Utility blasts river to install water line
The Tennessee American Water has begun excavating across the Tennessee River in anticipation of installing a new 30-inch water main.
The water utility said the process involves using a small charge to crack the rock, which is then excavated from the riverbed leaving a trench. This trench will later be utilized for installing the new pipe. The blasting process takes less than 10 minutes and the work is performed from a barge.
Tennessee American Water began the $3.2 million project to install a 30-inch pipe in the Tennessee River in May. This new pipe will be one of three – and the largest – that delivers water to the 20,000 customers on the north side of Chattanooga, Red Bank and Signal Mountain. The pipe adds redundancy and resiliency to the water delivery system to assure reliable water services.
“We have worked closely with various agencies such as the Chattanooga Fire Department, TVA, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Tennessee Wildlife Resource Agency (TWRA) to follow all guidelines,” said Kurt Stafford, engineering manager for Tennessee American Water. “The impact is very minimal and most people will not notice that the blasting has occurred since it takes place several feet under water.”
The Riverpark behind the Tennessee American Water plant will be temporarily closed for approximately 30 minutes while the discharge materials are delivered to and from the barge, at the beginning and end of the day.
Food City donates $100,000 to charities
In celebration of its 100th Anniversary, Food City has donated more than $100,000 to charitable organizations throughout their market area.
“In today’s competitive market place, it’s very rare to see a company celebrating their 100th Anniversary,” says Steven C. Smith, Food City president and chief executive officer. “\We wanted to show our appreciation by donating an additional $100,000 to some of the charitable organizations that help make our region a better place to live, work and raise our children.”
Participating local charities were selected from each of their four market areas – Southeast Kentucky, Tri-Cities, Knoxville and Chattanooga. The public was encouraged to visit foodcitycharitychallenge.com to vote for their favorite charity. The charity that received the most votes in each market area received $12,500. The second place winners each received $7,500 and third place winners were awarded $5,000 each.
Headquartered in Abingdon, Virginia, K-VA-T Food Stores (Food City’s parent company) operates 132 retail outlets throughout southeast Kentucky, southwest Virginia, east Tennessee, Chattanooga and north Georgia.
ARC, EDA help fund Chickamauga project
The U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration (EDA) and the U.S. Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) are awarding $1.2 million in grants to the city of Chickamauga, Georgia, to make water improvements needed to protect the local business community from fire and other threats. According to grantee estimates, the project will help protect 1,000 jobs and $100 million in private investment.
“Without efficient and upgraded infrastructure, industry can neither grow nor expand,” said Tim Thomas, federal Co Chair of the Appalachian Regional Commission. “In addition to benefiting Chickamauga’s businesses and local economy, this infrastructure improvement will make the entire floor covering industry stronger.”
Home prices rise as inventory shrinks
U.S. home prices rose in April from a year earlier, lifted by bidding wars in many cities where would-be buyers fought over a sparse supply of homes.
The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller 20-city home price index moved up 6.6 percent from a year earlier, led by outsize gains in Seattle, Las Vegas and San Francisco. All three cities showed double-digit increases.
Prices rose even as home sales fell and mortgage rates climbed. Sales of existing homes dropped in April and May and are now running 3 percent below their year-ago level. Fewer homes are available – the supply has fallen 6.1 percent in the past year – and they are selling quickly.The average house for sale remained on the market for just 26 days in April, down from 39 a year ago.
Mortgage rates reached a seven-year high of 4.77 percent in late May before declining this month.
Buffet hires Lee to manage papers
Warren Buffett’s company has hired Lee Enterprises to manage the mostly smaller newspapers it has acquired since 2011 in 30 different markets. Lee said Tuesday it expects to collect $50 million in fees from the five-year agreement that should help BH Media Group’s newspapers reduce costs.
“In addition to the primary benefit of deploying Lee’s successful strategies at BH Media, this alliance provides a significant expansion of operating scale, adding 30 markets to our own 49,” Lee President Kevin Mowbray said.
Billionaire Omaha investor Warren Buffett, chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, said that, “although the challenges in publishing are clear, I believe we can benefit by joining efforts. Lee Enterprises’ growth in digital market share and revenue has outpaced the industry.”
Berkshire began buying more newspapers in 2011 it has largely let them run themselves, as it does with its other subsidiaries, but that meant there weren’t significant changes at a time when the industry is struggling to replace ad and subscription revenue lost to online competitors.
“It has been very disappointing we haven’t seen much innovation out of Berkshire Hathaway Media,” newspaper analyst Ken Doctor said.
If this deal is successful in reducing costs, Doctor said other media companies might consider similar arrangements.
Consumer confidence drops during June
American consumers lost a bit of their optimism in June but are still feeling good by historical standards.
The Conference Board, a business research group, said Tuesday that its consumer confidence index slipped this month to 126.4, down from 128.8 in May but up from 117.3 in June 2017.
The index measures both consumers’ assessment of current economic conditions and expectations for the future. Their view of current conditions was almost unchanged from May. Their outlook dimmed to the lowest level since December.
Compared to their views in May, Americans were less likely to say business conditions would be better in six months and more likely to say they’d be worse.
“While expectations remain high by historical standards, the modest curtailment in optimism suggests that consumers do not foresee the economy gaining much momentum in the months ahead,” said Conference Board economist Lynn Franco.