste that had been partially buried, a clear violation of the Regulations, which stated that no liquid waste was to be disposed of in a sanitary landfill. Some of this material was highly flammable and, therefore, a fire hazard."

Pic free: Not applicable

QPQ: No QPQ required

Comments: Not required for DYK, just in case helpful:

• I'd suggest merging Fowler zinc mine into this article instead of having a short article, since the two topics seem closely related.
• It's a bit confusing that the first time the article talks about homes in this area is in last section, where it talks about damage to homes. Would be helpful to include a little info before that about the history of this place as a residential settlement, and note approximately many people live there if possible.

Status: Needs a bit of work on the interestingness of the hook(s).

Dreamyshade (talk) 06:43, 31 March 2026 (UTC)

Hi @Dreamyshade:! I was trying to go for a hook that doesn't tell the whole story, like the ones you have recommended would. Perhaps something like "that Wasteplex illegally dumped hazardous industrial waste in Bumpus Cove?"

As for the Fowler Mine article, it has enough sources that it is independently notable, so I have a stub for it. Eventually, I will be making a list of all of the mines in the cove, as their is a decent amount of information available. Kingsmasher678 (talk) 17:10, 31 March 2026 (UTC)

@Kingsmasher678: The core criteria at WP:DYKHOOKSTYLE is "likely to be perceived as unusual or intriguing by readers with no special knowledge or interest", including "Make sure to provide any necessary context for your hook". Readers might be able to guess that Wasteplex was a company name, but they don't know what kind of company. It's relatively common for companies to illegally dump industrial hazardous waste in general, but it's a bit unusual for a landfill operator in the United States to be extremely corrupt. So something like this could make more sense to the reader, and it's still interesting because the reader would need to click the article to find out what the impact was and whether the company was held accountable:

• ... that a landfill operator in Bumpus Cove, Tennessee, was denied permission to accept many hazardous wastes and illegally accepted them anyway?

Dreamyshade (talk) 23:44, 31 March 2026 (UTC)

@Dreamyshade:how about

• that a landfill operator in Bumpus Cove, Tennessee, created a environmental disaster by allowing the illegal dumping of hazardous waste?

Kingsmasher678 (talk) 02:32, 1 April 2026 (UTC)

@Kingsmasher678: I like the general idea, but we need to be able to show that the statement is cited to a specific source and clearly exists in the article. I'm thinking:

• ... that a landfill operator in Bumpus Cove, Tennessee, allowed so much illegal dumping of hazardous waste that the Superfund program had to clean it up?

Source: "Years of illegal hazardous waste land filling wreaked havoc on the environment and endangered area residents’ health. In the end, citizen protest and the intervention of the Superfund Program would result in the closing of the landfill and the restoration of the area." (From thesis)

Dreamyshade (talk) 05:06, 1 April 2026 (UTC)

@Dreamyshade: * ... that a landfill operator in Bumpus Cove, Tennessee, allowed so much illegal dumping of hazardous waste that the Superfund program had to remediate the area?

Source: "Years of illegal hazardous waste land filling wreaked havoc on the environment and endangered area residents’ health. In the end, citizen protest and the intervention of the Superfund Program would result in the closing of the landfill and the restoration of the area." (From thesis) Kingsmasher678 (talk) 22:19, 1 April 2026 (UTC)

@Kingsmasher678: The source consistently says "cleanup", and the article does too, so I wouldn't introduce a new term (remediation). Dreamyshade (talk) 22:34, 1 April 2026 (UTC)

Other sources use remediation, as much of the waste wasn't entirely removed, just properly contained. I can source it. Kingsmasher678 (talk) 23:42, 1 April 2026 (UTC)

@Kingsmasher678: Makes sense! I'll update this as good to go after you get that term in the article. Thanks for iterating on this with me! Dreamyshade (talk) 03:55, 2 April 2026 (UTC)

It seems the terms are used interchangably, but it's used on page 12 here :https://cdn.ymaws.com/aipg.org/resource/resmgr/documents/publications/tpg_1984-1993/1991_tpgnov.pdf — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kingsmasher678 (talk • contribs) 23:50, 3 April 2026 (UTC)

@Kingsmasher678: I worked the term "remediation" into the article, so your final iteration of the hook is good to go. Glad that you intend to continue to develop the article to GA - it's an interesting and worthwhile topic. Dreamyshade (talk) 16:46, 5 April 2026 (UTC)

@Kingsmasher678 and Dreamyshade: As I review for promotion, I see that the hook fact (and the article more generally) are based on an M.A. thesis. Per WP:DISSERTATION, masters theses are appropriate as reliable sources only if they can be shown to have been influential in scholarship, and Google Scholar does not indicate this for this particular thesis. Is there a good reason to consider this thesis a reliable source, and if not is there another source you can sub into the article? Dclemens1971 (talk) 14:10, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

@Dclemens1971:, I can probably find another source, but I think the masters thesis is reliable. It isn't really original research, but rather a document that collected information from many different sources. I only cited it as the source for claims because most of the newspapers and many that it cites for information have not been digitized, and I can't justify driving the 3 hours to go see the records at the university that houses them. It is definitely possible to cite the existence of the landfill to somthing else, like https://cumulis.epa.gov/supercpad/CurSites/csitinfo.cfm?id=0404056 , which is the official EPA entry for the site, but I really don't think we need to. Kingsmasher678 (talk) 15:24, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

