Year-End Goal:
Help Us Protect Tennessee’s Natural Treasures!
Tennessee’s lands, waters, and wildlife are calling, and we need your support to answer!
Our goal is to raise $25,000 before the end of the year. For the first time in our Chapter’s history we had dedicated teams of volunteers in Knoxville and Nashville send 1000 hand-addressed envelopes to our membership. We hope the fun and enthusiasm are contagious and lead to more engagement across the state.
By donating, you're directly supporting:
Conserving Tennessee’s beautiful green spaces.
Empowering local communities to lead the charge for a sustainable future.
Advocating for clean energy solutions.
Reducing waste and addressing the landfill crisis.
If you received our fundraising letter, use the enclosed form and envelope to donate via check or online payment.
Didn’t get a letter? Learn more by visiting Tennessee Chapter homepage, and click the Donate button at the top right of the homepage.
The Tennessee Chapter of Sierra Club is a local non-profit with a powerful national engine. Every dollar you give stays in Tennessee, fueling grassroots action to protect our state’s biodiversity, promote clean air and water, and ensure the health and prosperity of all Tennesseans.
Thank you for standing with us in the fight to protect our home and the best of wishes in this holiday season. Together, we can keep Tennessee wild, beautiful, and thriving for generations to come.
There is still time to attend an Open House (Dec. 5th in Bristol, VA) or submit a public comment (by Dec. 11th)!
For the last year, the Sierra Club and our supporters have engaged in TVA's long-term energy planning process, which will determine how TVA produces our electricity for the next 20 years. We have been collecting hundreds of comments and packed TVA meetings across the Valley to ask TVA for a plan that slashes dangerous climate pollution by moving away from fossil fuels.
If you've been involved so far, thank you!! Your advocacy is making a real difference. If you haven't taken action just yet, there's no better time than now because the deadline to submit comments is right around the corner on December 11! No matter who you are, there is one more important step you need to take to tell TVA to do the right thing for our future.
We are calling on supporters to take two important actions:
Attend one of TVA's IRP Open Houses: There is one more remaining on Dec. 5th at 6 pm in Bristol, VA (at Virginia High School Library – 650 Long Crescent Drive).
Submit public comments: Submit a comment advocating for a transition to renewable energy sources like solar. Share your personal stories and the impacts of rising energy costs on your family or community. TVA is taking comments until December 11, 2024.
TVA has received about 1,600 comments on its long-term power plan.
"Chattanooga resident Doug Carlson has worked in quality assurance for 25 years, and he hates waste. It's like fingernails on a chalkboard, he said. An engineer by training, Carlson now lives in a net-zero energy home that produces more power than it consumes, a project that helped spur an interest in sustainability. The threat of climate change, he said, has become increasingly hard to ignore…Carlson was one of the attendees at a public meeting Thursday evening about the Tennessee Valley Authority's long-term power plan…The utility is accepting comments through Dec. 11. TVA has so far received approximately 1,600 comments, with about 400 of those being individuals and the remaining 1,200 being letters from environmental groups.
People can submit comments online on the TVA website. The agency will publish the final plan in the spring or summer of 2025." Read more by David Floyd - Chattanooga Times Free Press - Nov. 22, 2024.
Send in your Sierra Club ballot! The Sierra Club election for Chapter and Group leaders is happening now, so be sure to mail in your ballot. There is no online voting option this year, so paper ballots must be received by December 13th (allow time for mailing). Ballots and instructions are in the Nov/Dec Tennes-Sierran you recently received in the mail. Ballots may also be printed from the digital Tennes-Sierran.
Behind the effort to revitalize a quiet water use board with broad authority. "When Protect Our Aquifer was informally brought together in 2016, the group had a singular purpose: to prevent the Tennessee Valley Authority from drilling wells into the Memphis Sand aquifer and pumping that water to the Allen Combined Cycle Plant. The group of advocates came together, with help from established environmental advocacy group
The Sierra Club, and appealed to the Shelby County Groundwater Control Board to prevent TVA from getting the well permits. Protect Our Aquifer lost that appeal, then had a lawsuit dismissed. But the effort was not in vain, and the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC) would eventually tell TVA that they could not use their own wells." Read more
by Lucas Finton - Memphis Commercial Appeal - Nov. 26, 2024
TVA CEO's $10.5M is still the highest pay among federal employees. Who got raises and why? "Tennessee Valley Authority CEO Jeff Lyash will maintain his compensation of $10.5 million and his status as the highest paid federal employee, while other top utility executives got large raises thanks to performance-based awards after a record year."
