Tag: Doug McGowen

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Agricenter International’s five-acre solar farm produces enough energy to power the entire 1,000-acre Agricenter complex. (Photo: Tom Hrach)

After years of stagnation, Memphis is finally taking major steps toward creating a solar power system. 

The news broke last month when Memphis Light, Gas and Water (MLGW) announced it would seek a site to install solar panels and purchase batteries to store electricity.

CEO Doug McGowen said the city-owned utility is seeking proposals to install 100 megawatts of solar generation and up to 80 megawatts of battery storage. The move is significant for Memphis, which trails many Tennessee communities and is far behind other Southeastern cities in developing community solar power.

Doug McGowen, president and CEO of Memphis Light, Gas and Water (Photo: Karen Pulfer Focht)

“In our nation and around our world, our demand for energy will soon outpace our collective ability to meet it,” McGowen said in March. “If we are going to meet our needs here locally and nationally, we need everyone in the game. With today’s announcement, I will tell you MLGW is in the game. We are taking an important, huge first step in helping our community … meet the challenges ahead.”

The development hinges on a tentative “side agreement” with the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) that would allow MLGW to generate some of its own power. MLGW currently gets all its electricity from TVA under an exclusive contract that forbids it from getting electricity from any other source.

That decades-old contract has long stood in the way of MLGW developing solar power. First signed in December 1984, the rolling, five-year contract contains language preventing MLGW from getting power anywhere other than TVA.

MLGW is one of just five local power companies in TVA’s 153-local-utility system that hasn’t agreed to a long-term contract that allows signers to get up to 5 percent of their power from other sources. Some local utilities that have signed those 20-year contracts have left Memphis far behind in developing solar power.

McGowen hopes to change that.

“This does nothing to change our fundamental power agreement that we have with TVA,” he said. “This is going to be a side agreement, an amendment. That is what we will work on together, on something that will work for both organizations.”

Solar power is something MLGW has had in the works for at least two budget cycles. MLGW inserted money into its budget for solar power in fall 2023 when it prepared its 2024 budget. Money was then also included in fall 2024, when it prepared the budget for the current year.

McGowen’s March 5th announcement follows a report in February by the Institute for Memphis Public Service Reporting that detailed the impediment that the TVA contract poses to developing solar power. 

“The community needs more energy. The demand is going up. Where are we going to get it? We do not want to burn more fossil fuels, so solar is where it can come from,” said Dennis Lynch, a Midtown Memphis resident and member of the MLGW citizens advisory committee.

“I could imagine many empty blocks in Memphis covered with solar panels and then people signing up to be members and getting reduced rates for electricity, but even that is not allowed in the current TVA contract.”

In 2022, MLGW discussed entering a 20-year agreement with TVA, which would have allowed the creation of its own solar power system. But that long-term agreement was never signed, so the terms of the 1984 agreement remain in place. In May 2023, McGowen announced that the utility would stick with TVA as its power supplier under the terms of the old contract for now.

Was that a mistake?

Not so, said Stephen Smith, executive director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, a Knoxville-based nonprofit. That is because committing long-term to TVA means Memphis likely could never get out from under TVA’s onerous exit clauses to pursue cheaper and cleaner energy sources, Smith said.

Under the terms of the current contract, MLGW must give TVA a five-year notice if it wants to leave. A long-term contract would require a 20-year notice, which means it would be decades before Memphis could get free from TVA.

“MLGW is losing out on clean energy, particularly solar, due to the fact that they are not independent from TVA,” Smith said. “But I do not think that signing a long-term contract would be worth it. Memphis would lose out by agreeing to stay with TVA for so long.”

One reason is that the 5 percent limit TVA places on its long-term customers is miniscule compared to the potential for solar power in West Tennessee, Smith said.

“MLGW did absolutely the right thing by not signing that long-term contract. Instead, we would like MLGW to start re-negotiating that agreement again and start using the leverage it has to encourage the use of renewable energy,” Smith said.

Baby Steps to Solar

Outlining his 2025 capital improvement plan at the October 2, 2024, MLGW board meeting, McGowen said the utility is doing what it can to move toward solar power by installing a first-ever battery storage system.

McGowen has acknowledged MLGW is prevented from creating its own solar power because of the current TVA-MLGW contract.

“We are still committed to that. I want to get the battery storage rolling first,” he said. “We have some architecture and engineering money allocated for solar. We are working with our partners at TVA to determine how to do that in the constraints of our current contract. That remains a priority for us.”

Solar power would be part of what McGowen called “an aggressive expansion of capacity” to provide electricity for Memphis. At an MLGW board meeting on February 5th, McGowen noted that the request for proposals for the battery storage would be out soon. But he offered no exact timetable. McGowen has said Memphis needs to expand its ability to provide electricity in order to support economic growth.

The best example is the establishment of the xAI facility in south Memphis, which has huge power demands. Bloomberg News reported that new artificial intelligence data centers can be drivers of economic growth for communities, but they have huge power demands. Communities that are prepared to provide increasing amounts of electricity will be the beneficiaries. And part of providing increasing amounts of electricity is that local communities need to be generating their own power instead of just buying it from someone else.

Battery storage is pivotal to plans for implementing solar power at the utility scale because the sun does not shine at night, so the electricity must be generated during the day and then stored for use at other times. But a battery storage system is only the first step toward using the sun to generate electricity.

Memphis Falling Behind

Scott Brooks, senior relations specialist for TVA, confirmed via email that Memphis is way in the minority when it comes to developing its own power generation, writing, “Many of our partners are doing solar and community solar.”

Other TVA communities that are generating their own solar power are the Knoxville Utilities Board, BrightRidge (which serves the Tri-Cities area of Tennessee), and the Nashville Electric Service.

A 2023 study done by the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy titled “Solar in the Southeast” confirmed that Memphis was behind Knoxville and on par with Nashville when it came to using electricity generated by the sun.

The same study showed that Memphis will be even further behind Knoxville by 2027 if things stay the same with the TVA contract. And Tennessee, which is almost entirely served by TVA, is miles behind the average utility in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina.

The goal of creating Memphis’ own solar power system is not new. It was part of the Memphis Area’s Climate Action plan written in 2020. That 222-page plan said: “Transforming our energy supply over the next 30 years will need to take an ‘all-of-the-above’ approach, with actions ranging from partnering with TVA to increasing renewables in their portfolio, to encouraging and constructing local sources of renewable generation (particularly solar).”

The plan said the city of Memphis and Shelby County would work with TVA to explore changes to the MLGW contract. The report mentions solar power 35 times as a key goal for the community.

Yet more than five years since that report, no substantial progress had been made toward establishing a local solar power system in Memphis.

