Displaying items by tag: public participation

Circa 1798: ‘Plan of the City of Washington in the Territory of Columbia; ceded by the states of Virginia and Maryland to the United States of America, and by them established as the seat of their government, after the year 1800.’  Ellicott/Thornton/Library of Congress

Groups to carry on air quality work, defend U.S. investments and ensure voices are heard from all communities

This story is from North Carolina News Service.

RALEIGH — President-elect Donald J. Trump retakes office in less than a week amid promises to roll back efforts to combat climate change. A friendly Congress could follow suit. But state-level efforts to address the crisis will continue in North Carolina, at least.

Trump has promised to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act passed under President Joe Biden, which earmarked billions for climate-resilience and alternative energy projects. Brittany Griffin with the nonprofit CleanAIRE NC says tinkering with the law would hurt the state, including its ability to prepare for more severe weather as climate change worsens. But she says there are still glimmers of hope on the state level.

“We still have a lot of state-led policies, and then our makeup now of the General Assembly looks different. We have a governor who also is pretty well-informed and, I believe, dedicated to addressing environmental issues in our state,” he said.

Griffin added that her organization will be working with community and legal partners to resist potentially harmful changes under the Trump administration, and ensuring that all citizens have a voice in their environment. CleanAIRE NC’s community science manager Daisha Walls is on the Environmental Justice Advisory Council for the Governor’s Office.

Griffin noted that there are a number of ways CleanAIRE NC is helping people feel more empowered, such as through its air monitoring networks in communities across the state and clean energy transportation efforts in rural areas, and said community member involvement is important to the state’s response to climate change.

“When they amplify their voice, it allows them to feel like they are participating in the process of shaping environmental policies as it relates to their communities,” she said.

North Carolina lawmakers have passed climate goals under the state’s Carbon Plan that aim to reduce Duke Energy’s carbon emissions by 70 percent by 2030 and reach carbon neutrality by 2050. But Griffin said the current plan falls short for the state’s underserved and impacted communities. However, it is renewed every two years and she hopes they have a larger say in the next iteration.

“We at CleanAIRE NC would like to make sure there’s more inclusion for all communities in the planning process so they can actually more directly benefit from it,” she said.

Dec. 10, 2023 — Universal Declaration of Human Rights’ 75^th anniversary

EarthSolidarity!™ is a grassroots appeal by the Foundation for Global Sustainability. It challenges everyone to become active, or even more engaged, in humanity’s exigency to stem the demise of our planet’s life-support systems. The gist of it is summarized in two sentences:

Ask not what Mother Earth can do for you.

Ask what you and those next to you can do to keep our planet inhabitable.

That meme addresses the global polycrisis — with a hat tip to President John F. Kennedy for borrowing the notion from his 1961 inauguration speech. (Then the Cold War was approaching the boiling point of the Cuban missile crisis. And incidentally, human rights had improved little yet for the majority of the world’s population.)

The global polycrisis is brought about by the pernicious entanglement of many systems that keep civilization ticking. Relatively small disturbances in one system may reverberate through other systems. When necessary corrections trigger a self re-enforcing feed-back loop, previously unimagined break downs that affect multiple systems can happen. Recent examples are the disruptions of world supply chains by the COVID-19 pandemic; then again by a single ship stranded in the Suez Canal.

Inter-system categories.  From: ‘What is a Global Polycrisis?’ by the Cascade Institute

Increases in the frequency and severity of calamities, such as catastrophic floods, hurricanes and tornados, extensive droughts, debilitating heat waves, widespread forest fires, or episodes of abominable air quality often result in disruptions of supply chains, diminished availability of critical services, reduced job security and hikes in cost of living expenses. In less developed areas of the world, water or food shortages may lead to armed conflicts and waves of refugees.

An example of how climate impacts combine with other shocks to increase cost of living. The baseline shows an average cost without the impact of climate change against two scenarios going forward — current policies and adaptation & mitigation — to indicate the increase in cost of living over time as climate impacts accumulate. As the cost of living increases, the colored dashed lines show the potential for societal tipping points or volatile transitions, from strikes to political instability. (Behrens, P., 2023)

Bull Run Fossil Plant in Claxton, Tennessee, was originally commissioned 55 years ago but TVA is now soliciting public input on the best way to shut down operations. Tennessee Valley Authority

TVA solicits public input following release of environmental assessment for Bull Run Fossil Plant decommission

CLAXTON — Tennessee Valley Authority plans to close its Bull Run Fossil Plant (BRF) in Anderson County, but it’s still looking for public input on what comes next.

“As a large, inflexible coal unit with medium operating costs and a high forced outage rate, BRF does not fit current and likely future portfolio needs,” the federal utility said in a draft Environmental Assessment.