Read more by Daniel Dassow - Knoxville News Sentinel - Nov. 11, 2024.
TVA 2020 v. 2030: Why the nation’s largest public utility is not getting cleaner. "In the 2010s, after the infamous Kingston coal ash spill and the dwindling economics of coal, TVA began retiring its coal plants. TVA could have then charted a cleaner path, adding renewables and preparing its system for the future...But TVA added negligible renewable capacity during this time, and most solar additions serviced companies or corporations trying to clean their image." Read more
by Caroline Eggers - WPLN - Nov. 14, 2024.
On November 4th, sixty concerned citizens turned out for TVA's Open House in Oak Ridge, pressuring TVA to rethink its 25-year Integrated Resource Plan's heavy reliance on nine new climate-disrupting methane gas plants. Photo courtesy Bonnie Swinford. There is still one more Open House, on December 5th at 6 pm in Bristol, Virginia.
Environmental Updates
Our Defenders Fund needs your help! The TN Sierra Club Defenders Fund is a special fund that supports our sole lobbyist to the state legislature, Scott Banbury. Oh, do we need him more than ever now! Sadly, our donations have been low this year, maybe because we’ve all been focused on the election? But thankfully, it’s not too late to help our exquisite state’s environment. Just donate securely online here, or mail your check to TN Chapter Sierra Club, P.O. Box 113, Powell TN 37849, Attn: Defenders. Tennessee thanks you!
The Defenders is a nonpartisan, nonprofit 501(c)(4) organization and donations are not income-tax deductible.) —Susan Johnston
Gov. Lee signs order to conserve Duck River, a ‘scenic treasure’ at risk. "Lee will also ask General Assembly to fund creation of statewide water conservation plan." Conservation groups have advocated for such protections for years. Read more by Cassandra Stephenson - Tennessee Lookout - Nov. 21, 2024.
‘Divorce’ in songbirds: extreme weather pushes couples past breaking point. "Like humans, many animals form lasting,
monogamous relationships. Most birds pair up to produce and raise offspring together over many years. However, as with humans, they also commonly “divorce” – terminating the pair bond well before the death of either partner. Our new research found that extreme events – at both ends of the spectrum, both wet and dry – increase divorce rates in small monogamous tropical songbirds."
Read more by Frigg Janne Daan Speelman - The Conversation - Nov. 24, 2024.
Federal agencies illegally okayed river dredging to restore railroad lost in Helene flooding. "Environmental groups are accusing a trio of federal agencies of illegally allowing CSX Transportation to dredge a pristine river gorge in East Tennessee for rocks and other materials to shore up rail lines damaged or washed away in catastrophic floods from Hurricane Helene." Read more by Anita Wadhwani - Tennessee Lookout - Nov. 21, 2024.
Shoals along the Nolichucky River at David Crockett Birthplace State Park in Greene County, Tennessee (April 2008). The Tennessee Lookout reports that a current lawsuit filed in federal court "alleges that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Forest Service wrongly approved efforts by the publicly-traded railway company CSX to mine the Nolichucky riverbed near the Tennessee and North Carolina border." Photo credit:
Brian Stansberry, via Wikimedia.
Health & Justice
Our Defenders Fund needs your help! The TN Sierra Club Defenders Fund is a special fund that supports our sole lobbyist to the state legislature. Oh, do we need him more than ever now! Sadly, our donations have been low this year, maybe because we’ve all been focused on the election? But thankfully, it’s not too late to help our exquisite state’s environment. Just donate securely online here, or mail your check to TN Chapter Sierra Club, P.O. Box 113, Powell TN 37849, Attn: Defenders. Tennessee thanks you! (
The Defenders is a nonpartisan, nonprofit 501(c)(4) organization and donations are not income-tax deductible.) —Susan Johnston
TVA documents reveal new details about how America’s major utilities fight clean air regulations. "Over the last two years, an obscure group of utilities called the Power Generators Air Coalition (PGen) has quietly opposed numerous environmental protections proposed by the Biden administration, including rules to regulate greenhouse gasses, nitrous oxide, and particulate matter pollution. The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) paid $140,000 in membership dues to PGen in 2021, according to documents released by the utility after a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by the Energy and Policy Institute."
