In the next few months, the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation will complete two firsts for the state. The agency will create an inventory of the state’s biggest climate offenders — and then draft a plan to cut that pollution statewide.
‘Stop polluting the communities of Black folks’: A Memphis resident reacts to TVA’s latest methane gas proposal
The Tennessee Valley Authority has planned the largest fossil fuel buildout of any utility in the nation this decade — and it just proposed another project.
A Nashville painter reflects on scenes from the Stones River, an unsung tributary of the Cumberland
The Stones River is a stream that feeds into the Cumberland River in Nashville. It holds the J. Percy Priest Dam and winds along a popular greenway, but many people have never heard of it. A local artist wants to change that.
Justin J. Pearson awarded Sierra Club’s highest honor for leadership stopping oil pipeline in Memphis
In 2021, Justin J. Pearson led people in protests against billion-dollar fossil fuel companies. Together, they helped stop an oil pipeline that would have cut through mostly Black neighborhoods in Memphis.
Dirt bikes are polluting a Tennessee forest. The state took action.
State finds “significant impact to erosion control, water quality, forest health, and other forms of recreation.”
‘Further pollution is unacceptable’: Nashville leaders decry TVA Kingston project
The Tennessee Valley Authority is planning a gas plant and pipeline project in Kingston. Tennessee residents, over many years, will pay for it. But should they? The fossil fuel project is not a good investment, economically or morally, according to Nashville’s political leaders.
The latest ‘forever chemical’ PFAS lawsuit is coming from Tennessee
Manufacturers buried evidence of harm. Health studies flagged cancer risks. Citizens reported contamination. Then, states started suing.
Tennessee has 300 leaky, ‘orphaned’ oil and gas wells. A handful are about to be plugged for safety.
Abandoned gas wells — essentially deep holes in Earth’s crust that slowly spit out methane — will soon be capped in one of Tennessee’s federally-protected lands. The U.S. Department of the Interior announced funding Thursday to plug orphaned oil and gas wells in national parks, forests, wildlife refuges and other public lands and waters.
The Tennessee legislature blocked climate action this year — again. And other environmental bills you may have missed.
While some states are confronting climate change head on, Tennessee has been blocking actions that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Chemical weapons were buried decades ago along the Duck River. Now a company wants to dig a landfill.
Tennesseans throw away more than 2,000 pounds of trash, on average, every year, and the dumping grounds for this waste are shrinking. Some companies are trying to make a profit with new facilities.
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