Court allows TVA property access

A federal judge has ordered a temporary right for the Tennessee Valley Authority to conduct surveys, core drilling, appraisals and related activity on property in south Meigs County to help prepare to lay high-voltage power lines for a new $300 million system operations center TVA plans to build by 2023.

Despite objections to TVA’s design for the power lines, U.S. District Court Judge Sandy Mattice granted a request by TVA to use its power of eminent domain to condemn four parcels near the 157-acre site TVA bought last year near Georgetown, Tennessee, for its new power control facility.

“The lands [where TVA is seeking to extend new power lines] are deemed to be condemned and taken for the use of the United States,” Mattice said in a two-page order issued last week. Compensation for the property will be determined by the owners, the judge said.

TVA sued Greg Vital — a businessman and landowner who has raised objections to the line going across his Meigs County farm — and the Cornerstone Farm and John and Bridget Vantiegham, who also own property in Meigs County along the proposed TVA power route. TVA is planning to relocate its system control center from downtown Chattanooga to the new site in southern Meigs County to provide more security for the facility and to help install a new energy control system.

Vital and other owners of farmland in the area object to TVA’s proposed route for the transmission lines and have hired Chattanooga attorney Roger Dickson to fight TVA’s condemnation.