Oak Ridge Today

New apartments possible on South Illinois

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The Oak Ridge City Council on Monday, Jan. 9, 2023, will consider a rezoning request that could allow about 400 apartments on about 32 acres along South Illinois Avenue headed toward Knoxville. (Map by City of Oak Ridge)

The Oak Ridge City Council on Monday will consider a rezoning request that could allow about 400 apartments on roughly 32 acres along South Illinois Avenue.

The property is bordered by South Illinois Avenue, Mitchell Road, and Centrifuge Way (at the top of the hill headed out of Oak Ridge to Knoxville on South Illinois).

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Power to TRISO at Horizon could cost $13 million

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This map shows the potential route of 69-kilovolt overhead power lines for the TRISO-X nuclear fuel facility at Horizon Center in west Oak Ridge, starting at the substation (SUB) on the south side of Highway 95/58 (lower right), continuing up Novus Drive (center right), crossing onto Horizon Center land, and then running east (to the right) on the back side of Site 6 (open area at upper right).

Building a new substation and electrical lines to supply power to a nuclear fuel company could cost $13 million, Oak Ridge officials said in December.

The nuclear fuel company, TRISO-X, needs about 32 to 35 megawatts of electricity at Horizon Center in west Oak Ridge. That would make the company the city’s biggest electrical customer. (Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Y-12 National Security Complex get most of their power directly from Tennessee Valley Authority.)

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City offices opening 3 hours late

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City of Oak Ridge offices will open three hours late on Tuesday because of the snowy weather and icy conditions.

City offices will open at 11 a.m. Tuesday.

Essential employees will be required to report at their regular time, the city said.

Updated: TVA ends rolling blackouts

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Note: This story was last updated at 12 p.m.

Mandatory rolling power blackouts continued in Oak Ridge and across the region Saturday morning. The City of Oak Ridge announced at about 11:40 a.m. Saturday that the power outages had been terminated.

Here is the previous story:

The blackouts will affect 10 percent of customers at a time, and power outages will last about 30 minutes, the City of Oak Ridge said in a press release. That’s a larger percentage of customers who will be affected by the Saturday outages than the ones on Friday, when about 2 percent of Oak Ridge customers were affected.

The Tennessee Valley Authority, which provides power to the City of Oak Ridge, said the blackouts are necessary because of the extreme weather conditions, according to the press release. The power demand is high as temperatures have dropped into the single digits in what has been called a “once-in-a-generation” storm.

TVA said the power demand is among its highest in its nearly 90-year history. Typical power demands for December are around 24,000 megawatts. On Friday, power demands surpassed 33,000 megawatts, TVA said.

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Updated: TVA ends blackouts in Oak Ridge

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Note: This story was updated at 3 p.m.

The Tennessee Valley Authority has terminated rolling blackouts in Oak Ridge.

“Everything is now going back to normal,” City of Oak Ridge spokesperson Lauren Gray said.

The mandatory rolling blackouts that affected electricity across the region and in the City of Oak Ridge were to help TVA meet the power demand today (Friday, December 23), a press release said.

The blackouts were expected to affect about 2 percent of Oak Ridge Electric Department customers and last for about 30 minutes, the press release said. The blackouts were expected across the Tennessee Valley.

They were being conducted because of the low temperatures and to meet high power demand, according to the press release, which came from the City of Oak Ridge.

Information was not available about which 2 percent of customers were affected, although there were measures in place to ensure hospitals, fire departments, and other similar operations are not without power, Gray said.

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Oak Ridge wins two tourism awards

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Pictured above are, from left, Rebecca Williams and Barbara Ferrell of the Lavender Festival; Katy Watt, president of Explore Oak Ridge; and Mark Ezell, commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Tourism at a recent awards ceremony. (Photo courtesy Explore Oak Ridge/City of Oak Ridge)

Oak Ridge has won two awards for promoting tourism in middle East Tennessee, an area that includes the Knoxville metropolitan area.

The Oak Ridge Lavender Festival was awarded the 2022 Best Annual Festival or Event Award, a press release said.

