Menu
Advocacy
We Need Your Help
We seek to effect positive change in policy, public opinion and community action through developing partnerships, strategies and programs to ensure the enduring protection and sustainable management of wild places and waters.
This is your “go to” page for our Action Alerts. Here you will read about our current issues and if your action is needed you will see this:
If any of our current issues on this page require you to ACT NOW to contact a legislator, you can find your legislator by clicking the button below.
TCWP is a Plaintiff in a lawsuit against DOE and the EPA. The following article written by board member, Hans Christen, clarifies the issues involved in this lawsuit.
LEGACY CONTAMINATION ON THE OAK RIDGE RESERVATION: TAKE ACTION NOW
Nuclear work during the Manhattan Project resulted in contamination that still remains, decades later. For cleanup work to continue, the Department of Energy (DOE) proposed, and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC) approved a new landfill, the Environmental Management Disposal Facility (EMDF). Cleanup of legacy contamination is urgent and necessary. Sadly, the selected approach may result yet again in future generations having to deal with today’s problems, as the discharge criteria for EMDF have not been set and may not even be subject to public input. This article summarizes the status and suggests actions the public can take to improve the outcome.
TVA has proposed to convert the coal-fired power plant at Kingston, TN, to a methane (“natural gas”) power plant. Independent of the discussion of whether such a conversion makes sense as opposed to using renewable energy sources, TCWP is paying attention to the potential environmental impacts of constructing and operating the methane pipeline, i.e., the Ridgeline Expansion Project.
The Project includes 162 total waterway crossings within the Obed WSR watershed. The project will cross 20 direct tributaries or upstream rivers of the Obed WSR a total of 22 times. There are four river segments downstream of the Project area: Obed River, Clear Creek, Daddy’s Creek and Emory River.
The company installing this pipeline is Enbridge. For more information about the pipeline and Enbridge, watch our video by clicking below.
There are several permitting hoops that Enbridge must jump through. For a brief description of the permitting hoops, please see the TCWP newsletter number 378 in November of 2024, pages 5-6.
At the time of this writing, not all permits have been granted. However, on a practical level TCWP is planning for installation of this pipeline to happen so is working towards establishing a citizen science monitoring program at major water crossings.
Carbon Rivers, a recycling and composite manufacturing business headquartered in Knoxville, has purchased 360 acres of the former S-50 site in Oak Ridge (see image). The company plans to use the site for research and development to improve their process for recovering glass fiber from retired wind turbine blades into material that can be used in composite manufacturing. They have received funding from the U.S. Department of Energy Wind Energy Technologies Office via the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Carbon Rivers’ recycling process appears to be a net positive for green energy.
Citizens are concerned, however, about the Carbon Rivers project at the former S-50 site because the area includes a wetland. Members of the Oak Ridge Zoning Board and Planning Commission are considering rezoning the site Industrial (IND-2). At the January Meeting of the Zoning Board, there was substantial public opposition to the rezoning plan. Carbon Rivers representatives attended the meeting and pointed out that their plant at this site will be research and development scale and not production scale. The company representatives made clear they favor zoning to preserve the wetland.
Please reach out to Wayne Blasius, Director of Planning and Development ( wblasius@oakridgetn.gov), Steve Whitson, Chair Oak Ridge Municipal Planning Commission ( stephen@whitsonconstruction.com), and Oak Ridge City Council (citycouncil@oakridgetn.gov) to voice your support to zone for preservation of the wetlands at this site.
The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) on 25 February 2025 gave a virtual briefing on its plans to develop nuclear power on its former Clinch River Breeder Reactor site. TVA’s intention appears to be to build two or three “small, modular reactors” for power generation up to 300 megawatts (MW) each.
TVA first applied for regulatory approval for this project in 2016. It received approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to develop a plan for the site in 2019. TVA hopes to get approval to build the plant and place it in operation on the Clinch River Site by 2033. To that end, TVA recently prepared a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement.
The distinguishing feature of the “small modular reactor” design selected for the site is that much of the plant could be manufactured in a factory according to a standard design with the idea of avoiding the complications, cost, and delays of standard industry practice of building large plants custom-designed for each site.
TVA has chosen a boiling water reactor design—meaning both the cooling and the working fluid for power generation—are provided by water. That feature is typical of many older reactors, including the Southern Nuclear company’s Hatch reactors near Vidalia, Georgia. The older, larger plants like Hatch, however, have “active” cooling which requires power and personnel to maintain reactor cooling, while the modular design would have “passive” cooling. This design is intended to avoid reactor accidents.
The planned Clinch River reactors would be only about one-tenth the size of the Hatch Reactors and would be manufactured by GE Hitachi Corporation. The specific reactor type being considered is the GEH BWRX 300 MW.
The discussion in the online session, including the environmental impacts, were quite general and non-specific, including answers to questions submitted by viewers. Among the responses provided to the few questions submitted were the following:
– The reactors would be located on TVA-owned land at the former Clinch River Breeder Reactor site. (That demonstration project was abandoned before the breeder reactor plant was completed.) The site is bounded by Oak Ridge reservation and the Watts Bar Reservoir.
– TVA considered but rejected alternative sites, including the Oak Ridge Reservation and Redstone, Alabama.
– Spent fuel removed after the new reactor’s operation would be stored on site unless and until a permanent repository for waste fuel were to be approved and built.
– TVA plans to locate the plant and operate its reservoirs to avoid flooding the new reactor.
– Cooling water would be supplied from the Clinch River to low-profile (relative to the industry standard) cooling towers. Potential impacts of this process on acquatic life in the river are described in the new supplemental environmental impact statement.
– TVA plans to finish the supplemental impact statement this summer and publish a record of decision regarding its plans this summer.
Deadline for public comment was March 18, 2025.