Advisory: Tennessee Community Members to Oppose Expensive and Dangerous TVA Pipeline at FERC Open Houses

Media Advisory: June 11, 12 & 13 

Tennessee Community Members to Oppose Expensive and Dangerous TVA Pipeline at Open Houses in Kingston, Cookeville and Hartsville 

KINGSTON, Tenn. — At three open houses being held this week by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), community members will speak out against the Ridgeline Pipeline which would, if built, feed harmful methane gas to a proposed Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) power plant in Kingston. 

Tennesseans say if the projects move forward, TVA will pick the pockets of working class customers by wasting ratepayer money on expensive gas and will urge FERC to listen to economists and experts at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) who have found that the plant and pipeline would waste over $1 billion, costing more than lower-risk, clean energy options. 

The 122-mile long pipeline would put communities in eight counties from Smith to Roane at risk of a leak or explosion. If FERC approves the pipeline, the pipeline company will be allowed to seize private property to trench and blast through farms, pristine streams, and steep mountains. 

TVA’s plan to replace its coal-burning power plants with gas-burning plants has been criticized by both community members and the EPA, and is at odds with new federal regulations finalized earlier this year to reduce pollution from fossil fuel power plants. The new EPA regulations will likely cause any new fossil fuel plant built to shut down early, becoming a stranded asset that customers are stuck paying for even though it's no longer in use.  

The open houses will occur on the heels of an early-season heat dome impacting 31 million people across the country. Methane, the main component of gas, is an extremely powerful greenhouse gas and TVA’s massive buildout of gas pipelines and power plants will continue to exacerbate the climate crisis. Across the state, Tennessee has seen more intense rain and storms, leading to flooding and tornadoes which ironically postponed a rally in May to call on TVA to ditch coal an gas.  Extreme heat events and more powerful summer storms are a strong warning to officials to reverse course on fossil fuels.

Open house details: 

• Tuesday, June 11, 2024, 6-8p EDT, Kingston Community Center, Kingston, TN (map)
• Wednesday, June 12, 2024 6-8p CDT, Cookeville High School, Cookeville, TN (map)
• Thursday, June 13, 2024, 6-8p CDT, Trousdale Community Center Hartsville, TN (map)

For more information, see FERC’s notice

Background information on the Ridgeline Pipeline and pipeline route:

Earlier this year, TVA CEO Jeff Lyash ignored opposition from local communities and the EPA, and decided to move forward with building a gas-burning power plant to replace the utility’s coal-burning Kingston power plant. The TVA claims the Ridgeline Pipeline is necessary to deliver methane gas to the proposed Kingston plant and urged FERC to approve the project. In May, FERC released a Draft Environmental Impact Study (DEIS) on the pipeline and will be accepting public comment on the DEIS until July 15, 2024.  

The Kingston site has a tragic history. On December 22, 2008, a dike holding in coal ash from the TVA plant ruptured, releasing one billion gallons of coal ash slurry into the Clinch and Emory Rivers with a force that buried and pushed homes off their foundations and inundated hundreds of properties with coal ash. Hundreds of workers spent several years cleaning up the Kingston coal ash spill. Workers were denied protective equipment like respirators during the cleanup and told that the ash was so safe that their lunches could be eaten on site.  More than 220 of the disaster’s cleanup workers have become sick with lung diseases and cancers, while over 60 have died. 

TVA's proposed Kingston plant and pipeline would be part of a web of gas infrastructure that is moving harmful gas from fracking fields to the point of consumption at plants and in our homes.  The production, processing, storage, transmission, and distribution of fracked gas leaks immense amounts of a dangerous greenhouse gas into our atmosphere. Unburned fracked gas consists primarily of methane, and while carbon dioxide remains in the atmosphere for longer than methane, methane has a much stronger climate warming effect. When its impact is averaged over a 20-year period, methane leaked directly into the atmosphere is 87 times more powerful at trapping heat than carbon dioxide. TVA's massive gas buildout will add to an accelerating series of climate catastrophes, taking Tennessee and the world in exactly the wrong direction.

Under the National Historic Preservation Act section 106 FERC must investigate and protect historic and prehistoric sites that may be destroyed or damaged by pipeline construction.  For example the Fort Blount sites which are already recognized on the National Registry of Historic Places as one of the first structures created by European settlers as they moved into what became Tennessee.  The fort existed where the pipeline is proposed to cross the Cumberland River and could be decimated by pipeline construction.  Orator written comments alerting FERC to impacts on prehistoric and historic site should be offered from the wealth of community and family knowledge and the many museums and historical societies in the affected Counties.