TVA awash in pressure on lakefront development

By Associated Press
December 8, 2004

CHATTANOOGA - The Tennessee Valley Authority is facing growing pressure to open up publicly preserved lakefronts for luxury golf courses and resorts.

  Two years after reversing a lake stewardship plan to allow the $750 million Rarity Pointe residential and resort development on Tellico Lake, TVA is weighing projects on both Watts Bar and Nickajack reservoirs that could bring nearly $2 billion of new development to East Tennessee.

  "This is a very attractive region of the country for many baby boomers entering their retirement years," TVA Director Bill Baxter told The Chattanooga Times Free Press.

  "Obviously these types of developments, if done in an environmentally and economically sensitive manner, can bring a lot of new jobs and investment to these communities," said Baxter, a former commission for Tennessee's Department of Economic and Community Development.

  Critics worry the federal agency is turning over prime properties acquired for the general public to private developers serving primarily a wealthy few.

  "The easiest thing to do on the TVA board is to give this land up for private developers who are eager to get every inch of lakefront property they can get," former TVA Chairman Craven Crowell said.

  "It's always a difficult balance between development and preservation. But I guess I always thought that since TVA sometimes used its power of eminent domain to acquire this land, we should err on the side of protection over development."

  Five years ago, Crowell, a Democrat, halted efforts to sell land on the Nickajack and Tellico reservoirs.

  But the current three-member board, led by Chairman Glenn McCullough and Baxter, both Republicans, reversed the reservoir plan at Tellico to allow developer Mike Ross to begin building Rarity Pointe.

  TVA is now considering offers to buy or transfer major property parcels at Little Cedar Mountain on Nickajack Reservoir and along the Rhea County and Meigs County border on Watts Bar Lake.

  The properties are among 230,000 acres of public land controlled by TVA, mostly along the shoreline of the 652-mile-long Tennessee River and its tributaries.

  Thunder Enterprises, the Chattanooga development firm headed by University of Tennessee Trustee John "Thunder" Thornton, has offered to swap 832 acres of land and money in Marion County for the 637-acre Little Cedar Mountain site on Nickajack Lake.

  The largely undeveloped site between Interstate 24 and Nickajack Dam includes TVA's Shellmound Recreation Area.

  TVA also is considering deeding 1,700 acres on the Watts Bar reservoir to Rhea and Meigs counties. A board would be set up to handle the sale and development of the land into a possible golf course, marinas, residential development, natural areas and industrial parks.

  The Little Cedar Mountain project is farther along. TVA will conduct a public hearing Monday to determine whether to update its 1996 environmental assessment of the land.

  Brandon Born, president of Thunder Enterprises, said his company would protect more property than it would use, and the proposed golf course, marina and recreation area would offer more opportunities for public use.

  But Little Cedar Mountain also is regarded as environmentally and culturally sensitive. A coalition of American Indian and environmental groups known as the Sacred Little Cedar Mountain Defense Coalition is being reactivated to fight Thunder Enterprises' proposal.

   Copyright 2004, Associated Press. All rights reserved.