Photo: Tom Hrach

Some solar power exists

Despite the restriction, solar power is not absent in Memphis. The TVA contract does not prevent companies, individuals, or even government entities from putting up solar panels and generating power. One of the most visible solar projects in Shelby County is happening at the Agricenter International, where thousands of vehicles whiz by five acres of solar panels on Walnut Grove Road.

That project, launched in 2012, is generating enough electricity to power 110 homes per year. And it is connected with TVA’s system, showing the potential for solar power in Memphis. The Shelby County government also generates electricity with the establishment of its modest collection of solar panels off of Farm Road behind the county construction code enforcement office.

How can Memphis start maximizing the benefits of solar power?

Citizen action is what is needed to change the situation, says Lynch, a frequent public speaker at MLGW board meetings and member of the West Tennessee Sierra Club.

“Citizens need to better understand what is the story,” Lynch says. “They need to knock on the doors of MLGW and ask MLGW, ‘What are you doing to allow TVA to allow us to install solar?’”

At the March 5th announcement, Mayor Paul Young specifically thanked TVA for agreeing to allow Memphis to move forward with solar power. And he acknowledged how Memphis has been behind when it comes to solar power and creating sustainability energy.

“We know that power is one of the utmost concerns for people throughout this nation. We are thinking about ways to do this with more sustainability, cleaner, thinking about ways we can limit our impact on the environment,” Young said. “This is such an important step. I cannot say enough about how many strides MLGW has been taking.”

Young cited reliability as a key. Solar power and the batteries to store that power help a community keep the electricity flowing during blackouts, storms, and natural disasters.

Mike Pohlman, MLGW board chair, also acknowledged that Memphis has been behind in creating solar power. He said the board has been pushing MLGW for years to get moving on solar power.

“We have gotten out of the pace of snail. And things are happening a lot quicker. We have been looking at this solar thing for two years now. It is finally coming to fruition,” Pohlman said. 

McGowen said the proposals for solar generation and battery storage are due back to MLGW by the end of April. He said the goal is to start producing and storing electricity by the end of 2026. MLGW has not yet identified a site for the solar facility. 

Tom Hrach is a professor in the department of journalism and strategic media at the University of Memphis. He has a doctorate degree from Ohio University and has more than 18 years of full-time experience as a journalist.

The Nuclear Option

Earlier this month, the future of energy development in the Tennessee Valley was thrown into uncertain territory. TVA is owned by the federal government, having been established in 1933 during the first wave of President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal legislation. Its original purpose was to electrify the rural areas of Tennessee, which had been neglected by for-profit electric utility companies who feared the high cost of building thousands of miles of electrical transmission infrastructure to serve a relatively small population in what was at the time the most impoverished region in the country. These days, TVA receives no taxpayer money and operates by selling electricity to ratepayers like a privately owned utility company.

But the executive branch still has control over TVA’s board of directors, and in April, the Trump administration removed two board members, Michelle Moore and Board Chairman Joe Ritch. No reason was given for their removal. The board usually consists of nine members, but with the removal of Moore and Ritch, only four remain. That means that there is no longer a quorum on the board, effectively paralyzing the $12 billion organization which provides power for more than 10 million people. 

Shortly before the firings, the board appointed Don Moul, the utility’s former chief operating officer, as the new president and CEO. After the firings, Justin Maierhofer, a longtime TVA executive, was appointed as chief of government relations. A new Enterprise Transformation Office, created by an executive order from President Trump, will seek to reorganize the utility’s leadership structure, according to reports from Knoxville News Sentinel. The office will seek at least $500 million in savings to make way for building new generation capacity. 

What, if any, effects this shake-up will have on MLGW’s solar power plans are unclear. But if Tennessee senators Bill Hagerty and Marsha Blackburn have their way, TVA’s focus will not be on solar but on nuclear energy. This is familiar territory for TVA, which was a pioneer in civilian use of nuclear power in the 1960s and ’70s. But the utility’s nuclear program has stagnated, thanks to ballooning costs for building huge power plants like the one at Watts Bar in Spring City, Tennessee, where the last new reactor came online in 2016 after decades of development and construction. 

In an op-ed published in Power magazine, the two senators call for TVA to invest in a new fleet of nuclear power plants which would be smaller and easier to construct than the mammoth facilities the utility currently operates. “With the right courageous leadership, TVA could lead the way in our nation’s nuclear energy revival, empower us to dominate the 21st century’s global energy competition, and cement President Trump’s legacy as ‘America’s Nuclear Energy President.’” — Chris McCoy

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Environmental Groups Say xAI Deal Sidestepped MLGW Board, Memphis City Council

Elon Musk. Photo by Trevor Cokley / Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Memphis environmental groups urged officials to deny an electricity deal for xAI, demanded a public review of the project, and said Memphis Light, Gas & Water (MLGW) ratepayers could subsidize some large portions of the infrastructure deal.  

Details on the deal that brought the Elon-Musk-founded company to locate its artificial intelligence hub — called the Gigafactory of Compute — to Memphis remain few, even almost two months after its announcement.

A Tuesday letter from the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) outlined those knowledge gaps, showed confusion and ignorance on the deal by local leaders, said the facility would cause environmental harm to those in South Memphis, and that MLGW CEO Doug McGowen may have overstepped the boundaries of his position in approving the deal.

2024-07-29-Memphis-Coalition-Comments-to-TVA-re-Request-to-Serve-xAIDownload

The letter was written and sent by the SELC on behalf of the Memphis Community Against Pollution (MCAP), Young, Gifted & Green, Sierra Club Tennessee Chapter, and the Sierra Club Chickasaw Group. SELC said, “many of these members will be directly affected by xAI’s operation and its harmful local consequences.” 

The letter was sent to the board of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). SELC said MLGW is requesting TVA to provide xAI 150 megawatts of power. In the letter, SELC argues TVA’s Memphis system is not reliable enough to handle that much new consumption. Also, it said, a deal for the much energy needs more local approvals.

The 150 megawatt demand is enough to power 100,000 homes.

Southern Environmental Law Center

“The xAI facility is demanding a jaw-dropping 150 MW of firm power by the end of 2024,” reads the letter. “To put that demand in perspective, 150 MW is enough electricity to power 100,000 homes. The xAI facility would become MLGW’s largest electricity customer, siphoning five percent of MLGW’s total daily load to power its operations.” 

On reliability, the group said that TVA admitted in October that it did not have enough generating and transmission power in the area even before xAI cam knocking. Back then, TVA proposed a new natural-gas-powered generation project here. The project was necessary to  “improve the stability of its transmission system in the western portion of Tennessee. In this area, additional resources are needed to ensure that adequate transmission voltages are maintained within the desired limits,” SELC said, citing TVA’s report.

