Knoxville, TN - You've seen the tall utility towers that for miles and miles support high-voltage elecric lines. TVA is trying something new with the vegetation the is beneath the massive structures that cross counties, communities, cities.

The Tennessee Valley Authority has issued a draft vegetation management environmental assessment regarding the activities on its transmission right-of-ways for fiscal years 2025 and 2026 and is accepting public comments regarding the activities through August 31.

TVA’s preferred alternative uses an Integrated Vegetation Management approach to promote the establishment of a meadow-like environment along its ROWs with vegetation that does not interfere with the safe and reliable operation of the transmission system. The IVM approach uses a mix of herbicide applied selectively to incompatible vegetation, mechanical clearing and manual clearing.

 This vegetation management alternative allows low-growing compatible vegetation to establish and propagate and reduces the presence of woody species.

The TVA power service area offers a great diversity of vegetation which can interfere with electric power flow, pose safety issues for TVA and members of the public, or interfere with TVA’s ability to maintain its transmission system. To ensure that electric service to the public is not disrupted by outages on its transmission lines, TVA must keep vegetation away from the electric power facilities.

The draft Environmental Assessment is available on the TVA web site at tva.com/nepa or from TVA National Environmental Policy Act, 1101 Market Street, BR 4A, Chattanooga, Tennessee, 37402. The contact is Anita Masters, who can be reached at aemasters@tva.gov.

Right of way maintenance is critical as the region is growing three times faster than the national average and the University of Tennessee’s Baker School projects our region’s population to grow 22% by 2050. TVA is investing $2.8 billion to strengthen the power grid across its service area to help ensure the agency can deliver clean energy to local power companies while maintaining our region’s energy security. As a clean energy leader, nearly 60% of TVA’s electricity is already carbon-free, and these power grid improvements will help ensure the agency can provide reliable, affordable, resilient, and sustainable power.

For more information about TVA and its mission of service to the Tennessee Valley, click here.