Tag: Sierra Club

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Water Works

CREDIT: Courtesy of TVA

The source of Memphis’ beloved clean drinking water — the Memphis Sands Aquifer — could soon be tapped for up to 3.5 million gallons of water per day to cool the Tennessee Valley Authority’s (TVA) new, under-construction gas plant.

In 2014, when the TVA approved plans for the Allen Combined Cycle gas plant that will replace the Allen Fossil coal plant in 2018, they said they’d be using wastewater from the nearby Maxson Wastewater Treatment Plant for its cooling water system.

But those plans have turned out to be too expensive, according to a report from TVA, since using wastewater would first require treatment due to pollutants in that water.

“It would add more than a million dollars a year to the operating costs,” said TVA spokesperson Chris Stanley.

Courtesy of TVA

Plans for the new Allen Combined Cycle gas plant

Now, they’re looking at a few alternatives — either drilling five wells into the aquifer and pulling water directly from the ground, purchasing potable water from Memphis Light, Gas, & Water (MLGW), or some combination of the two. If potable water is purchased from MLGW, that water would come from both the Memphis Sands and the Fort Pillow aquifers, but the TVA environmental assessment report says MLGW cannot sell the TVA enough water to meet peak demand.

“We may need both the [aquifer] well water and the backup potable water from MLGW,” Stanley said.

Most of that water — about 90 percent — is evaporated in the plant’s cooling process, and the rest will be discharged into the Maxson plant, Stanley said.

The TVA is under an agreement with the Environmental Protection Agency and several environmental groups, including the Sierra Club, to reduce emissions at its coal-fired plants by December 2018. In 2014, the TVA’s board voted to close the Allen Fossil plant, which provides energy to the region, and replace it with a more environmentally friendly natural gas plant. The new Allen Combined Cycle plant is currently under construction in Frank C. Pidgeon Industrial Park, near the site of the Allen Fossil Plant.

The TVA must have the Allen Fossil Plant closed by December 2018, so they’re looking to get the new plant online by June of that year. Stanley said they’d originally planned to use wastewater to cool the plant “to maximize environmental efforts.”

But in April, the TVA issued a supplemental environmental assessment report on the aquifer issue, claiming either option would lead to “minor irreversible and irretrievable commitments of groundwater resources.” Cooling the gas plant requires about 3.5 million gallons of water per day, but the aquifer is believed to hold around 57 trillion gallons. Stanley said the TVA wouldn’t be the first local company to pull water directly from aquifer wells.

Still yet, not everyone is pleased with the TVA’s new plan.

“It’s depleting our aquifer,” said Scott Banbury, conservation program coordinator for the Tennessee Sierra Club. “Most people in Memphis are pretty stoked that we have this awesome source of water. The TVA did some basic calculations on the cone of depression it would create, and they describe that as negligible, but it’s still a depletion.”

Banbury said he’s upset that the public wasn’t given an opportunity to comment on the issue.

“They tried to pull a switcheroo on us without giving the public an opportunity to weigh in,” Banbury said.

The TVA released on its website the supplemental environmental assessment report looking at the new potential water sources back in April, but Banbury said he only learned of it recently since no meetings were held seeking public comment.

“We don’t have to have those meetings by law, but we usually do,” Stanley said. “But in this case, it’s a decision we have to make quickly because we have to have the Allen Fossil Plant retired by December 2018.”

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TVA Makes Plans to Permanently Close a Local Coal Ash Pond

CREDIT: Tennessee Valley Authority

In August 2014, the Tennessee Valley Authority’s (TVA) board voted to retire its Memphis coal plant by December 2018 and replace it with a 1,000-megawatt natural gas plant. That process is underway, and now TVA is focusing on closing one of the two ash ponds on the coal plant’s site.