Well, articles at DYK are required to be based on reliable sources, and WP:DISSERTATION is quite clear that Masters dissertations and theses are considered reliable only if they can be shown to have had significant scholarly influence. I'm unwilling to promote the hook with the article as it stands, but perhaps another promoter will see things differently. Dclemens1971 (talk) 15:28, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

@Dclemens1971: Hmm, thanks for pointing out WP:DISSERTATION. While reviewing this DYK, I found that the thesis seemed to be a well-researched and appropriate source for the topic, but that's a good point that it's a M.A. thesis without clear evidence of influencing other scholarship, and it's a core source for the article. (I see the one citation to it in Google Scholar search and one in Google Books search.) User:Kingsmasher678: might make sense to keep working toward your goal of GA, including adding more citations to supplement the thesis, and resubmit for DYK when you get there? Dreamyshade (talk) 18:23, 24 April 2026 (UTC)

Frankly, a GA is not possible without that as a source. I would have to drive several hours and go access newspaper archives and documentation, which is not a meaningful option. I suppose I may as well Withdraw, though that is somewhat upsetting after the amount of effort put into this whole process. I would question why we would treat well written and researched social science, history, and liberal art masters thesis any different than other sources, however. I see no meaningful reason for this, though hard science makes sense. Might be worth thinking about. @Dreamyshade:, I appreciate you time and effort here. Kingsmasher678 (talk) 03:07, 27 April 2026 (UTC)

@Kingsmasher678: I still think it's a helpful article for the encyclopedia even without being eligible for DYK! If you want to work more on it at some point, the various online newspaper archives could help, such as Newspapers.com, available via Wikipedia:The Wikipedia Library. Dreamyshade (talk) 03:11, 27 April 2026 (UTC)

Already pulled most of the stuff I could from those. It is seriously disheartening to have the only rigorous research into a topic be discarded automatically because of a policy that makes little sense in a history context. The crux of the matter is that functionally the entire article is not considered sourced to reliable information. Honestly, this is one of those rare cases where WP:IAR actually makes sense to me.Kingsmasher678 (talk) 03:38, 27 April 2026 (UTC)

@Kingsmasher678: Seems like a core difficulty in this case is that the history of this place hasn't been written about much in scholarly work in general, so even a well-researched master's thesis may not get cited much. From my perspective, it seems fine to leave the article as-is. If somebody eventually wants to challenge something cited only to the thesis, they can do that. Dreamyshade (talk) 04:39, 27 April 2026 (UTC)

@Dreamyshade: I may have enough to hit GA after all. Newspapers did a shocking amount of good reporting on this from 1972ish to around 1981. I can piece together a public record timeline from that, and use it to supplement the thesis. It will just take much more work than using the already well-referenced thesis. Sigh. I'll drop you a message on your talkpage at some point when I push this towards GA. Thanks! Kingsmasher678 (talk) 04:51, 27 April 2026 (UTC)

Before this is withdrawn, I've started an inquiry at Wikipedia_talk:Did_you_know#RS_exception/question_on_Bumpus_Cove to ask about the community's willingness to grant an exception here. Dclemens1971 (talk) 15:19, 27 April 2026 (UTC)

• , the response from the RSN discussion is pretty clear already. No the masters thesis is not considered a reliable source. It will need to be removed/replaced before this nomination can move forward. TarnishedPath^talk 11:56, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

Given the result of the RSN discussion as well as the above talk of a GAN, it doesn't seem like there is a path forward for this in the short-to-medium term. Marking this for closure, without prejudice against a renomination once GA status has been achieved. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 03:50, 2 May 2026 (UTC)

History merge

{{History merge|user:kingsmasher678/Bumpus Cove}}

One edit from EF5 was made while I was working in my userspace. Thanks!

Kingsmasher678 (talk) 19:00, 27 March 2026 (UTC)

Declined. Unfortunately there are WP:Parallel histories here. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 01:42, 28 March 2026 (UTC)

Mmm. I’ll add an attribution link here, and link the page in my user space. Annoying issue. Kingsmasher678 (talk) 02:17, 28 March 2026 (UTC)

History of some edits

This history is at User:Kingsmasher678/Bumpus Cove. Kingsmasher678 (talk) 21:06, 30 March 2026 (UTC)

Illustrations

It would be great to get this line-drawing illustration from the Tennessee Division of Geology into the article, from this bulletin in 1948, but I can't figure out whether it's in the public domain. There's no copyright statement on the document, so I think it might be eligible for Commons:Template:PD-US-no notice. Dreamyshade (talk) 16:59, 5 April 2026 (UTC)

Oh, I think it's appropriate to mark this as Commons:Template:PD-USGov because the materials were made by employees of the U. S. Geological Survey. The author of the bulletin, John Rodgers, is identified as a USGS employee on page 10 of the bulletin PDF, and the line drawing is credited to Philip Burke King. Dreamyshade (talk) 18:03, 5 April 2026 (UTC)

TGS is also public domain, so you’re clear. I will be adding more of the maps from that bulletin over the next little bit. Kingsmasher678 (talk) 20:38, 5 April 2026 (UTC)