“Overcommitting to industrial load, as MLGW and xAI have requested, could have serious and even life-threatening consequences for residential customers in Memphis.

Southern Environmental Law Center

“In other words, TVA had already identified a reliability concern in the Memphis-area grid, even before factoring in xAI’s load,” SELC said. “Overcommitting to industrial load, as MLGW and xAI have requested, could have serious and even life-threatening consequences for residential customers in Memphis, contrary to the purpose of the TVA Act and the board policy. When TVA cannot meet peak demand, families go without power during increasingly severe hot and cold weather.”

Further, TVA’s gas-powered plants here are cooled with water from the Memphis Sand Aquifer. Higher strains on those plants — like during winter-weather events here in 2022 and 2021 — caused a serious draw on the aquifer and threaten well fields ”that provide drinking water for predominantly Black, low-income South Memphis communities.”

For these reasons and more, the group urged TVA board members to study the impacts of xAI’s supercomputer before agreeing to serve the facility. That study should include impacts to air pollution, climate change, water quality, water quantity and access, environmental justice, and transportation, SELC said. 

“It cannot reasonably be disputed that xAI will require TVA to generate additional electricity and add capacity to the system,” the letter said. “TVA must disclose how it proposes to provide power to xAI, analyze alternatives, and study of the same categories of impacts identified in [the proposal for the new gas plant here] before committing to provide power to xAI.” 

SELC also argues that the request to serve xAI is premature “because MLGW has not obtained approval from the MLGW Board or [the Memphis City Council] to spend millions of dollars of ratepayer money to subsidize xAI.” MLGW leaders told council members earlier this month that it would pay for $760,000 worth of substation upgrades for the project. Also, the utility will provide xAI a “marginal allowance” to recoup some of the $24 million it will spent o build a new, $24 million substation, meaning a big break on the company’s power bill.

”Thus, according to MLGW’s presentation [to the council], it seems that over the next few years, ordinary MLGW ratepayers will be subsidizing millions of dollars in infrastructure investments required to serve xAI, both directly and through bill credits to xAI,” the letter said. 

Despite this “apparent massive commitment of ratepayer funds to subsidize xAI’s infrastructure needs,” neither the council nor the MLGW board was aware of the xAI project until it was announced on June 5,” SELC said.

Further, the group said MLGW board members weren’t even aware of MLGW’s request to serve xAI with more power from the TVA as late as two weeks ago. For proof, SELC cited an MLGW board meeting on July 17 in which MLGW board member Mitch Graves said, “On the xAI stuff…I wasn’t aware…that TVA’s got to approve something… hadn’t heard that anywhere…what is that they need to approve?”   

“On the xAI stuff…I wasn’t aware…that TVA’s got to approve something… hadn’t heard that anywhere…what is that they need to approve?”   

SELC citing MLGW board member Mitch Graves

SELC said McGowen negotiated this deal with xAI without oversight from his board or the city council. Doing so, the group said, is a violation of the charters of the council and the board. 

”Proper review by the MLGW board and city council is essential because MLGW faces significant operational constraints that directly affect the Memphis coalition’s members’ access to electricity,” the letter said. ”MLGW must give the MLGW board and city council their charter-given right to evaluate whether it is in the best interest of MLGW ratepayers to subsidize millions of dollars of infrastructure investment in xAI over the next two years, while at the same time struggling to keep the lights on and provide accurate billing statements to residential customers. 

”The TVA board should not consider the pending request until MLGW obtains required local approvals.”

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New Deal Saves Greensward, Adds Parkland, Forest Land, and Zoo Parking Spaces

Credit: Overton Park Conservancy

The Overton Park Greensward is kept whole in a new plan that will permanently end parking there, add 17 acres of forested parkland, add 300 parking spaces for the Memphis Zoo, and, perhaps, finally solve a decades-old problem. 

Leaders with the city of Memphis, Memphis Zoo, and Overton Park Conservancy (OPC), announced the new plan Tuesday afternoon. In it, properties will be reshuffled and repurposed to fit the needs of all involved. 

For decades, the zoo has used the 12-acre Greensward for overflow parking. The issue simmered until 2014 when Citizens to Protect Overton Park (CPOP) organized the “Get Off Our Lawn” campaign that brought the issue into focus and to the fore. By 2016, OPC and the zoo joined in mediation to find a solution. 

That solution aimed to reconfigure the zoo’s main parking lot to add 415 spaces, a number mandated by the Memphis City Council. This plan was paused to explore the cost of a new modular garage that would have been built on the surface lot on Prentiss Place. 

In 2021, projections put the cost of the garage at $5 million, above the $3 million both the zoo and OPC had committed to the original plan to reconfigure the main parking lot. In October, the groups announced they’d scratched the plan for the garage and would revert to the plan to pave the lot and take 2.4 acres of the Greensward. As construction was slated to get underway, this plan was halted late last year to explore other options.  

The new plan will:

• convert the zoo’s current maintenance facility (on the north side of the zoo on North Parkway) to zoo member parking

• add 300 new parking spaces for the zoo

• renovate and re-stripe the zoo’s current main lot (without expanding it) 

• vacate the city’s general services maintenance lot (about 12 acres on East Parkway) 

• add zoo maintenance facilities to that space on about six acres

• the remaining six acres will be converted to park space for visitors

 • this space will have a new access point to the Old Forest trails

•  establish a new walking trail around the north side of the Greensward, marking the separation from the field and zoo parking 

• return 17 acres of forest land to the Overton Park

• this land was held by the zoo for future expansion, particularly an exhibit called the “Chickasaw Bluffs”

• return a few acres of land close to Rainbow Lake from the zoo to the park 

• the zoo will give OPC $400,000

“This is a solution that we think works for everyone,” said Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland. “It adds significant new park space for Memphians, about 20 to 25 acres. 

“It preserves 17 acres of old forest and provides the zoo with the parking it needs as the top attraction in Memphis. It provides the zoo a quality maintenance area for its operations. It also provides both the conservancy and the zoo the opportunity to avoid spending for what has become an almost $2.5 million expansion of the existing lot.”

Some were shocked and disappointed when the garage idea was retired. However, Doug McGowan, the city’s Chief Operating Officer, said the project was more an exploration than a dedicated plan. When asked if this new plan was guaranteed to stick, McGowen said, “I guess it’s about as guaranteed as you’re going to get.” 

“You have all three organizations coming together saying this really brings us closer together in alignment, and that it forges the same vision of the park in the future,” McGowan said. “And the mayor and the council are behind it.”   

Strickland said work on the project will begin as early as this fall, when some fences begin to come down. The city won’t leave the general services area until summer of next year, however. This means the zoo can’t move its maintenance operations and Greensward parking will continue at least through this year and probably longer.  

