TVA’s South Memphis gas plans continue legacy of injustice

Source: Southern Environmental Law Center

Excerpt:

The Tennessee Valley Authority – a federal agency and the nation’s largest public utility – is currently planning to build a new, dirty, gas plant near predominantly Black neighborhoods in South Memphis, a proposal that threatens to worsen the utility’s long and ongoing pollution in the community and would undermine the Biden administration’s important environmental justice goals. 

Decades of industrial pollution have taken an incredible toll on our neighborhoods.

– Keshaun Pearson, Memphis Community Against Pollution

TVA’s proposed Allen Gas Project would sit in South Memphis, near neighborhoods like Boxtown and Westwood, and would pollute the air with harmful chemicals like formaldehyde and nitrogen oxides.   

South Memphis is sadly no stranger to being burdened with more than its fair share of industrial pollution, and this plant would just be the latest dirty facility to move into the community’s backyard. Families living in these neighborhoods are surrounded by industrial facilities that pollute the air and water, including an oil refinery, a steel mill, and even another large TVA gas plant.  

Read more: TVA’s South Memphis gas plans continue legacy of injustice