The Middle Nolichucky Watershed Alliance added a “technical advisory committee” to its ranks at a luncheon last week, and also heard a talk about alternative energy sources.

Chris Cooper, a Tennessee Valley Authority fisheries biologist who has worked with the Watershed Alliance on a regular basis for about a year, said having a technical advisory committee will allow the Alliance to pursue more “on the ground projects that have a direct influence on water quality.”

In addition, Cooper said, the technical advisory committee will make it easier for the Alliance to seek funding through major grants.

Cooper said he believes “there is a wealth of grant money available” to help landowners and cattle producers protect and improve water quality.

“It will involve a lot of time and effort on our part, but will hopefully bring a lot of money to this area” both for direct improvements and educational programs, he said.
Cooper said the Alliance’s creek-cleanup efforts going back several years have served to focus attention on water quality.

In addition, he said, various “Kids in the Creek” projects, like one the Alliance will sponsor on May 11, provide children with hands-on experience with aquatic life and water quality issues, and those children influence their parents.

“I call it the ‘trickle-up effect,’” Cooper said.

Cooper said the Alliance’s Internet page has mostly been “stagnant” since it was created. He said he plans to request funding to hire a contractor to add links to other informational sites, and begin regular updates.

Candy Adams, the Middle Nolichucky Watershed Alliance’s chairman, said the organization has done a great deal in terms of cleanups and classroom education over the past four years, with much help from Clint Jones, Cooper and Alisha Spears, all of TVA.

Adams said she believes the technical advisory committee can “take this to another level.”

Technical Advisory Committee

The membership of the technical advisory committee was approved unanimously on a motion by Fred Kaufmann.

The members are : Adams, representing the board; Chris Cooper and Clint Jones of TVA; Geoff Tawes and Brad Bingham, of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; Robin Mayberry, a biologist with Natural Resources Conservation Service; Paul Hayden and Chad Tweed, of the Greene County Soil Conservation District; Donald Gray, of the U.S. Department of Agriculture; and Pat Rykes, representing Consolidated Fisheries Inc. (CFI).

Cooper said others who may be added later to the technical advisory committee could include representatives of the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency and the Cedar Creek Learning Center.

Adams said the next meeting of the MNWA will be May 10.

Alternative Energy

Steve McMinn, a TVA marketing manager based in Chattanooga, talked about
“Green Power Switch,” a voluntary program by which electric power customers at utilities which use TVA power may pay an additional amount as small as $4 per month to promote the use of electric power generated from “alternative” sources, primarily windmills.

Individuals or businesses who sign up for the “Green Power Switch” can purchase one or more “blocks” of electric power produced by wind for $4 per 150-kilowatt block.

He said that works out to paying an extra 2.67 cents per kilowatt hour, for the satisfaction of using electricity generated from a renewable source.

Businesses pay the same $4 per block cost, he said, but must buy a minimum calculated on average monthly usage, he said. System wide, the largest business customer for TVA “green” power is Lowe’s, which has numerous home improvement centers, he said.

He said other large “green switch” purchasers are Kinkos, the University of Tennessee, Staples, Starbucks and Maryville College.

Bill Carroll, general manager of Greeneville Light & Power System, said “green switch” has not been very popular locally.

“Only a handful of residential customers and two or three businesses have signed up,” he said.

Carroll said GL&PS tried to market the program several years ago, when only limited amounts of power were available, with little success.

The fact that users are being asked to pay 2.67 cents above the standard rate of slightly less than 6 cents per kilowatt hour apparently does not appeal to the “thrifty” nature of local residents, he said.

Now, with wind turbines generating “a great deal more” power than the program is consuming, and more publicity about them, Carroll said he is hopeful there will be more interest.

Wind Turbines’ Dedication

On April 27, TVA will officially dedicate and hold an “open house” for 15 huge wind turbines at its Buffalo Mountain facility in Anderson County, at a reclaimed strip mine site, McMinn said.

At that site, where wind averages 2 or 3 miles per hour, each wind turbine produces 1.8 megawatts per hour, McMinn said, enough to serve 3,525 homes.

TVA wants to place a wind-turbine farm somewhere along the Tennessee/North Carolina border, where average wind speeds are somewhat higher, McMinn said, but efforts to locate in Mountain City were halted after local opposition developed.

TVA also produces solar power, but only a relatively small amount, 375 kilowatts, because solar is by far the most expensive alternative way to produce electricity, he said. Two “highly visible” solar sites are located in Chattanooga and at Dollywood.

One wind-turbine site with 18 turbines produces 29 megawatts, he said.
A methane gas recovery plant in Memphis is TVA’s only alternative plant producing electricity using that technology, he said.

McMinn said TVA has a responsibility to protect the Tennessee Valley, which he called “the largest and most powerful water system in the United States.”

The utility also has a history with “renewable” sources of power, such as hydroelectric power produced by TVA dams all over the valley.

Currently, he said, TVA produces 30,000 megawatts of power, from 11 coal-burning “fossil” plants, 29 hydroelectric plants and three nuclear power plants.

McMinn said a 1998 survey of TVA customers showed that 84 percent would like to buy electric power produced from a “green,” environmentally-friendly, renewable source.

The giant electric power producer, seeing the public relations value, created the Center for Renewable Solutions, McMinn said, and became the first power producer in the Southeast to offer “green” electricity.

TVA is the seventh largest power producer in the United States in terms of “green” power sales, and the ninth in the country in terms of user participation, McMinn said.