Our Right to Know: Sam Satterly

By Sydney Sims

There are many interesting things one can find in a library besides books, according to Samantha “Sam” Satterly, whose passion is sustainable development.

Depending on what your local library holds in its repositories, you might just uncover a hazardous chemical dumping site at your local park, like she did.

After spending years working in radio, the Louisville, Kentucky, resident was looking for a career change.

“I took a course through the University of Florida in sustainable agriculture, and that led me down this path of, ‘okay, this is, this is where I’m supposed to be,’” she said. In January 2021, she began a master’s program at the University of Louisville in sustainability.

While working at the Bullitt County Public Library, Satterly became aware of the Gully of the Drums, a 23-acre toxic waste site near the community of Brooks. After her shift; she would sit and sift through documents in three-inch binders detailing the history of the site dating back to the 1960s.

“I was really, really intrigued,” Satterley said.

The site would become the focus of her master’s thesis, which led her to begin sending public records requests to the local county’s parks and recreation department. The situation was complicated, given her new employment with the Jefferson Memorial Forest.

“Probably about four months after I started working there, I was still digging through all these documents, and I came across a memorandum, and it talked about barrels that remained in a wooded area just outside of the Valley of the Drums,” Satterly said. “I couldn’t really find anything else in these binders that mentioned or referenced that. So that’s when I decided I’m going to start doing some FOIA requests.”

After five requests, Satterley came across evidence that the dumping site extended beyond just the valley, prompting her to approach her bosses.

“I was able to piece together that the gentleman who operated the Valley of the Drums actually started in the (Jefferson Memorial) forest,” she said. “He was in negotiations with our local government to create a municipal dump in that forest.”

Satterly also came across court documents that detailed a family that owned private property near the site sued and won a case against the local government for illegal dumping.

Armed with new facts, she says she used all this information to create a story map that she presented to the public in November 2023. The map was recently updated in January 2025.

” Against the requests of my supervisors, I contacted the state and sent them a copy of my thesis along with the story map that I created covering everything,” Satterly said. “That’s how I started to coordinate with people who could make a difference and would do something about it.”

The uncovering wasn’t met with benevolent and helpful resolve from her employer, according to Satterly. She left the job in 2024. Now, she intends to study environmental law.

“I walked away from local Metro Parks and Recreation, and I just told them our values were grossly misaligned,” she said. “I came and I affected change the only way I knew how, and I think I’m done here.”