When asked how the agreement came about, Tina Sullivan, executive director of the OPC said the groups simply continued to work on it. 

“Our organizations have come together to create a plan that sees them as parts of a united whole,” Sullivan said. “The zoo and the conservancy share a common focus on conservation. Today reflects a convergence toward our shared mission and our community partnership.”

Zoo president and CEO Jim Dean called the agreement “transformational” for the zoo. 

“The city’s General Services facilities will vastly improve our infrastructure at the zoo,” Dean said. “When completed, this project will not only solve our short-term parking requirements and help traffic flow. It will also provide a solution for our long-term parking needs.” 

Once the work is finished and the last car leaves the Greensward, Sullivan invited “all of you to a picnic and a very competitive game of volleyball on that space.”  

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Riding the CV Roller Coaster: When Will It End?

Credit: state of Tennessee

This will end.

Getting to a time when the coronavirus doesn’t dominate every aspect of our lives won’t be easy, the way forward is not clear, and the stakes could not be higher. Still, that one incontrovertible, glorious fact remains: This will end.

But for now, it isn’t some J.R.R. Tolkien quest or a video game. It’s real. And at stake are the lives of the people in our community — our friends, our neighbors, our family.

It will end slowly. The release of coronavirus (and this cursed social distancing) will be as slow as spring wriggling from the grip of our dreadful, gray winter. Until that glorious moment when we can hug each other and shake hands again, we’re living by the numbers. We’re living on a statistics curve. If that curve is a roller coaster, we’re still riding up that first big hill, one click at a time.

The number of COVID cases is growing every day. So is the number of deaths. At some point, we’ll peak. We’ll hit the maximum number of virus cases and the maximum number of deaths. But we probably won’t know we were at the peak until we’re well past it.

After the virus’ peak, we’ll start to descend, except on the corona-coaster, the ride down is slow, too. People will still be getting sick. People will still be dying.

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For now, the numbers still tell us it’s best to stay home. So, for everyone’s sake, stay at home, if you can be at home. If you’re out, get what you need and get back home. If you are at work, hopefully you’re out there fighting for all of us in an essential job.

If you’re out mingling in big groups because you wanted to party a little, you should be ashamed of yourself. Mayor Jim Strickland has called gatherings like these “selfish,” and that’s what they are. The longer we meet up and spread this thing, the longer it’s going to take for it to go away. Those are the numbers talking.

The fact is, the numbers rule our lives right now. Remember last week, when Governor Bill Lee finally mandated everyone to stay home? He did it, he said in a statement, because he knew many Tennesseans were not staying home, based on numbers pulled from our cell phone data: “In recent days, we have seen data indicating that movement may be increasing, and we must get these numbers trending back down.”

Governor Bill Lee

Numbers and data. Is Governor Lee watching our cell phones? Maybe not, exactly, but a company called Unacast is. They know how many trips you’re taking every day and how far you travel. They compared that information with how many new virus cases were announced each day. And they could tell that Tennesseans weren’t staying home like they should. And, boom — home order required.

Those White House Numbers
You’ve probably seen these figures by now: President Trump and his task force spokespeople said last week that the COVID-19 virus could claim somewhere between 100,000 and 240,000 American lives before it’s through.

Deborah Birx, the physician heading up the White House coronavirus task force, showed those figures on a line graph. The estimated number of cases and deaths were based on a federal model of the disease based on what Birx claimed was reliable data. Sounds solid, right? Maybe.

“Leading disease forecasters, whose research the White House used to conclude 100,000 to 240,000 people will die nationwide from the coronavirus, were mystified when they saw the administration’s projection this week,” read a follow-up Washington Post story from William Wan, Josh Dawsey, Ashley Parker, and Joel Achenbach.

They quoted some of those forecasters whose model was used to inform the White House coronavirus model as saying they had no idea how the White House task force came up with its predicted death toll. The researchers’ own model showed much lower death toll estimates. The White House did not release any of the confirming information or cite the models it used to come up with its 100,000 to 200,000 deaths estimate, and the federal virus model has not been released to the public. So, is the White House raising the number of projected deaths for political reasons? Or do they know something no one else does?

Birx referenced a virus projection model done by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at at the University of Washington’s School of Medicine. That model projected somewhere between 49,431 and 136,374 total deaths in the U.S. as of August 4th.

Good News?
The figures used in the University of Washington School of Medicine’s  IHME model (which has become a go-to for local agencies, including Shelby County) changed dramatically for the better, as of Monday this week.

Before Monday’s updated projections, the IHME model projected that on April 19th — the then-predicted peak day of the virus here — the state would be short 7,806 hospital beds, 1,799 ICU beds, and would need 1,943 new ventilators. That projection had 3,422 Tennesseans dying from the coronavirus by late May.
Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME)

The IHME’s brand-new projections are considerably rosier. The total death toll for Tennessee is projected to be 587. Will those numbers stand? Good question.

By now you’ve probably heard of the “surge.” That’s the point when the patient load peaks. That’s when hospitals will be busiest and probably overloaded, and when the most people will die.

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According to IHME’s new figures, Tennessee’s surge will begin next week. On April 15th, for example, 25 deaths are projected for the state. Earlier projections showed the state’s hospitals would be nearly 7,000 beds short of what they needed and that there would be massive shortages of ICU beds and ventilators. Now, however, the IHME says the state will need a max of 2,387 beds, well below its statewide total of 7,812 beds.

The surge is expected to peak on April 18th and begin to abate around April 25th. It’s projected that by May 24th, no Tennessee hospital beds will be needed for coronavirus patients. The last Tennessee citizen is projected to die from the first phase of the virus around May 11th.

For now, these may be the best numbers we can get. State officials aren’t sharing their models. Lee has only said publicly that we need 7,000 additional hospital beds and that we are making space for them [more on that below].
Shelby County Health Department

The Local Response
Statistical modeling is a key effort of the Shelby County COVID-19 Task Force. Doug McGowen, the city’s chief operating officer, said crunching those numbers are vital to the county’s response.

Doug McGowen

“Part of the task force work is that predictive analysis about when the surge will come, so that we’ll know not just when it gets here, but how high the peak will be,” McGowen said last week. “Part of that analysis is determining how many people will need ICU beds and how many people will need ventilators. That work is happening today.”

Shelby County estimates weren’t in as of late last week. But McGowen said an early look showed the surge won’t be as bad in Arkansas and Mississippi as it will be in Tennessee. One of the states (he didn’t say which one) will likely not run out of hospitals beds; the other will probably have enough ventilators.

As of Thursday, McGowen said the city was “not near critical.” In coronavirus modeling, distinctions like that one boil down to three key pieces of data: how many hospital beds a city has; how many ICU beds it has; and the number of ventilators it has.

