This is a follow up to last week’s story about TVA keeping coal at Cumberland. They voted officially, Feb., 11 to keep coal at Cumberland. The gas turbines will only produce about half the electricity. TVA has had to flip flop and base some of their decisions depending on who was in office at the time though.
TVA has spent billions on environmental controls over the years. There were other challenges though, in 2016, from environmental activists. We reported in Oct. of that year, even with all the money being spent by TVA to reduce pollution they are a target and many want to get rid of coal altogether. Stewart Co. receives nearly a third of its budget revenues from TVA. According to the mayor’s office, TVA revenues in Fiscal year 2015-2016 totaled $2,857,324 and were distributed as follows: School-$1,808,209, General County-$977,877, Highway-$71,238, that’s not including the many grants, money the City of Dover receives and the people TVA employs. No one is saying we should give up our rights to clean air and water but TVA has spent a lot of money to cut down on pollution.
We also reported in 2016, the TVA Cumberland City Steam Plant has once again been in headlines in local and national media recently, based on a news release from the environmental activist group Center for Public Integrity, closely aligned with the Washington based, Environmental Integrity Project, which has a lawsuit against TVA. The headline read, “Cumberland plant ranks third nationally in air pollution.” This was based in part on the plants ‘greenhouse gas emissions’ from 2014. In actual Toxic Release, the Cumberland Plant ranks 24, even though it’s one of the largest plants of its kind in the country and the largest in the TVA system. Combined with the greenhouse gases is what makes it third overall. The plant currently meets all federal and state air emission standards. We reported last week, the endangerment finding issued by the Obama administration in 2009 gave the EPA the authority to regulate CO2 emissions under the clean air act. In March of last year, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin revoked the endangerment finding…