Memphis residents have pushed back against the Byhalia Pipeline project. The proposed pipeline has been the subject of controversy since 2019. The joint venture project would build a 49-mile pipeline between Memphis and Mississippi and would run through several Black communities in Memphis. VALERO Memphis Refinery, shown here, is along the Mississippi River’s Lake McKellar in South Memphis. Photo by Karen Pulfer Focht

Opponents of Memphis pipeline cite textbook examples of environmental racism

(This story was originally published by Tennessee Lookout).

Memphis City Council passed an ordinance this month protecting the Memphis Sand Aquifer after environmental activists spent nearly a year fighting to protect it against a crude-oil pipeline.

The city council passed on second reading an ordinance establishing the city government’s role in  overseeing future developments in Memphis and how they may impact the aquifer, which serves as the area’s main drinking water supply. 

The ordinance will be up for a third and final vote on Aug. 17.

Since 2019, environmental and racial justice advocates have protested plans to build the Byhalia Pipeline, a joint venture between Texas-based Plains All American Pipeline and Valero Energy Corporation, in a historically Black neighborhood located in Southwest Memphis. What started as criticisms turned into full-blown protests that gathered national attention and support from prominent political figures, including former Vice President Al Gore and civil rights leader the Rev. William Barber.

The council used the Federal and Tennessee Safe Drinking Water Act as an authorizing agent for local government’s ability to protect public drinking water.

The Memphis City Council first discussed legislation to protect the aquifer in May 2021 and introduced ordinances that would affect the Byhalia Pipeline. 

The resolution established an Underground Infrastructure Advisory Board to review all future developments within Memphis and prohibit those that carried hazardous liquids. According to council documents, developments must not pass within 1,000 feet of the Wellhead Protection Areas, which access existing public water supplies. 

Byhalia Pipeline representatives threatened to file a lawsuit against the city council if they were to pass legislation that regulated future developments, causing the council to delay the vote. 

Byhalia Pipeline representatives then abandoned the project in July but said they still considered filing a lawsuit if the resolution were to pass. 

Councilman Jeff Warren, who sponsored the resolution, said “lawsuits are always possible.”

Local community leaders and critics called the Byhalia Pipeline an example of environmental racism, adding that Memphis communities were already burdened by harmful environmental issues caused by nearby oil refineries, wastewater treatment facilities, industrial manufacturers and power plants.

These factors led to cancer risks four-times the national average, and any contamination of the area’s drinking water could potentially turn the area into another Flint, Michigan, a city whose water system was contaminated with lead.

Washington Post: Carbon dioxide levels at highest point in 2 million years

A United Nations climate report authored by 34 people mining 14,000 scientific studies concludes that substantial climate change and its effects are now largely unavoidable but nations, municipalities and individuals can still take steps to minimize the consequences as much as possible.

Here are some key points from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report:

— Human-caused global climate change is an irrefutable fact. Now the debate is what we do about it.

— Few if any signatories to the 2015 Paris Climate Accord met their pledged reduction targets.

— At current emissions rates, the Earth will have heated to or beyond 2.7 degrees (F) above pre-industrial levels by the 2030s.

— Hurricanes, cyclones, droughts, heat waves and other weather anomalies will worsen.

The report comes as many present disasters linked to global warming unfold around the world. The second-largest wildfire in California history burned in the drought-stricken state; Greece dealt with historic wildfires; and Germany and the European Lowcountry reeled from an unprecedented rainstorm that destroyed entire towns and killed more than 200 people. Another heat wave is supposed to arrive in the Pacific Northwest this week.

NYT: Database allows you to track the local increase in 90-degree days every summer since your birthday

If you were born in Knoxville in 1970, it got hot in the summer, sure. But you and your parents could expect temperatures to exceed 90 degrees only about 37 days a year, generally at the height of summer, according to an interactive database from Climate Impact Lab.

But if you were born in 1985, there were an average 44 days per year when the temperature rose above 90 degrees. Now there are about 63 such days each year in Knoxville. I think you can see the pattern here. 

To use the climate-change database, simply key in your birthdate (it goes back to 1960) and locality and you will see how summer temperatures (as measured by the number of daily high temperatures at or above 90 degrees) have steadily tracked upward over the course of your lifetime.

(If you have any doubt as to how this affects you, check your utility bill).

Compass: TPO mapping will hasten safety fixes

A map compiled by the Knoxville Regional Transportation Planning Organization denotes the most dangerous intersections, streets and roads in the Knoxville region.

Transportation planner Ellen Zavisca crunched crash and related injury data to highlight the most dangerous roadway stretches in the region over 3.5 years, according to Compass.

The database will be updated with real-time data, and will allow a quantified approach to prioritizing safety improvements in the planning region. 

“One of the things that stands out is the major arterial roads tend to see more of these (serious accidents) even than the interstates,” Zavisca said, referring to commercial corridors like Chapman Highway, Clinton Highway and Kingston Pike," Compass reported.

“Because those are the roads that have this, unfortunately, really unsafe combination of high speeds, high volumes, and just a lot of access points,” Compass reported.

“(The) ... map shows the location of 2,326 traffic crashes in the Knoxville region that resulted in a fatality or serious injury between January 2016 and June 2019,” according to the TPO website. 

“There were 321 crashes involving a fatality, and 2,005 serious-injury crashes.

“Every 13 hours in our region, someone experiences a fatal or life-altering traffic crash,” according to TPO.

WATE: Greg LeMond will manufacture and sell bicycles in Knoxville

Three-time Tour de France winner Greg LeMond christened a new bike shop in Knoxville this week accompanied by Lt. Gov. Randy McNally and Knoxville Mayor Indya Kincannon. 