The West Ash Impoundment, a retired coal ash pond near the Allen Fossil Plant in Frank C. Pidgeon Industrial Park, was the disposal site for waste products from the plant until 1978. It was replaced by the newer East Ash Impoundment. The West Ash pond has only received small amounts of combustion coal residuals (CCR) since then, typically when the East Ash pond was being worked on.

Tennessee Valley Authority

Map of the Allen Fossil Plant and its ash impoundments

“CCR is a result from the coal-burning process. You can have bottom ash from the bottom of the boiler. You can have fly ash, which goes into the air and is collected,” said Amy Henry, the manager of TVA’s National Environmental Policy Act program. “Some of the processes use water to push [the CCR] out through a pipe into an impoundment, and that’s why [the impoundments are] wet.”

Active ash impoundments, like the East Ash pond, are wet, but since the West Ash pond has been out of use for a while, it doesn’t look like a pond at all. The pond has been filled in with dirt, but TVA wants to permanently close the pond, either by covering the area with an impervious cap or by trucking the CCR material off-site to the South Shelby Landfill.

Those are the two options TVA is considering in the ash pond closure’s Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). While both were studied in the EIS, the report recommends the permanent cover option over the option to truck material off-site. The public is invited to comment on that report through February 24th. Later in the year, the TVA board will vote on one of the two options.

One of the reasons the EIS recommends what they’re calling “closure in place” over “closure by removal” is the potential for a traffic accident as trucks haul the coal ash from the industrial park to the landfill.

“With closure by removal, we would predict a higher risk of impacts in the traffic system, potentially accidents if there were more trucks on the road,” Henry said. “We’d have to take a look at the impacts on the community and where these routes would be going.”

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has determined that CCR is nonhazardous, but the Sierra Club’s Tennessee conservation program coordinator Scott Banbury has a different stance.

“The EPA says it’s not hazardous, but we disagree because within this material are toxic heavy metals, and that can have a huge impact on aquatic communities,” Banbury said.

Banbury believes leaving the coal ash where it is could have more potential negative impact than moving it out. The ash ponds are currently unlined, meaning there’s nothing separating the waste from the ground underneath.

And even though the closure-in-place option would include a cap over the top, Banbury fears the ash could still seep out into the groundwater underneath and eventually make its way to into nearby McKellar Lake. Although signs are posted to discourage fishing in that lake, Banbury said many people still fish there to feed their families.

“The groundwater comes up from the river and gets the bottom of the ash pond wet below the water table,” Banbury said. “They’re saying they’re going to cap this thing so that rainfall can’t fall on top of it and leach through the ash pond, but that’s irrelevant because the groundwater comes up through the containment anyway.”

By contrast, the South Shelby Landfill is lined, so if the TVA were to truck the material out of the pond and into the landfill, it’d be moved to a lined containment. But Banbury said the landfill isn’t ideal either.

“Our preferred alternative is for them to remove it from this unlined pond and construct a new one with a liner underneath it,” Banbury said.

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Transportation Forum Finds Citizens Want More Pedestrian-Friendly City

Crumbling sidewalks, underfunded public transit, and disconnected bike lanes were at the top of the list for Memphians who attended a public forum at the Benjamin L. Hooks Library last week to discuss the transportation needs of the city.

“We need to keep the role of the government in mind,” said Dennis Lynch, the transportation chair for the Tennessee chapter of the Sierra Club, which hosted the discussion. “If the things we’re doing aren’t for the people, they aren’t the right things. We need to push for the things we think we need.”

Attendees brainstormed various ideas to alleviate what many believe is a situation in dire need of a solution. Among the proposals: buses that run on time and to more locations on a frequent schedule; sidewalks and streets that are safe for all citizens; more availability to rent tandem bicycles; for Congressman Steve Cohen to support the local allocation of federal funds and allow more local power over how those funds are spent; and to install more parking meters to encourage people to use public transit as a way to save money.

Lynch said the input would be taken to Mayor Jim Strickland, the Memphis City Council, the Memphis Area Transit Authority (MATA), and the Metropolitan Planning Organization.