Manoj Jain, a Memphis physician working with the Shelby County COVID-19 Task Force, said last week that state figures showed Tennessee needs 15,600 inpatient beds to respond to the surge. We have 7,800. The state needs about 2,400 ICU beds. We have 629. Also, Tennessee needs 1,943 ventilators but did not say how many we have now. The numbers are grim, but Jain noted that they aren’t set in stone.

“This is a predictive model but that doesn’t mean that that is what is going to happen,” he said.

Monday’s projections make clear how tenuous such predictive statistics can be.
At the governor’s daily news briefing Friday, Lisa Piercey, the Tennessee Department of Health Commissioner (TDOH), said 35 percent of the state’s inpatient hospital beds were available, 34 percent of ICU beds were available, and 71 percent of the state’s ventilator capacity is available.

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To prepare for the surge, Lee announced last week that sites across the state will be turned into temporary health-care facilities. The massive Music City Center convention center in Downtown Nashville will transform into a coronavirus-positive environment with 1,600 patient care spaces. Convention centers in Chattanooga and Knoxville will also house patients.

In Memphis, the Gateway Shopping Center on Jackson will house overflow coronavirus patients. Other sites here are also under evaluation as possible sites to become temporary health-care facilities.

A piece of data that Piercey said she was proud of is the state’s testing figures. As of Friday, 34,611 had been tested in Tennessee. Piercey said the state is testing at an “unprecedented rate” and that we are “pulling away from other states. That will help us better identify cases and mitigate our risk and prepare accordingly,” Piercey added.     

Dr. Manoj Jain

The End? An Interview with Dr. Manoj Jain
Memphis Flyer: When is this over?
Manoj Jain: Obviously, everyone’s going to tell you the first thing is, we don’t know. The second thing they’ll tell you is that it depends on how we respond and react to the epidemic right now.

In our reaction response, the single most important element is how much we separate from each other, how much we don’t allow the virus to go to another person. The virus is very infectious, three times as infectious as the flu. We need to try to make sure that it does not go to a lot of other folks. That’s the key that will determine the trajectory of the epidemic.

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What numbers have to change before we can even think about going back to a restaurant again?
The single most important piece of data that one must pay attention to is the number of new cases per day. Now, that’s not a perfect reflection of what’s happening with the epidemic. It’s somewhat delayed because you’ll want to go back and see when the symptoms started on the that individual.

If the reporting pipeline is not perfect, if it’s clogged up, then it might be a few days late. But we can move it up a little bit and say this was reflecting what we are seeing a few days before.

If you look at the number of cases each day and if they are climbing and at what rate they are climbing; that number gives you a very good reflection of where we are on an epidemic curve. This is like all infectious diseases — it will follow a bell-shaped epidemic curve. You will have a surge or an increase of cases and then it’ll come back down after a period of time. Once we begin to see a decline in the number of cases and sustained declines, that’s when we will know that we are getting this under control.

So, it won’t be until we have sustained declines?
Correct. That would be best. Otherwise, you’re going to see a surge again. Different people have a different take on this. But a study [by Scott Gottlieb, Mark McClellan, Caitlin Rivers, Lauren Silvis, and Crystal Watson] from the American Enterprise Institute called the “Roadmap to Re-Opening” does a fairly good job of defining it. They talked about a sustained reduction in cases for at least 14 days [before restrictions could be lifted].

In the beginning, health officials here said we wouldn’t really know if social distancing was working for a month or two. Are there any early indications that it’s worked?
I think it is because we’re not seeing such a huge uptick in cases and an astronomical rise each day. Yes, we are seeing a more clear number of cases per day but that is not an astronomical rise from the previous day. So, I think we did — with social distancing — blunt the surge. However, is it sufficient enough? We don’t know. How long will it last? We don’t know.

Is there anything we left out or that you want to add?
People need to be very clear that what determines how soon we end the epidemic has a lot to do with what they do now and how that is reflected in the numbers 14 days from now. The more action they take right now in social distancing will reflect in an earlier re-opening. It will lower the surge and dampen the number of cases, and it is going to save many lives.
So we’ll know this virus storm is moving on out when the number of cases decline for two weeks in a row. That’s the health-care side of it. But how will that translate to our day-to-day lives? That will be the government response to the health-care data.

Preparing For the End
In Memphis, officials are already planning for the end. Citizens stuck at home may call it the end, but McGowen calls it the recovery part of the process. Health data will trigger the loosening of some restrictions.

“We don’t have anything close to what I would suggest is the automatic trigger, when things would return to normalcy,” McGowen said. “What I think people should realistically expect is just as we began to put restrictions into place, and they became more and more and more restrictive, that the return to normalcy will be the same. Those restrictions will lift one at a time.

“That is the consistent theme that we’re seeing in the planning and that’s how we intend to approach that return to normalcy.

“But I just want to caution everybody, there is no date certain when that will occur. We need to err on the side of caution to make sure that we don’t just lift everything at once and we get another — maybe even bigger — spike in the future.”

It’s a bitter pill to swallow. Just when this virus passes and Memphians can once again greet friends at their local watering hole, the virus may come back — and we may all go back home. There is still no vaccine, and social distancing is the only thing we know that works.
In Wuhan, China, the epicenter of the pandemic’s origin, restrictions have been lifted. But late last week, officials warned residents to stay inside and strengthen protection measures in an attempt to ward off a second wave of the virus, especially as travel restrictions fall away and international travelers return to the city.

Dr. Scott Strome, executive dean of the College of Medicine at Memphis’ University of Tennessee Health Sciences Center (UTHSC), said sometimes “the second wave is worse than the first.”

“We don’t anticipate that [with coronavirus here],” Strome said. “The things that work against a second wave being worse than the first are if folks have developed an immunity and if we have better tracking systems in place to isolate folks who are positive.

“We have to get through this first outbreak. But it’s incredibly important that we also be thinking about the second, the third, and the fourth because without a vaccine, they go like ripples through the water.”

Strome said he and his team have developed a plan to deal with the virus in all of its waves. They’ve shared it with the city and will soon be posting on the school’s website for the public.

Strome also said a UTHSC team is working with other academic partners on a number of clinical trials. Though he could not give any specifics of the project, he said “there is some hope there.”

A new test from UTHSC now allows results within 24 hours. Strome said with it they can test between 1,000 and 1,500 people per day with an ability to scale up beyond that soon. They are also developing a number of new diagnostic tests that will allow people to know if they’ve been exposed and whether or not it is safe for them to go back to work.

In China …
Last Saturday was a somber day across China. At 10 a.m., everyone stopped and bowed their heads. Sirens blared. Trains, cars, and ships all blasted their horns for three minutes in a national wail of mourning.

