The Tennessee Valley Authority gained court approval last week to begin scoping out the land for a one of its high-voltage power lines to supply its new $300 million power control center planned near Georgetown, but TVA officials said environmental and archeological studies of the area are still needed before any construction begins.
TVA plans to release an environmental assessment of its proposed project in south Meigs County by this spring. But landowners whose property TVA needs to extend one of its 161,000-kilo-volt transmission lines for the project say they don’t trust TVA’s study and plan to hire their own consultants.
Greg VitalTVA dubbed its plans for the new system operations center near Georgetown “Project Viper,” which nearby residents claim suits what they say is TVA’s “sneaky and predatory” approach to acquiring property and seeking easement rights across their property for the new facility.
“Residents of Georgetown have concerns about the environment impact of Project Viper on our community,” said Greg Vital, one of four property owners who sued TVA to try to block access to their property. “It is also well known that there is reasonable expectation that Cherokee artifacts may exist on the land. We are not going to trust TVA to tell the truth, so we will look to moving forward on our own.”
Vital said he plans to hire environmental and archeological consulting firms familiar with the Cherokee heritage of the rural community to see if there are historic artifacts that might thwart some of TVA’s plans.