Oak Ridge Today

AC Commission schedules public hearing on TVA request for landfill at Bull Run

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The Tennessee Valley Authority’s Bull Run Fossil Plant is pictured above in Claxton on Monday, Aug. 27, 2018. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

The Anderson County Commission has scheduled a public hearing to discuss a request from the Tennessee Valley Authority to build a 60-acre landfill on the Bull Run Fossil Plant site in Claxton.

The hearing is scheduled to start at 4 p.m. Tuesday, February 18, in Room 312 of the Anderson County Courthouse at 100 North Main Street in Clinton.

The proposed new landfill is known Site J, and it has been characterized as a three-cell unit capable of holding eight to nine million cubic yards of coal combustion residuals, according to a public hearing notice.

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Voting rights to be discussed Tuesday

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Katie A. Cahill
Katie A. Cahill

Voting rights will be discussed in Oak Ridge on Tuesday.

The speaker will be Katie A. Cahill, associate director of the Howard H. Baker Jr. Center for Public Policy and director of the Leadership and Governance Program. Cahill has a courtesy post as an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.

Her Tuesday talk will be to the League of Women Voters of Oak Ridge. Her talk is titled “Voting Rights, Laws and Trends: A Look Ahead to 2020,” a press release said.

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Breakfast with Legislators this morning

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The Oak Ridge League of Women Voters will hold its first Breakfast with the Legislators event of the year on Monday, January 27. The meeting will be held from 7:30 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. in the Social Room of the Oak Ridge Civic Center, 1403 Oak Ridge Turnpike. A free continental breakfast will be served.

Tennessee senators Randy McNally and Ken Yager and representatives John Ragan and Kent Calfee have been invited to speak about the legislative outlook for this session of the Tennessee General Assembly, and respond to questions and hear opinions from the audience, a press release said. The public is invited to attend.

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Earthquake of 3.8 magnitude reported in East Tennessee

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Image courtesy U.S. Geological Survey

Note: This story was last updated at 3:35 p.m.

An earthquake of 3.8 magnitude was reported in East Tennessee on Monday afternoon.

The earthquake was felt in Oak Ridge at about 2:12 p.m. Monday, where it rattled homes and windows.

It was centered in Campbell County about one kilometer east of Fincastle, Tennessee, northeast of LaFollette, which is northeast of Oak Ridge, at a depth of about 35.4 kilometers, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

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Volunteer Income Tax Assistance Center relocates, opens Feb. 3

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The Oak Ridge Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) Center has relocated, and it will open Monday, February 3.

The VITA program is an Internal Revenue Service initiative to help taxpayers by providing trained volunteers to prepare and electronically file individual tax returns at no cost to the taxpayers, a press release said.

For 2020, the VITA office has moved from the Trinity Center on Robertsville Road to the United Way Office at 728 Emory Valley Road in Oak Ridge, the press release said. The hours are from 3-5:30 p.m. on Mondays, 3-8 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, and 10 a.m.-12:30 p.m. on Saturday. The office is staffed entirely by volunteers—19 preparers, 8 greeters and one computer expert. United Way of Anderson County provides funds for software and provides office space.

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Census Bureau hiring, job fairs scheduled

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The Oak Ridge Public Library will host several job fairs between January and March as the U.S. Census Bureau looks to fill census taker positions in Anderson and Roane counties.

The job fairs will be held on Tuesdays from 11 a.m. until 1 p.m. on the following dates:

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Proposed power lines at Horizon Center to be discussed Tuesday

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Virginia Dale
Virginia Dale

The power lines proposed at Horizon Center will be discussed during a Tuesday lunch in Oak Ridge.

The project, advocated by Oak Ridge officials for industrial development, has raised concerns among environmentalists and people who use the city’s greenways.

The guest speaker at Lunch with the League on Tuesday, January 7, will be Virginia Dale. Dale is a corporate fellow emeritus with Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where she worked in the Environmental Sciences Division. She is currently a researcher in the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department at the University of Tennessee, a press release said. Dale has been the author of 11 books and more than 250 published articles.

Her presentation on Tuesday will focus on the city’s recent action to seek authorization from the U.S. Department of Energy to build an electric transmission line along the DOE patrol road on the boundary between the Black Oak Ridge Conservation Easement and the Horizon Center industrial park, or by cutting through other “natural areas,” the press release said. These “natural areas” are identified in mitigation conditions required for a federal finding of no significant impact, which allowed the subsequent development of the Horizon Center, the press release said.

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Updated junked vehicle ordinance takes effect in 2020

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The City of Oak Ridge recently updated junked vehicle ordinances and has scheduled implementation in 2020.

