VOL. 8 NO. 52
www.ShopperNewsNow.com |
December 31, 2014
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Diplomatic service still vital to U.S, Welcome in the New Year on Market Square Mayor Madeline Rogero and city employees invite everyone to greet the New Year Wednesday, Dec. 31, on Market Square. ■ Ice skating on the Holidays on Ice Rogero skating rink from 1 p.m. until midnight ■ Festival foods available at the ice rink ■ Music on the Square beginning at 10:30 p.m., with a big screen showing events from 2014 ■ Countdown beginning at 11:59 p.m., with a ball drop and fireworks ■ Join in the singing of “Auld Lang Syne” following the fireworks. Sponsored by 93.1 WNOX.
Promoting hope Grant Standefer, executive director of Compassion Coalition, put out a call for donations as the year ends. He quotes Proverbs 13:12: “Hope deferred makes the Standefer heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.” And says 71,000 people in Knox County live below the poverty line with many of them worn down by “the oppression of seemingly hopeless life situations and circumstances. They are indeed heart-sick.” Compassion Coalition, a collaboration of area churches, agencies and individuals, offers hope through “getting ahead” classes. Those who become a financial partner in the mninistry may do so online at www. compassioncoalition.org or by mail at 107 Westfield Drive, Knoxville TN 37919. Info: Facebook: CompassionCoalition; Twitter: @CompassionKnox
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says former ambassador
The Paramount Chief of the Ashanti, left, is one of the dignitaries with whom career diplomat Dee Robinson, right, worked as the U.S. Ambassador to Ghana.
By Betsy Pickle Recent events such as the U.S. move to normalize relations with Cuba and movie theaters canceling showings of “The Interview” for fear of North Korean retaliation have been a sharp reminder of the importance of the U.S. Foreign Service. Dee Robinson of Farragut knows better than most what goes into advancing U.S. interests while maintaining good relations with nations throughout the world. Robinson wrapped up a 25-year Foreign Service career with a three-year stint as the U.S. Ambassador to Ghana. Since retiring in 2001, RobinTo page A-3
Tougher stormwater regs ahead By Sandra Clark By May 20, 2015, the town of Farragut must have new regulations to deal with stormwater runoff. That’s the message from Mike Atchley, manager of water resources for the Tennessee Department of Environment Atchley and Conservation based in Knoxville. He was introduced by Jason Scott, the town’s stormwater coordinator, at a December workshop of the town’s Board of Mayor and Aldermen. The new regs must “maintain that first inch of rain onsite,” said Atchley, “but you do not have to
maintain the first inch of rain each day – just the first inch in a 72-hour period.” The town’s regulations deal primarily with new construction and are enforced through the issuance of building and grading permits. The town is in its second permit cycle, Atchley said. Starting in 1990, the town has worked to mitigate runoff not coming from a specific site. “Our biggest problems are legacy issues,” said Mayor Ralph McGill. “They pre-date the (formation of the) town, and some are really bad.” Atchley advised town leaders to look at the total effectiveness of their program. “Overall, you must be improving the quality.” He said legacy issues could
be addressed with fees collected from new developments. “You have some options.” David Smoak, town administrator, asked about buffer zones. “Some of our creeks are (previously declared) impaired streams. We may have to increase the buffer zones.” Atchley said the town should put a 60-foot buffer requirement on grading permits issued near impaired streams, running from the top of the stream bank. “You have three issues,” said Atchley: the volume of stormwater, the pollution and the mitigation. “You should be treating 80 percent of the discharge. “Somewhere within the same drainage area you should allow
the developer to do mitigation that’s 1.5 times the volume of runoff on the first site. Or you can adopt a payment in lieu of mitigation to use in the town’s stormwater program.” Town Engineer Darryl Smith said he’s got a lot to learn. “We all do.” Atchley said new technology can help the town keep sedimentation out of streams, and he listed rain gardens, additional trees or pervious pavement on public projects as alternatives to detention basins. Planning commissioner Ed Whiting asked if homeowners associations could have responsibility for runoff prevention. “Yes, if they choose to own common space,” said Atchley.
Plaintiffs press tree-cutting lawsuit despite TVA concession By Betty Bean The property owners who filed a lawsuit in 2012 challenging the Tennessee Valley Authority’s treeremoval policies will press on with their case despite TVA’s announcement that it has ended the practice of destroying vegetation that grows taller than 15 feet on its easement zone. The utility contends that suspending the 15-foot rule renders the case moot and asks that the lawsuit be dismissed. Last year, U.S. District Court Judge Tom Varlan ruled in favor of TVA, which maintained that easement rights acquired 70-80 years ago give the utility permission to remove vegetation (by cutting or spraying herbicide) within 150 feet of its power lines, including the right to execute the “15-foot rule,” which it put into place in 2012. In October, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that
ruling and sent the case back to Varlan with instructions that TVA must produce documentat ion that it conducted an environmental-impact study before implementDon Vowell ing the 15-foot rule, as required by the National Environmental Protection Act. TVA responded that the 15-foot rule wasn’t really a material change and therefore it hadn’t violated the NEPA. In Dec. 16 court filings, plaintiff’s attorney Don Vowell said that TVA’s about-face is illusory, since it proposed to end the 15-foot rule only in the “buffer zone” (on the outer edges of the easement) while reserving the right to continue to cut in the “wire zone” (beneath the lines), where TVA power wires are typically suspended some 60 feet high. “The area that TVA plans to effectively clear-cut is approximately 280,000 acres, or more than
437 square miles,” with this area being ‘approximately half the size of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.’ “The stated area is the area of the entire right-of-way, not just the buffer zones. The buffer zones, considered alone, would be a much smaller number of acres and square miles, approximately 25 percent of the stated amount,” the brief, filed Dec. 16, said. “The Court of Appeals quotes the letter of the TVA official in which he states that ‘our policy requires TVA to cut down all trees 15 feet or higher’ with no indication that the policy is limited to the buffer zones.” On Dec. 23, TVA filed two new documents. One declared the property owners’ lawsuit moot because the 15-foot rule is no longer in effect. The other was a statement from Jacinda B. Woodward, TVA’s senior vice president of transmission and power supply, who said she has “completely suspended” the use of the 15-foot rule in transmission rights-of-way and will do an NEPA review of any new
buffer zone maintenance practices before implementing them. She said this applies to both buffer and wire zones. Vowell made an appearance on WBIR news to discuss TVA’s apparent reversal. He said he was speaking out “to debunk the idea that this is a voluntary suspension of the 15-foot rule by TVA when it is really being done to comply with the ruling from the Court of Appeals.” In his Dec. 16 brief, Vowell said a case is moot “when there is nothing left for the Court to decide. The case at bar is not moot because the issues stated in the complaint have not been decided.” The plaintiffs contend that the 15-foot rule has had a substantial environmental impact, which means that TVA should have submitted an environmental-impact statement, which it did not do. Admitting to an NEPA violation could have serious consequences, including being ordered to pay legal fees and costs under the Equal Access to Justice Act.
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