According to the South China Post, Chinese President Xi Jinping led the country in a day of mourning for those who died in the months-long coronavirus pandemic. He and other party leaders wore white chrysanthemums to symbolize grief during a state-sponsored event.

For the first time in weeks, Xi and other leaders did not wear masks, aligning with new guidelines from the Chinese government. A similar event was led by party leaders in Wuhan, the epicenter of the virus.

That city will fully emerge from its quarantine this week. Many restrictions have already been lifted. The malls have opened, according to a report by Bloomberg.com. Factories have cranked back up. But there’s still an abundance of caution. The malls aren’t bustling. The factories aren’t at full capacity. 

But there are plenty of signs of life. Lily Kuo, a Shanghai-based reporter for the Guardian newspaper, did what we might think of as unthinkable — she went to a bar. She visited Shanghai’s 44KW nightclub, where “life almost feels normal again.” Groups sat close together without face masks, Kuo said. Bartenders in masks mixed cocktails. A DJ played disco. In other parts of China, shops had reopened. Sidewalks were packed. Food shops were thriving. Chinese leader Xi Jinping ordered urgency in re-opening the economy. According to Kuo, he stated, “in low-risk areas production and normal life ‘must be fully restored.’”

But it took months, until the country rode the statistical peak all the way to the bottom. For now, China reports maybe one or two new cases of the virus each day. Some days there are none reported.

For now, we’re still climbing the corona-coaster peak in Memphis and Shelby County. It’s slow and scary. All we can really do is to act responsibly and watch the numbers.

But it will end.

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Memphis 3.0 Gets OK From City Council

The Memphis 3.0 Comprehensive plan was approved by the Memphis City Council Tuesday, after months of delay.

After much debate, the council passed the 3.0 ordinance 7-6 on the third and final reading at the body’s next-to-last meeting of 2019.

Council members Joe Brown, Cheyenne Johnson, Jamita Swearengen, Worth Morgan, Martavious Jones, and Berlin Boyd voted against the plan.

Voting in favor were J. Ford Canale, Frank Colvett Jr., Gerre Currie, Kemp Conrad, Reid Hedgepeth, Patrice Robinson, and Sherman Greer.

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Before the vote, Boyd moved to delay the issue for two weeks, but that motion failed. Boyd called for the delay to seek legal counsel from council attorney Allan Wade, who was absent from Tuesday’s meeting.

Boyd said based on the Tennessee Code Annotated, the council is not required to adopt the plan in order for it to move forward since the Memphis and Shelby County Land Use Control Board has already approved it.

Doug McGowen, chief operating officer for the city, confirmed that the council isn’t statutorily required to approve the plan.

Boyd, along with Jones, who also wanted to delay the vote, wanted clarity about the measure from Wade. Jones raised concerns about the way the Memphis 3.0 plan was presented to the council: “The way it [Memphis 3.0] has been presented to us, I felt — and I don’t know how many of my colleagues share this — that we had to approve this.” Before last week, Jones said the council was under the impression that “we had to vote it up or down.”

McGowen responded, saying “there was no intent to make anybody believe they had to do anything.”

“The administration has presented this plan in full transparency that we would like the council to approve it,” McGowen said. “We have never said you were under statutory obligation to do so.”

Greer, who leaves his District 1 post at the end of the year, urged the council to move forward with the vote, opposing any more delays.

“We can ask questions for the next 30 years,” Greer said. “It’s time to vote. This doesn’t have one dollar that’s tied to it that has to be spent in one area or another. It’s a plan. Plans change. We’ve said many times that seven votes can move anything.”

The council first delayed the plan in March after a group of residents from the New Chicago area voiced opposition.

In May, Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland signed an executive order implementing Memphis 3.0 on the administrative side.


The council has delayed the vote on Memphis 3.0 several times since March. The council first delayed the vote on the city’s comprehensive plan after a group of residents from the New Chicago area voiced opposition to the plan, citing a lack of inclusion.

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Since then, delays have been attributed to the council needing more information about the plan and its implications. The council took the first of three votes on the ordinance at its July 2nd meeting.

The plan drew little opposition on Tuesday from members of the public. Lynette Williams, president of the Aklena Lakeview Garden Community Development Corporation, was the sole voice of opposition. Williams said that she and other residents in the Lakeview Garden community, located in the southeastern corner of the city, do not support the plan because “it doesn’t include us or District 6.”

“We want the residents to be respected and represented in the outer parts of Memphis, Tennessee, where you have a lot of homeowners and taxpayers,” Williams said. “We want unique improvements in our neighborhoods, we want community investments.”

Councilwoman Patrice Robinson, who voted in favor of Memphis 3.0, said even if amended down the road, the plan gives the city a “road map and a start” to move forward. Robinson also said that once in place, the plan can be further developed to include specific communities.

“We do a disservice to our city as a body if we don’t have a road map to where we’re going,” Robinson said. “Now a plan is not going to include everybody’s street, every community, and this particular plan only talked about the anchors in our community. We can expand upon that. Plans can be changed. Budgets can be created. We control the process right here”

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Boyd said he agrees “a plan is definitely needed,” but certain core issues in communities, such as blight, should also be addressed.

“When you look at certain streets in North Memphis where there are about 15 blighted properties on one street and we can’t even demo those houses, but yet we’re going through and trying to develop a plan for the community,” Boyd said. “We have to figure out how to get back to the basics in figuring out how to stabilize some communities.”


Councilman Worth Morgan wanted to know what would actually change if the plan is approved. In short, John Zennah, director of the city’s division of planning and development said moving forward all land-use decisions made by the city council would have to be consistent with the criteria of the 3.0 plan and that that finding should be reflected in land-use resolutions that the council approves.

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Changing Police, Fire Residency Rules Raises Concern Among City Council Members

CREDIT: Facebook/MPD

Facebook/MPD

A few members of the Memphis City Council voiced reservations Tuesday about lifting the residency requirements for the city’s police and fire personnel.

The ordinance up for discussion would allow voters to choose whether or not Memphis Police Department (MPD) and Memphis Fire Department (MFD) personnel should have to reside in the city or county, or if they should be allowed to live up to two hours away. If approved by the council, voters will make the ultimate decision on the ballot next fall.

Chief operating officer for the city, Doug McGowen, said this is an effort to do “everything in our power to lower the barrier to those who want to serve the citizens of Memphis.”

Currently, 12 percent of MPD officers live outside the city and county, MPD director Michael Rallings said. Forty-two percent live in the city.

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Rallings said that removing the residency requirements would aid the department with recruitment and help it reach its goal of having 2,300 commissioned officers. To date, there are 2,062 officers and another 85 in the training academy.