There will be a grace period in January and February to inform residents of the ordinance changes, a press release said. Written warnings will be provided during the grace period—before violation notices are issued—until March 1, 2020. After that, written warnings will no longer be given prior to a violation notice, the press release said.

“The changes to this ordinance now provide greater clarity for property owners and city staff regarding what constitutes an unlawful vehicle,” the press release said. “Additionally, the changes will help reduce blighted conditions, improve quality of life in the neighborhoods, and enhance effective enforcement by city departments.”

Under the updated ordinance, vehicles declared as junked, abandoned, inoperable, or a public nuisance will be removed from public or private property if not addressed by the owner in an allotted amount of time, the press release said. Removal by the city, if necessary, will be at the owner’s expense, the release said.

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New federal designation means more law enforcement funding, full-time ATF agent

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Anderson-County-High-Intensity-Drug-Trafficking-Area-Press-Conference-Dec-17-2019
A new federal designation for Anderson County will mean more federal funding for the county’s drug and violent crime task force and a full-time agent from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, Seventh Judicial District Attorney General Dave Clark said Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2019. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

A new federal designation for Anderson County will mean more federal funding for the county’s drug and violent crime task force and a full-time agent from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.

Anderson County is now a high-intensity drug trafficking area, or HIDTA. That designation came from the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. It occurred in September and will go into effect January 1.

As part of a two-part announcement this month, law enforcement officials said the White House also selected the county’s task force, the Seventh Judicial District Crime Task Force, as an Appalachia HIDTA, or AHIDTA. It’s the only locally led drug task force in Tennessee, according to Seventh Judicial District Attorney General Dave Clark. The county’s Crime Task Force, or CTF, is led by Director Simon Byrne.

“No other drug task force in Tennessee has been awarded an AHIDTA grant,” Clark said. “I am very proud of our leadership team for thinking outside of the box and in looking for smart ways to make our communities safer as well as be good stewards of taxpayer dollars. We are more excited than we can convey, but in short believe that this development has the potential to be transformative as to what we are able to do in Anderson County to protect and serve our communities.”

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TVA, law enforcement investigating suspicious package on Norris Dam

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Norris Dam is pictured above on Monday, Feb. 12, 2018. (Photo by Tennessee Valley Authority)

Tennessee Valley Authority Police and local law enforcement officers are investigating a suspicious package found on Norris Dam on Thursday.

TVA Police responded to Norris Dam to investigate the suspicious package at about 3 p.m. Thursday. When they arrived, officers found an abandoned package on top of the dam.

“Out of an abundance of caution, the highway was closed, and mutual aid was requested from the Knox County Sheriff’s Bomb Squad,” TVA said in a statement. “The bomb squad responded and determined that the package was not a threat to the dam nor the public. The highway crossing the dam was then reopened (9 p.m.). TVA Police and local law enforcement agencies will continue to follow up on this matter.”

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NRC will issue early site permit for TVA Clinch River site

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TVA Clinch River Site
The Clinch River Site in west Oak Ridge is pictured above. The road running from bottom to top on the right (east) side of the Clinch River connects to Bear Creek Road in southwest Oak Ridge. Highway 58 is off to the top left of the photo and the Heritage Center is to the north. (Photo courtesy TVA)

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced Tuesday that it will issue an early site permit to the Tennessee Valley Authority for the Clinch River site in west Oak Ridge, where small modular nuclear reactors could eventually be built.

The early site permit closes several site-related issues, including many related to environmental impacts, for small modular reactors at the site, the NRC said in a press release Tuesday.

The Commission authorized the agency’s Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation to issue the permit following a hearing on August 14. The Commission found the staff’s review of TVA’s application to be adequate to make the necessary regulatory safety and environmental findings, the press release said.

The early site permit, which will be valid for up to 20 years, is expected to be issued in the next few days.

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Roane State students analyze Election Commission website for hacking

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Roane State Digital Forensics Cyber Security
A team of students from Roane State Community College’s Digital Forensics class was recently requested by Homeland Security to explore the cyber hygiene vulnerability of the Election Commission website of a West Tennessee county. (Photo courtesy RSCC)

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Roane State team assesses Election Commission website for vulnerabilities

A team of students from Roane State Community College’s Digital Forensics class was recently requested by Homeland Security to explore the cyber hygiene vulnerability of the Election Commission website of a West Tennessee county, said George Meghabghab, head of the college’s computer science division.

The project was initiated by Homeland Security official James Cotter, who met with Meghabghab during July and August to flesh out the project, including expectations from each other and outcomes. Such a project is ongoing on other Tennessee election commission websites, Meghabghab said. He described the efforts as critical tasks of Homeland Security in Tennessee.

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