TVA is looking at three different options for the future of the structures still standing on the site by the Clinch River near Oak Ridge: taking down all structures; taking down some of them; or leaving everything standing. A recent report lays out the environmental consequences of each of these actions. The report, in draft form, is against that third choice, listing it as only an option for the sake of comparison.

“If the facility is left in the “as-is” condition, it likely would present a higher risk than Alternatives A or B for the potential to contaminate soil and groundwater as systems and structures degrade. As such, this alternative is not a reasonable alternative,” the draft states.

TVA stated its considering removing “all or most of the buildings and structures” on a 250-acre area. After closing the plant, but before any demolitions, TVA will begin by removing components that may be used at other TVA sites, draining of oil and fluids from equipment, taking ash out of the boilers, removing information technology assets, removing plant records and other tasks.

The Bull Run Environmental Assessment is 170 pages long and available for public review. It doesn’t directly tackle the coal ash storage conundrum that has grabbed the attention of politicians, nearby residents and environmental activists, because that issue involves separate regulations. 

This mighty oak is but one of many growing for decades in South Knoxville.  Thomas Fraser/Hellbender Press

Contribute to the master plan to grow tree canopy in Knoxville

KNOXVILLE — No matter where you are in the city, you’re not far from a patch or two of trees.

These copses range from small groupings of oaks or dogwoods that are commonly used to mark property boundaries to lush belts of temperate mixed-hardwood forest that sprawl across hundreds of acres. 

While Knoxville may be blessed with an abundance of these urban forests, many local residents and leaders believe it’s nowhere near enough.

Advance Knox proposes three growth scenarios for the future of the unincorporated areas of Knox County.

If you missed the community meetings and the Zoom event during Advance Knox’s “Choices Week,” you can still take the survey online!

If you are unfamiliar with the Advance Knox project, you may find it helpful to watch the first 19 minutes of the Choices Week webinar recording before taking the survey.

“Advance Knox is a process to prepare a land use and transportation plan for Knox County that is informed by research and community input,” according to its website.

In March 2022, Advance Knox offered a first round of public input opportunities during its “Ideas Week.”  As reported in Hellbender Press, community meetings were held all over the county. Participation opportunities at special group presentations, a Zoom webinar, and individual commenting on the website were similar to those of Choices Week.

Scott Banbury with the Tennessee Chapter of the Sierra Club said a handout provided at TVA’s Aug. 30 listening session stated recordings of the meeting were not allowed; a TVA spokesperson said recordings are, in fact, allowed. Flyer provided by Scott Banbury

Is TVA trying to gag its critics?

This story was originally published by Tennessee Lookout.

KNOXVILLE — While the Tennessee Valley Authority, a utility company that provides power to millions in Tennessee and other states, allows for public input into decisions, the process isn’t simple or transparent, say some regular attendees.

Take, for instance, a recent public listening session: representatives of the Tennessee Chapter of the Sierra Club say they were told they could not record the session despite a spokesman for TVA saying the opposite.

According to TVA spokesperson Scott Brooks, attendees are always allowed to record public meetings, provided they don’t cause a disturbance, but minutes before the session, members of the Tennessee chapter of the Sierra Club were prohibited from doing so.

Image from a 2018 memorandum authored by experts including former Department of Energy employees in Oak Ridge. EMWMF is the present landfill that has a history of failures and is reaching capacity. Ecologists say, after a decade DOE still is not adequately addressing waste acceptance criteria and feasible alternatives.

Public can comment in person Tuesday night in Oak Ridge on proposed DOE waste dump

OAK RIDGE — The Southern Environmental Law Center blistered the Department of Energy in a letter ahead of a May 17 hearing on construction of a toxic-waste landfill that opponents said poses contamination threats to portions of the Clinch River watershed and downstream TVA reservoirs.

The hearing is set for 6-8 p.m. Tuesday, May 17 at the Pollard Technology Conference Center, 210 Badger Ave. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. will be accepted through June 7.

The Department of Energy wants to bury contaminated debris from demolition of Manhattan Project-era complexes and associated legacy toxins from the Oak Ridge Reservation. The drawn-out debate about how best to safely store the materials now focuses on the transparency of the decision process and the health of the Bear Creek watershed and downstream pollution threats to the Clinch River. 

You can still share your own ideas to improve and protect our community   Advance Knox

Updated again on May 4: Hundreds of ideas, complaints and comments, many of them with map locations, have been posted on the Advance Knox website.

As announced in Hellbender Press earlier, Advance Knox held a series of public input events across Knox County during its Ideas Week at the end of March.

If you missed those in-person gatherings and could not attend the virtual session, we hope you recorded your preferences and opinions online at the Advance Knox website.