“As we continue to try and hire more officers and firefighters, I would hope we would remove any barrier to that,” Rallings said. “I just ask that you consider placing the issue back on the ballot and let the voters decide.”

Councilman Martavious Jones questioned whether lifting the residency requirements would assist recruiting efforts, as he said police hiring is a problem across the country — not one that is unique to Memphis: “Opening this up does not alleviate are recruitment and hiring problems.”

“Looking at the big picture,” Jones also said that allowing officers to live outside of the city could further exacerbate Memphis’ poverty rate. “Why should we let these high-paying, middle-class jobs leave our city?” he said. “We would open up the floodgates. We would not be doing ourselves any favors by doing anything that drives high-paying jobs out of here.”

Finally, Jones questioned whether it makes sense for first responders to live up to two hours outside of the city, especially in the case of a major emergency.

“First responders living two hours out?” Jones said. “What are they responding to? They can’t respond. I don’t see how this makes the recruiting effort easier or the city safer.”

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Councilwoman Cheyenne Johnson also expressed reservations about the ordinance.


“Part of being a part of Memphis administration is believing in Memphis,” Johnson said. “And if you believe in Memphis, you can find a home in Memphis. If citizens can’t believe officers are living next door or in community, it hurts the image the police and fire departments are trying to promote throughout city.”

Councilwoman Gerre Currie, one of the sponsors of the ordinance, disagreed saying that “whether they are two hours out or not I’m not going to second-guess personnel on their efforts.”

The council will return to this discussion in three weeks. MPD officials are slated to give a presentation on the department’s recruiting efforts to date then.

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Zoo Lot Construction to Begin Monday

CREDIT: Brandon Dill

Brandon Dill

It’s the beginning of the end for parking on the Overton Park Greensward.

Construction is slated to begin Monday on a project that will reconfigure the Memphis Zoo parking lot, adding an additional 415 parking spaces. Those spaces are expected to end the decades-long practice of parking cars on the Greensward, the grassy field adjacent to the zoo’s parking lot.

The first phase of the project will focus on the Prentiss Place parking lot, on the northwest side of the zoo. Work there will take about three months, and during that time, the lot will be completely closed. Once complete, the new Prentiss Place lot will have gained 108 parking spaces.

Prentiss Place is expected to stay open as a two-way street for most of those three months, though some closures are expected to complete pedestrian crossings and on-street parking.

savethegreensward.org

Construction crews will then begin work on the main zoo lot, just south of the zoo entrance. That work is slated to start this fall and winter, an optimum time to transplant many trees, which officials have said is necessary to the project.

During it all, the zoo’s North Parkway entrance will be staffed and open on busy days when overflow parking is expected. This will give access to the zoo from the nearly 200 on-street parking spots on North Parkway.
[pullquote-1] “By executing on this project, we’ll fulfill [Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland’s] promise to put 30-plus years of controversy behind us by permanently ending parking on the Greensward, as well as accommodating the growth of one of the nation’s top zoos,” Doug McGowen, the city’s chief operating officer, said in a statement. “We will surely have some growing pains as we work through the construction, but we’re committed to strong communication to make sure park visitors, zoo patrons, and neighborhood residents know what to expect.”

New zoo president and CEO Jim Dean said he was “very happy” to have the “strong” support of the Overton Park Conservancy, Overton Park Alliance, and the city of Memphis.

“The Memphis Zoo has been a part of Overton Park since 1906,” Dean said. “We have grown quite a bit since then and have faced some challenges.

The hotly contested battle for the Greensward

“We’re happy this resolution will, once complete, end parking on the Greensward. We are also excited about strengthening and growing our partnership with the Overton Park Conservancy and the Overton Park Alliance to continue to make Overton Park one of the best parks in the country.”

Tina Sullivan, executive director of the Overton Park Conservancy, said community support made the project possible and “is a testament to Memphis’ love for Overton Park.”

“We look forward to the day very soon when park visitors can look from the Doughboy statue to Rainbow Lake across a beautiful Greensward that is free of cars,” Sullivan said.

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Council Recap: Water Rate Hike, South Cordova De-annexation OKed

CREDIT: Maya Smith

Maya Smith

The Memphis City Council

After months of debate and delay, the Memphis City Council approved an increase in water rates Tuesday, but voted not to raise gas and electric rates.

The vote means Memphis Light, Gas, and Water (MLGW) customers will start paying an additional 45 cents per month, beginning in March.

MLGW officials have been seeking water, gas, and electric increases totaling 10.5 percent over five years since December. If all three hikes were approved residential customers would have paid, on average, an additional $18.56 per month during the five year period.

J.T. Young, president and CEO of MGLW, said the hikes would have helped fund about $740 million worth of improvements to the utility’s aging infrastructure.

Instead, Tuesday the council upheld its vote from two weeks ago opposing a gas rate increase. The council voted 6-7 against electric hikes, but approved the 45 cent monthly hike on water with a 9-4 vote.

As council members were reluctant to approve the original ask, Councilwoman Patrice Robinson introduced the idea as a way to offset the utility’s negative net income.

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Young said if the utility stays in the negative, the state could step in to regulate rates, likely setting them higher than the utility’s ask.

Councilman Worth Morgan said the council has to take responsibility to avoid the state “coming in and acting like big brother.”

“No one is really arguing that we don’t have aging infrastructure that needs replacing,” Morgan said. “The question is when and how are we going to replace it.”

The increased revenue will go toward improving infrastructure at the utility’s water pumping stations, which Young said, on average, are about 58 years old. The utility has a “good bit of restoration and rehabilitation that needs to be done,” Young said.

Tuesday Young also presented the results of a public phone survey conducted by the utility regarding the rate increases. Of the more than 2,000 respondents, Young said 46 percent wanted more information, 23 percent would consider rate increases, 16 percent would support an increase, and 15 percent would not support the increase under any circumstances.


‘Right-sizing’ the city

The council also approved the de-annexation of portions of South Cordova on the third and final hearing.

Approximately two-square miles, housing around 4,000 residents in 1,806 homes, will officially be outside of the city limits beginning in 2020.

Residents of the community, many of whom spoke to the council Tuesday, support the move and have been pushing for it for some years.

The residents will be expected to pay taxes through 2023.

Doug McGowen, the city’s chief operating officer, said the de-annexation is in step with the city’s effort to “right-size” the city, while “building up and not out.”

Although the city will lose about $3 million of tax dollars annually, McGowen said the city will not have a reduction in revenue because resources once used in the de-annexed area will be saved. McGowen added that the resources removed from South Cordova will be re-allocated to other areas of the city to provide better municipal services to the city’s core.

For example, McGowen said the move will decrease the area the Memphis Police Department patrols by 8 percent.

