A gas pipeline will cross 120 miles of Tennessee. Enbridge just started construction.

Construction began this week on a gas pipeline that will stretch more than 120 miles across Tennessee. 

Enbridge is building the pipeline to carry methane from rural Middle Tennessee to Kingston, where the Tennessee Valley Authority is building a large gas plant.

The pipeline project has been controversial, drawing scrutiny from citizens, environmental groups and federal agencies, and it started years before it was finalized. 

TVA set up an agreement in 2021 with Enbridge, a company that makes billions of dollars each year selling gas on its pipelines. TVA did not finalize plans for the Kingston gas plant that the pipeline will service until 2024. 

Project details have been opaque — literally. The Southern Environmental Law Center brought a suit against the utility to challenge the gas investment and probe the deal with Enbridge. TVA shared the agreement document with a lot of blacked-out text after the center requested the information through FOIA. Litigation is ongoing. 

Last year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency called TVA’s environmental review for the project “misleading” and “inadequate.” EPA suggested that TVA choose a cheaper and cleaner option like solar and battery to reduce air pollution and emissions that cause climate change. TVA’s then-CEO Jeff Lyash finalized the project a week after EPA’s criticism — after the TVA Board handed decision-making power to him. 

This week, Enbridge started construction on the new line. It will transport methane across multiple states, likely from the Pennsylvania fracking region, down into and across about a fourth of Tennessee. 

Courtesy Enbridge

Enbridge is constructing a 122-mile gas pipeline from rural Middle Tennessee to Kingston, where the Tennessee Valley Authority is building a plant that will burn methane.

On the way, the pipeline will cross hundreds of little streams, three hundred wetlands, tributaries of the Obed Wild and Scenic River, multiple waterbodies on the National Rivers Inventory List and six Exceptional Tennessee waters, according to TVA. 

It will also cut through forests and near people’s homes.

The Sierra Club collected about 500 comments from citizens earlier this year to request that the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation deny a water permit for the project. 

“As a lifelong Tennessean, and having lived at each end of the state, I’m tired of seeing our rural landscape desecrated by projects such as this ridge line pipeline. Our waterways are too important to everyone and to put them at risk is irresponsible especially when there are alternatives,” Tom Gatti wrote.