You can now see what others had to say about your neighborhood and your favorite places.

And, even if you already participated, you may have had new ideas or important thoughts not recorded yet. Please let us know,

— what you treasure in Knox County

— what you miss

— what you think is most important to consider as the county keeps growing.  

The interactive facility to submit ideas will remain open online through May 10, as suggested at the last Advisory Committee meeting.

Knox County offers opportunities for public participation in the overhaul of planning guidelines  Knoxville-Knox County Planning

Framework for growth in Knox County

Advance Knox is a comprehensive planning process initiated by Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacobs “to guide growth, land use, transportation, economic prosperity, and quality of life.”

The process is intended to result in a new Knox County general plan and subsequently shape revisions of the sector plans. Together, that set of major plans establishes criteria for further plans by Knoxville-Knox County Planning, such as local area and annual plans, as well as timing and implementation specifics for the Knox County portions of the Regional Transportation Planning Organization’s Long Range Regional Mobility Plan.

At each 90-minute Ideas Week event, you’ll learn about the process through idea generation and map-based activities. It’s a chance to share what’s important to you.

Knoxville-Knox County General Plan 2033, adopted in 2003, established the framework for the current sector plans and was amended with the Knoxville-Knox County Park, Recreation and Greenways Plan in 2010.

A child snaps a photo of a flower beetle on a wild hydrangea in Great Smoky Mountains National Park.  Valerie Polk

Grab your phone and get to some citizen science

Rhonda Wise writes for the public affairs office of Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Discover Life in America (DLiA), the nonprofit science research partner, is inviting the public to participate in the Smokies Most Wanted program. This initiative allows visitors to help preserve park species by recording sightings of animals, plants, and other organisms from their smartphones using the iNaturalist app. 

Personal climate-change remedies have a wide cumulative impact and are part of the solution, so don’t give up

Tom Ptak is assistant professor of Geography and Environmental Studies at Texas State University. This story was originally published by The Conversation.

The average American’s everyday interactions with energy sources are limited. They range from turning appliances on or off, to commuting, to paying utility bills.

The connections between those acts and rising global temperatures may seem distant.

However, individuals hold many keys to unlocking solutions to climate change — the biggest challenge our species currently faces — which is perhaps why the fossil fuel industry spent decades misleading and misinforming the public about it.

I’m an assistant professor of geography and environmental studies at Texas State University. My research explores how geography affects the complex relationships between societies, energy and contemporary environmental challenges. I’ve found that the human element is critical for developing creative, effective and sustainable solutions to climate challenges.

There’s a large and growing body of evidence showing that individuals can have a major impact on climate change in a number of ways. Citizen action can compel utilities to increase renewable energy and governments to enact strong climate action laws. When enough individuals make changes that lower daily household energy consumption, huge emissions reductions can result. Consumer demand can compel businesses to pursue climate and environmental sustainability.

These actions combined could bridge the “emissions gap”: the significant difference between the greenhouse gas emissions expected globally and how much they need to drop in the next few decades to avoid catastrophic climate change.

Interpretive themes convey park significance. Primary interpretive themes are the key ideas through which the park’s nationally significant resource values are conveyed to the public. They connect park resources to the larger ideas, meaning, and values of which they are a part. They are the building blocks—the core content—on which the interpretive program is based.

Find more details about the process, background information on the MNHP and register for the first meeting here.

The interpretive plan will provide guidance in developing future services, activities, events and exhibits in Oak Ridge, at the other MNHP locations, and through media outreach.

The recording of the April 13 national introductory webinar for this stakeholder process has just been released:

State and local officials want to expand another ‘road to nowhere’ by way of the controversial $200 million Pellissippi Parkway extension in Blount County.   Lesli Bales-Sherrod/Hellbender Press

The newest road to nowhere

The former “missing link” of the Foothills Parkway. The “road to nowhere” in Bryson City, North Carolina. Blount County, Tennessee, has its own unfinished road project, without the catchy nickname: the Pellissippi Parkway Extension.This proposed 4.4-mile stretch of four-lane highway would lengthen State Route 162, known as Pellissippi Parkway, from where it ends at Old Knoxville Highway (State Route 33) to East Lamar Alexander Highway (State Route 73/U.S. 321) in Maryville.

State and local government officials, however, maintain the Pellissippi Parkway Extension will address needs such as “limited mobility options in Blount County and Maryville, poor local road network with substandard cross sections (with narrow lanes, sharp curves, and insufficient shoulders), lack of a northwest/east connection east of Alcoa and Maryville, safety issues on roadways in the area, and traffic congestion and poor levels of traffic operation on major arterial roads and intersections,” according to the Record of Decision signed by the Federal Highway Administration on Aug. 31, 2017.