Explore Oak Ridge was awarded the Excellence in Tourism Award for Best Advertising or Marketing Campaign for the “Katie the Calutron Girl” marketing promotion.

The 2022 awards were presented by the Middle East Tennessee Tourism Council in a December 1 ceremony. The METTC promotes tourism activities and represents a 16-county region including Anderson, Blount, Campbell, Claiborne, Cooke, Grainger, Hamblen, Jefferson, Knox, Loudon, Monroe, Morgan, Roane, Scott, Sevier, and Union counties.

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City offices closed for Christmas, New Year’s

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The Oak Ridge Municipal Building is pictured above on Tuesday evening, May 5, 2020. (File photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

City of Oak Ridge offices will be closed for Christmas and New Year’s Day.

City administrative offices and Oak Ridge City Court will be closed from Friday, December 23, to Monday, December 26, for Christmas.

They will also be closed on Monday, January 2, for New Year’s Day.

Offices and the court will re-open on Tuesday, January 3, a press release said.

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Gooch re-appointed mayor

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Warren Gooch

Oak Ridge Mayor Warren Gooch was appointed without opposition to a fifth two-year term on Monday, and Council member Jim Dodson was appointed to his first two-year term in a 4-3 vote.

Gooch is starting his third four-year term on Oak Ridge City Council. He has been mayor since being elected to Council in 2014. He had no opposition on Monday.

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City seeks spending authority for Horizon Center power

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Nuclear fuel company TRISO-X needs electrical power for a manufacturing facility in Horizon Center by December 2024, and the Oak Ridge Electric Department wants the authority to spend up to $3 million to help make that possible. (Image by City of Oak Ridge)

Nuclear fuel company TRISO-X needs electrical power for a manufacturing facility in Horizon Center by December 2024, and the Oak Ridge Electric Department wants the authority to spend up to $3 million to help make that possible.

If approved by Oak Ridge City Council, the money would be used to design and build a new electric substation and distribution network to provide power to Lot 6 on the back side of Horizon Center, which is on the west side of town. The work would include engineering design, land surveys, site clearing, the purchase of materials, and acquiring permits and other required items.

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Gooch seeks re-appointment as mayor

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Warren Gooch

Oak Ridge Mayor Warren Gooch is seeking a fifth two-year term as mayor. Gooch has asked the other six members of Oak Ridge City Council to re-appoint him to that position on Monday. He is the only council member seeking to be appointed mayor.

Meanwhile, there are two candidates for mayor pro tem, which is like vice mayor. Council members Jim Dodson and Chuck Hope have both asked to be appointed to that position.

The council member who had been mayor pro tem, Rick Chinn, did not seek re-election in November after two four-year terms on council.

In his letter of intent for mayor, Gooch said Oak Ridge is headed in the right direction, with good news across the city from Elza Gate in the east to The Preserve in the west.

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IDB endorses overhead power lines for Horizon Center project

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An Oak Ridge board on Monday endorsed overhead power lines and an alternate route to provide electricity to a nuclear fuel company, TRISO-X, at Horizon Center. The company’s site is pictured above on Wednesday, Dec. 7, 2022. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

An Oak Ridge board on Monday endorsed overhead power lines and an alternate route that could be less controversial to provide electricity to a nuclear fuel company at Horizon Center.

Environmental advocates, ecologists, and trail users had objected to an earlier proposal to run overhead power lines along a U.S. Department of Energy patrol road on the back side of Horizon Center. Among other objections, those lines would have been relatively close to the Black Oak Ridge Conservation Easement, and opponents said the power lines would have decreased the area’s recreational value.

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Indoor pool to close temporarily for resurfacing

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The Oak Ridge Indoor Swimming Pool will close on Monday, Dec. 12, 2022, and will remain closed through at least January 2023 for resurfacing. (Photo by City of Oak Ridge)

The Oak Ridge Indoor Swimming Pool will close on Monday, December 12, and will remain closed through at least January 2023 for resurfacing.

An exact re-opening date has not been set because of the uncertainty that comes with construction and delays in product delivery, a press release said.

[Read more…]