Dear TVA: Five months ago, TVA employees came to Georgetown. It’s time to come back and talk.

On Aug. 30, the agency held a public meeting and the letter sent to 70 or so property owners (dated Aug. 9, 2018) said the meeting concerned a $26 million upgrade to a transmission line from Hopewell to Georgetown to serve a “secure office complex.” A press release was issued on Aug. 20.

TVA employees supported by an armed guard entered the private property the government agency is condemning shortly before 1 p.m. today. The environmental study team was from Knoxville. They said they weren't testing, just observing the "natural features." The officer in full body armor wouldn't say where he was based, just "Hamilton." They crossed Gunstocker Creek and onto Project Viper, TVA's $300 million new secret city in Georgetown, around 2:45 p.m.

VA filed suit on Tuesday, Nov. 20, against four private citizens in order to take their private property for Project Viper in Georgetown. Property owners found out in the media. TVA has done nothing it said it would do since over the past 90 days. Below is a statement from Greg Vital, one of the property owners who has tried to work with TVA without success.

September 2017, TVA received a consultant’s report outlining how to provide water and wastewater service to its “secure office complex” in Georgetown. No one other than TVA knew anything about the project until the third week of August 2018.

TVA has filed with the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC) to build "Project Viper," which appears to be TVA's chosen name for its "secure office complex" in Georgetown. (TDEC Project #SOP-18017)

Is this the best TVA can do? TVA IS INEVITABLE. But the continued destruction of the landscape is not necessary. Citizens deserve information and more transparency from TVA.

TVA operates in seven states all over the south and owns almost 300,000 acres of land. With its property or what it can buy, how was this site chosen for the "secure office complex?" And the best path for a new transmission line is across the private property of four residents in Georgetown?

TVA has little to say about its new secret city in Georgetown, but residents, taxpayers, property rights advocates and TVA watchers have lots of questions, such as:

· Is TVA now actually considering alternate routes vs. cutting a mile-long swath through virgin farmland, or just pacifying citizens?

eorgetown residents turned out in mass on Thursday in Georgetown to talk with TVA. A total of 74 invitations were sent out to property owners potentially impacted by the secret, $300 million power control center, and more than 150 turned out!

The article on the front page of the Times Free Press was good to see Wednesday morning after Georgetown residents had spent nine days wondering what TVA’s new $300 million "secure office complex” was.

That has been the question on the minds of citizens since Aug 20 when TVA announced a $26 million major transmission upgrade to provide power to a “new TVA secure office complex” The secure complex is to be built on 167 acres TVA owns along Highway 58 just north of the intersection of Highway 58 and Highway 60 at Gunstocker Creek in Meigs County. A week’s worth of inquiries have yielded no new information.