Read more by Daniel Tait and Matt Kasper - Energy and Policy Institute - Nov. 15, 2024.
Regional power authority approves request for Musk's Memphis AI supercomputer project. "The regional power authority in Memphis approved a request for enough energy to power a small city. Elon Musk's AI company will use it for a massive supercomputer. The project was a surprise to many." Read more or listen (4 min segment) by Dara Kerr - NPR - Nov. 15, 2024.
Can plastic fit in the palm of your hand? Don’t recycle it. "Tiny items, such as condiment pouches, pill packaging or contact lenses and cases, can fall through the equipment at sorting facilities or end up mixed in with other recyclables, further complicating the recycling process...Generally, standard recycling facilities don’t take plastic items that are roughly three inches or smaller in dimension." Read more by Allyson Chiu - Washington Post - Nov. 15, 2024.
Op-Ed: Why we cannot and go backwards on clean energy. "Donald Trump and his Project 2025 agenda have threatened to upend the clean energy transition and move us backwards. He has shown us he is more interested in lining the pockets of fossil fuel oligarchs than helping everyday Americans. But we will not go backward. That is due in part to market forces that are not going anywhere. And it is due to the resistance that strong leaders and a strong movement for justice will wage in defense of the American people." Read more by Ben Jealous - Sierra Magazine - Nov. 15, 2024.
A climate activist displays homemade signs on her walker calling out TVA's dirty energy policies at a TVA Listening Session in Nashville in May, 2024. Tennessee Chapter Vice Chair Charlie High (red shirt) is pictured observing the display. Photo credit: John Todd Waterman.
December Events
Statewide environmental events listed chronologically.
Do you have an event you'd like publicized?
Send it to Enews.sierratn@gmail.com.
Dec. 4th, 6:00-8:00 pm CST - Sierra & Suds. On the first Wednesday each month, the Middle Tennessee Group hosts Sierra & Suds, a fun meet-and-greet for people who want to learn more about local Sierra issues and activities, share ideas, or just share a cold beverage with like-minded conservationists. Every pint raised raises $1 for the Middle Tennessee Group. Sierra & Suds is held at Fat Bottom Brewery, 800 44th Ave North in Nashville. Questions? Call or email Rebecca Newton at rebeccanewton8@icloud.comor 615-579-1327. See you there!
Dec. 11th - Deadline for TVA public comments.
Dec. 13th - Deadline to receive Sierra Club ballots in the mail.
SAVE THE DATE! Sierra Club Tennessee Chapter Winter Retreat - January 17-19th at Cedars of Lebanon State Park.RSVP and details here. Early bird pricing by Jan. 9th!
Species Spotlight
This month's featured species is: Ginkgo tree (Ginkgo biloba L.)
Ginkgo tree drops a blanket of leaves as the sun goes down in Chattanooga, Tenn. Photo credit: Allie Stafford, December 1st, 2024. Edited by Todd Waterman.
The ginkgo tree's leaves turn bright yellow and shed in late fall. It happens quickly and all at once. A large, mature ginkgo tree is so striking when it turns yellow that it is not uncommon to see passers-by stop to snap a picture.
Ginkgo trees are not native to the United States. They were brought here from China in the mid-1800s and are not considered invasive.
Ginkgo trees are dioecious, meaning there are separate male and female trees. Female trees are the ones that drop seeds, which are known for their stinky odor resulting from the butyric acid in the coat of the seed.
Having originated in the Paleozoic era (541-252 million years ago), ginkgos are an ancient, hardy species. They survived two mass extinction events, and during World War II, they were the only species to survive the direct impact of the Hiroshima bombing in Japan. A ginkgo tree can live up to 1,500 years.
Ginkgos have also inspired poetry, like Howard Nemerov's The Consent, which asks, why do ginkgos drop their leaves so suddenly? Is it "rebellion or surrender?" Can it happen to us too?
Contact Us
Do you have a program or speaker idea for your Group? An issue you're particularly passionate about? Do you have a story idea for the Tennes-Sierran or the e-newsletter? Let us know! Look through our past programs for inspiration. Submit your suggestion here!
The views expressed by contributors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Sierra Club.
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We are the Tennessee Chapter of the Sierra Club, the world’s oldest, largest, and most influential grassroots environmental organization. With over 3.8 million members and supporters, the Sierra Club has the resources to empower people and to influence public policy through community activism, public education, lobbying, and litigation.
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