Workers at Tennessee Valley Authority's coal-burning power plant near Gallatin recently moved two massive transformers into place near a new 370-foot-tall chimney.
The 110-ton units are part of the authority's $1.1 billion project to cut certain emissions at the plant by as much as 96 percent.
While some people are celebrating Earth Day by carpooling or fixing leaky faucets, the federal agency is continuing to move forward on the nearly five-year effort to construct machines at the plant that would cut mercury, nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide emissions — pollutants that can cause respiratory and other health problems.
From an environmental standpoint, the project is one of the most important in Middle Tennessee, said Nathan Moore, a staff attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center in Nashville.
"It's significant both in its proximity to Nashville and the scale of the project," he said. "It affects our air quality. It affects our water quality."
The project comes after the federal agency agreed to resolve longstanding disputes over the pollution emitted by its plants. TVA entered into an agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, four states and three environmental groups, including the Sierra Club, to lower its emissions to meet new requirements of the federal Clean Air Act.
The agreement forced the federal agency to weigh whether to invest money in reducing emissions or shut down the plant, as it opted to do at other sites.
The Gallatin plant burns 13,000 tons of coal a day and produces enough electricity to power the equivalent of 300,000 homes. TVA is installing four scrubbers to cut sulfur dioxide emissions and another system to cut nitrogen oxide levels.
In addition to the scrubbers, the authority is building a 54-acre landfill to store the coal ash waste produced by the plant. The project also includes rebuilding the Cumberland River Aquatic Center, a fish hatchery run by the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency. TVA is preparing to begin construction on the center, said Scott Brooks, a spokesman for the authority.
Altogether, the project at the plant is roughly 30 percent complete, Brooks said. It's scheduled to be done in 2017.
Moore said initial plans for the new landfill call for water that leaches from the dry ash storage to be put into ponds that the authority used for years to store its ash. The fear is that the water could then find its way into the groundwater, he said.
The center is calling for stricter oversight of the new landfill and for TVA to treat the water instead of putting it in the ponds, Moore said.
Reach Josh Brown at 615-726-5964 and on Twitter @joshbrownnews.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story mischaracterized the Southern Environmental Law Center's position how to best handle waste water from TVA's dry ash storage landfill. This story has been updated to reflect its position.
Earth Day Events
What: Tennessee State University Earth Day celebration
When: 1 p.m. today,
Where: Agricultural Information and Technology Center, 3500 John A. Merritt Blvd.
What: Environmental Justice Earth Day, hosted by Nashville Branch of the NAACP and BURNT
When: 4:30-7 p.m. today
Where: Hadley Park Community Center, 1037 28th Ave. N.