LeMond has been researching and integrating carbon fibers into his bikes for a few years, but the Knoxville shop will sell electric bikes along with other bicycle styles.

“LeMond moved to Knoxville in 2016 and has a goal to build and sell bikes in the city and by the end of 2022, he plans to be making all of his bikes in East Tennessee,” WATE reported.

“The store is selling a range of bikes including road bikes, mountain bikes and electronic bikes. LeMond also stated that Tennessee has some of the best bike riding in the country.”

The store is on Deermont Lane in Knoxville. 

News Sentinel: Playground near TVA’s Bull Run Fossil Plant contaminated by coal ash

Testing by independent Duke University researchers indicates a playground in the Claxton community contains dangerous levels of coal-ash byproducts.

The playground is near the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Bull Run steam plant, which has historically used vast amounts of coal to produce electricity and stored the resultant coal ash in huge landfills near the facility on Melton Hill reservoir near Oak Ridge. The plant will be decommissioned within two years, but questions remain about how TVA will handle the tons of remnant coal ash produced over the lifetime of the plant.

Duke University researchers sampled soil from the site, and results showed high levels of heavy metals and other toxins typically present in coal ash.

TVA maintains its testing has not detected harmful levels of contaminants in the area, but the News Sentinel’s Jamie Satterfield, who was been relentless in her investigations of TVA coal-ash policies and the disastrous Kingston coal slurry spill of 2008, noted that “There are no human health guidelines, however, for substances like coal ash that combine many toxins or radioactive metals.”

Inside of Knoxville: City dedicates Urban Wilderness Gateway Park

Mountain bikes ripped through ribbons July 23 as city officials, designers and outdoor aficionados marked the opening of an impressive entrance to the city's 500-acre Urban Wilderness. The "ribbon-cutting" had been delayed for months because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The park is at the terminus of the James White Parkway, which once was planned to slice through what eventually became a regional recreational and environmental asset five minutes (by car) from downtown.

"Phase 1 investment built the park’s infrastructure: neighborhood connections, roads and greenways, lighting and utility installation. The most visible part of Phase 1 is the Baker Creek Bike Park, which was dedicated in August 2020," according to a news release from the city.

"Phase 2, beginning in Fall//Winter 2021, will see construction of the adventure playground at Baker Creek Preserve, restroom facilities, shade structures and picnic areas, as well as new play features and gathering spaces."

Alan Sims has coverage of the event on his excellent Knoxville-centric blog.

Oak Ridger: Landfill moves ahead, for now, for DOE demolition debris in Oak Ridge

Hellbender Press contributor Ben Pounds has a great piece in the Oak Ridger about a long dispute over a plan to bury low-level nuclear onsite in a greenfield on Department of Energy property in Oak Ridge. Over the years, many such contaminated materials were typically transported to off-site storage points, namely the western U.S.

Detractors of the plan worry local landfill membranes and safeguards could ultimately fail or be compromised, leading to a surge of low-level radioactive materials and associated contaminants, into the surrounding area and its water tables. Most of the debris slated for storage comes from the demolished legacy buildings of the Oak Ridge Reservation, originally built as part of the Manhattan Project atomic weapons program during World War II.

“DOE released a Draft Record of Decision Monday, July 12, which goes over some of the aspects of this proposed landfill and environmental issues related to it, as part of the process to get approval from Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation,” Pounds reported in the Oak Ridger.

“Kim Schofinski, TDEC deputy communications director, stated her agency is currently reviewing the document and its revisions, which could take around 120 days.”

KnoxNews: Welcome to Rocky Top, Rotty Top!

A seldom-seen corpse flower is about to burst forth in bloom following a 20-year sleep — presumably not in a casket and not at the Body Farm — at the Hesler Biology Building at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.

A previous faculty member got the plant two decades ago, but this is its first blooming cycle, according to the News Sentinel. It has been nursed along by current greenhouse director Jeff Martin — in someone else’s office, of course. The plant only blooms about every 10 years, if not more infrequently.

Members of the public are invited to come partake of the odor and revel in sheer stank in the next several days. 

“A 2010 study by Japanese researchers attributed the plant’s smell to a combination of chemicals that smell like cheese, sweat, garlic, decaying meat, rotten eggs and more,” according to the News Sentinel.

But it’s not just about the smell: The plant produces the world’s largest flower and is endangered in the wild. Pollen from this corpse flower (Amorphophallus titanum — you can suss out the literal definition yourself) may be used to pollinate other endangered corpse flowers, which are native to Southeast Asia. 

The odor is an evolutionary pollination mechanism to attract flies and other insects that are attracted to the smell of rotting flesh.

WBIR: Knox County planners approve massive subdivision over community concerns

Knox County planners last week approved the concept plan for a 180-acre, 400-home subdivision off Ruggles Ferry Pike in Strawberry Plains on steep, rugged rural land in East Knox County despite community concerns about the impact of the development on the natural features and infrastructure of the area.

Compass Knoxville reported Innsbruck Farms subdivision would be one of the county’s largest housing developments, but it met all requisite zoning codes and planning requirements. 

“The development met all zoning requirements and conformed to the county’s East Sector Plan, leaving planning commissioners little choice but to approve the project. The decision disappointed area residents concerned about preserving the rural nature of the Carter community,” Compass reported.

“This is the latest development in the county’s ongoing struggle to expand,” according to WBIR reporter Katelyn Keenehan. “Knox County is in need of 40,000 homes in the next 30 years to meet the increasing population. Innsbruck Farms is just the beginning.”