This is the fourth area of the city the council has voted to de-annex. Last year Rocky Point, Southwind-Windyke, Eads, and Riverbottoms were approved for de-annexation.

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Officials: MPD Body Camera Program Needs Time, Money

Rallings, McGowen, Spinosa, Ford

Memphis Police Department officials asked the Memphis City Council on Tuesday for money this fiscal year to hire video analysts they say they need to get the department’s body camera program off the ground. 

MPD told council members Tuesday that they need $109,000 to hire 10 part-time video analysts who will review body camera footage before it can be made available to the public. That figure rises to about $300,000 for the new employees next year as they are paid for a full 12 months.

Asked for a timeline on the full implementation of the body camera program, MPD interim director Michael Rallings said “we’re not there yet.” 

“We need to hire the analysts first, before we put the cart before the horse,” Rallings said.

However, he said he hoped the analysts could all be hired by April.

Doug McGowen, the city’s chief operating officer, compared Memphis to other peer cities rolling out body camera and in-car camera programs. Seattle, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, and Denver are all “taking a phased-in approach.”

So far, Memphis has 150 in-car cameras deployed. It now has three officers testing body cameras but has a total of about 1,700 body cameras ready to be deployed.

Seattle has deployed 18 of its 500 cameras. L.A. has deployed about 690 of its 1,500 body cameras. Milwaukee has deployed about one-tenth of its total cameras and Denver is one-fifth of the way through a full deployment of its camera program.

McGowen projected that the MPD body cameras will create about 72,000 hours of footage each month. In-car cameras in Seattle now create about 18,000 hours each month. Milwaukee projects it will create about 36,000 hours each month. McGowen said Denver has created about 6,000 hours of footage in the last 28 days.

McGowen projected it will take three hours here to fully review and redact one hour of footage from police cameras. In Seattle, where they have more stringent public records rules, the process will take 10 hours for every one hour of footage. L.A. Has not yet released any police videos. Milwaukee and Denver have not yet had any requests for videos, McGowen said.

Cost projections to store the Memphis videos will be about $4.5 million in the next five years, McGowen said. That price shoots up to $10 million with the full deployment of all cameras. The figure in L.A. Is about $50 million and no cost projections were yet available form the other cities surveyed.

Council member Edmund Ford Jr. asked Rallings how Memphis stacked up against Albuquerque and New Orleans, cities that have already fully deployed car and body camera programs.

Rallings said camera policies in those cities are likely very different than what they’ll be in Memphis. Officers there can turn the cameras on and off “at will,” he said, and open records laws are also different in both cities. In total, he said the comparison to Memphis would not be “apples to apples.”

MPD bought its body cameras from Taser International last year. A lawsuit filed earlier this month from Taser rival Digital Ally claims Taser bribed officials to get contracts in six cities, including Memphis. Council member Phillip Spinosa asked Rallings if the suit would affect the city’s camera program.

“It has nothing to do with us,” Rallings said. “It’s between Taser and the other company.”

Sexual Assault Kit Update

The Memphis Police Department (MPD) has whittled its backlog of about 13,000 untested sexual assault kits down to about 3,000 untested kits.

That was the latest from MPD officials who told Memphis City Council members Tuesday that more than 5,500 kits have completed analysis and more than 5,000 are now at labs for testing.

Officials said they can send about 30 kits a month for testing.

Also, MPD’s rape kit testing project got a nearly $2 million infusion of cash Tuesday. In September, the New York County District Attorney’s Office announced it would award nearly $38 million in grant to 32 jurisdictions in 20 states to test backlogs of rape kits. Memphis won one of the biggest grants which ranged in size from $97,000 to $2 million.

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Several Thousand Rape Kits Still Await Analysis

More than 7,400 of the 12,374 untested rape kits discovered by the Memphis Police Department (MPD) in late 2013 and early 2014 still await laboratory analysis.

The latest update on the city’s rape-kit backlog, which includes sexual assault kits taken as far back as 1975, were disclosed during the Memphis City Council’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Committee meeting on Tuesday, January 20th.

According to the Sexual Assault Kit (SAK) Taskforce, by the end of December, there were still 6,340 untested rape kits. Another 1,142 have been processed for serology (evidence of bodily fluids) but haven’t been sent off to a laboratory for DNA analysis.

This leaves the number of kits that have been analyzed or are at the lab awaiting analysis at 4,892.

“Testing the kits is the easy part,” said Doug McGowen of the SAK Taskforce. “We’ve already started 280-plus investigations. Each investigation takes 40 hours of police officer time. It’s going to cost a significant amount of money to put police officers and the significant support in place to do the number of investigations that we’re going to have to do.”

It’s estimated to cost more than $6.5 million to test all of the city’s backlogged rape kits. Thus far, the city has reportedly allocated $4.25 million, and the state has provided $1 million toward kit testing. 

A funding gap of $512,855 remains. The gap must be closed before the city can access a $750,000 challenge grant that was awarded by the Plough Foundation to help in the city’s kit testing.

To fill the gap as well as provide additional personnel for investigations and prosecutions, the SAK Taskforce has applied for funding being offered by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office. The agency has committed to providing $35 million for rape-kit testing nationwide.

The SAK Taskforce will also apply for the White House/Department of Justice Grant Program, which is allocating $41 million to help eradicate the nation’s rape-kit backlog and improve sexual-assault investigations. The program has yet to begin accepting applications.

Additional funding for kit testing has come in the form of individual donations. More than $12,000 has been collectively donated to the Community Foundation of Greater Memphis’ Sexual Assault Resource Fund. 

A climate-controlled storage room that can hold up to 50,000 pieces of DNA evidence is projected to be completed by late May. The city council allocated $1 million to the MPD for its establishment. The storage room will be located in the old International Harvester building.

“We have an unprecedented opportunity to get additional justice in our community,” McGowen said. “We understand that there are individuals who are worrying about the status of their case and do not have closure in that part of their lives. This work is so important to do.”

Rape Kits By the Numbers:

• 12,374 total rape kits discovered untested in 2013/2014

• 6,340 kits untested by end of December 2014

• 2,075 kits at forensic laboratories now

• 1,142 processed for at least serology

• 1,771 negative for serology

• 1,046 processed for DNA

• 281 investigations have been initiated

• 105 investigations remain active

• 176 investigations have been closed

• 21 individuals identified as being previously convicted

• 52 indictments issued

• 19 named suspects

• 33 John Does (unidentified)

• 22 victims/suspects are deceased

• 30 victims declined to participate in an investigation

• 2 victims were unable to be located by law enforcement

• 28 cases were past the statute of limitations

• 19 cases had insufficient/degraded DNA

• 3 cases investigated did not meet the statute definitions of a crime