[TN-Bird] Fwd: TVA Land Policy!
- From: "Dev Joslin" <devjoslin@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: tn-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 08 Dec 2006 02:19:38 -0600
TN-birders,
As many of you may already know, the new TVA board recently passed a new
policy on its publicly owned lands, many of which constitute important bird
habitat along the Tennessee River and its tributaries.
The new policy is much more supportive of conserving land in its "natural
state" for the future and much less supportive of selling it or promoting
residential, commercial or industrial development.
I am sure letters that any of you wrote in support of this policy made a
difference.
For more details on the new policy, please read on below, and/or check on
the web page to read the text of the actual new policy:
http://tva.gov/river/landandshore/land_policy.htm.
Hurray for the new TVA Board!
Dev Joslin
Monteverde, Costa Rica
>From: Wolf Naegeli <wolf@xxxxxxxxxxx>
>To: Ellen Smith <smithellen@xxxxxxxxxxx>
>CC: Fwhensley@xxxxxxx, jamesvandyke@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, myrickte@xxxxxxxxxxx,
>vhd312@xxxxxxxxxxx, devjoslin@xxxxxxxxxxx, jobrdrehab@xxxxxxx,
>bill.johnston22@xxxxxxxxxxx, schrammwe@xxxxxxxxxxx, lagis@xxxxxxxxxxx,
>Jim.Evans@xxxxxxxxxxx, Warren_webb@xxxxxxxxxxx
>Subject: Re: Fwd: TVA Land Policy!
>Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2006 22:50:27 -0500
>
>At 11:01 PM -0500 11/30/06, Ellen Smith wrote:
>>The land policy they adopted (which is at
>>http://tva.gov/river/landandshore/land_policy.htm ) is somewhat different
>>from the draft.
>
>It was a pleasant surprise! Not only did the Board support the new policy
>with an overwhelming majority (8 to 1), it even strengthened the policy
>rather than watering it down as expected by most commentators.
>
>I carefully reviewed the differences between the draft proposal and the
>final policy adopted by the TVA Board. I found the following SUBSTANTIAL
>changes.
>
>
>Sentence deleted from the "Land Planning" section:
>
>"If it is determined by TVA's Chief Executive Officer that these fragmented
>properties have little or no public benefit they shall be declared surplus
>and sold at public auction to the highest bidder in the same manner as
>surplus power or commercial properties."
>
>It appears that the TVA Board does not want to delegate such decisions to
>the CEO.
>
>---
>
>The exceptions in the "Economic Use" section for "industrial purposes or
>other businesses" are now limited to "industrial purposes" only. I.e.
>"other businesses" are no longer included.
>
>Also, the following two sentences were removed from that section in their
>entirety:
>
>1) "The TVA Board recognizes that property with water access, for either
>navigation or water supply, is a limited resource in the Valley and has
>preference for businesses that require water access." ...
>
>2) "TVA shall consider disposing of non-waterfront reservoir properties in
>industrial parks for any purpose permitted by the industrial park
>covenants. TVA shall not allocate lands or landrights for retail use or
>dispose of reservoir land or landrights for such use.
>
>The removal of the first sentence is probably the single most important
>change:
>The final version of the new policy no longer assures "businesses that
>require water access" of preferential treatment. Indeed, it explicitly
>narrows down the definition of "industrial purposes" to "manufacturing
>businesses" only.
>
>---
>
>The following extraneous sentence was removed from the "Power & Commercial
>Properties" section:
>
>"The TVA Board directs staff to undertake a review of TVA mineral holdings
>for later policy consideration."
>
>---
>
>In various sections, redundant phrases were removed and several unnecessary
>explicit statements eliminated, e.g.: "TVA will consider the removal or
>modification of deed provisions to facilitate industrial development."
>
>While such deletions do not mean that TVA may NOT consider such requests,
>they do remove verbiage that might be construed by some developers as an
>obligation on the part of TVA to consider any and all such requests.
>
>---
>
>The entire "Operational Uses of TVA Properties" section was deleted. It
>included such statements as: "Nothing in this policy is intended to prevent
>the disposal of tracts of land upon the recommendation of the General
>Counsel ..." and "TVA will continue to work with development agencies (and
>other partners) throughout the Valley to implement previously executed
>agreements."
>
>I don't belive that those omissions factually make any difference, but I
>think that because of their removal, the tenor of the streamlined and
>slightly shortened final version is even less conciliatory to
>pro-development interests than the draft proposal seemed to be.
>
>Kudos to the new TVA Board!
>
>Wolf
>
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