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Board gives OK to pursue design and easement negotiations for reservoir transmission line
Summary
Staff and consultants showed a proposed route for a raw-water transmission line using an existing TVA easement; the board gave direction to proceed with design, survey and easement coordination while flagging potential blasting and neighborhood impacts to be evaluated.
City engineering staff and consultants presented a preliminary plan to route a new raw-water transmission line to the proposed reservoir largely within an existing TVA overhead-easement corridor.
Will (Thomas & Hutton, speaker 3) described the proposed alignment and said routing the line just inside the TVA easement would minimize impacts to adjacent private properties and provide a direct path to the reservoir. He and staff asked the board for conceptual approval to proceed with coordination, design and easement negotiations.
Board members asked about constructability, potential blasting through rock on the corridor, proximity to back yards, whether the city must acquire additional easements or stack water rights on TVA’s electrical easement, and a likely timeline. Will and staff said many details — surveying, impacts to neighborhoods and construction method — remain to be determined and that the meeting’s request was to authorize further study and initiation of easement talks.
Several aldermen indicated their support for beginning the design/easement process; the mayor noted he’d take the “head nod” and staff would proceed to the next steps of investigation, surveying and coordination with TVA.
Next steps: Staff will proceed with design efforts, property surveying and negotiation for the water easement, and include construction impacts and timing in later design documents and public updates.