Broken, uneven sidewalks and missing curb ramps leave those like Steve Collins, who is disabled and relies on his wheelchair and public transportation, at a disadvantage.

Collins’ route is contained to Poplar, where he’s pinpointed at least 19 “problem spots.” At Poplar and White Station, Collins said there are four corners and only two curb cuts, which forces him to travel into the street.

The issue of damaged sidewalks is not so black and white. In Memphis, property owners are responsible for sidewalk repair. A 1967 city law states that owners of properties abutting any public street are “required to provide and maintain adjacent to his or her property a sidewalk.” The city has made efforts to assist low-income residents, but the problem is still open-ended for Memphians like Collins.

“We have met with the city about this, and they tell us that it is the state’s problem because [Poplar] is a state highway,” Collins said. “The state says it is a city problem because it is Poplar Avenue. My question is this: If I die at that intersection, where does my widow send the bill for the funeral?”

Kyle Wagenschutz, bicycle and pedestrian program manager for the city of Memphis, said obstacles within funding resources, or the lack thereof, can leave “some things waiting in the wings.” Bike lanes, for instance, are routinely added as streets are repaved. However, the city will soon begin construction on a grant-funded project to update more roads with bike lanes.

“These are all roads that are not being repaved but that new bike lanes are going to be installed without repaving,” Wagenschutz said. “All of those were chosen based on the idea of connecting the missing pieces and missing segments of the network.”

Developing dedicated sources to fund MATA is key, said Suzanne Carlson, Innovate Memphis’ transportation and mobility project manager.

“There’s a lack of funding to go around,” Carlson said. “Right now, [MATA] goes to city council and [receives] federal funds. Some are guaranteed, and some are competitive that they might not get every year.”

Though they have continually received budget cuts over the last few years, MATA President Ron Garrison said they are “in the process of rebuilding MATA.” After the 2010 census numbers were released, MATA lost upwards of $1.6 million dollars in federal funding as well as some state funding. But this fiscal year, they have a “tiny bit of money” left over, Garrison said. Additionally, Garrison said MATA is implementing new ideas such as partnering with Uber and TransLoc.

“Over the next two years, you’re going to see tremendous improvements,” Garrison said. “Over the next five years, we can make MATA a great transit system again. We’re fixing on-time performance, changing the culture, and correctly funding our facilities, buses, and transit stops so that our customers have a very positive experience.”

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Shelby County Health Dept. To Hold Hearing on TVA Gas Plant

TVA Allen coal plant

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) voted last year to retire its Allen coal plant on Presidents Island and replace it with a new $452 million gas plant, but the Shelby County Health Department must approve a building permit for the new gas plant before the process can move forward.

The health department will hold a public hearing on that permit on Thursday, September 17th at 6 p.m. at the Memphis Area Transit Authority Board Room and Hudson Hall at Central Station (545 South Main).

The Sierra Club’s Memphis chapter made a big push for the TVA to retire the Allen plant, and now they’re pushing the health department to ensure the new gas plant will protect health and public safety.

“While we agree with the Tennessee Valley Authority’s move away from coal, we must also stay vigilant to ensure the new gas plant doesn’t put the health and safety of our community at risk,” said Rita Harris, senior organizing representative with Sierra Club in Memphis. “As plans for the gas plant move forward, we will be asking for adequate monitoring of the gas lines running through neighborhoods, which is one of our environmental justice concerns.”

From the Shelby County Health Department’s hearing announcement: “The proposed construction will consist of the addition of two combustion turbine generators, two heat recovery steam generators, one steam turbine generator, one dual fuel (natural gas and biogas) auxiliary boiler, three natural gas-fired dew-point gas heaters, three natural gas-fired dew point heaters, one diesel-engine-driven fire-suppression water pump and one multiple-cell cooling tower. This permitting activity ensures that the public has an opportunity to comment on all affected emission units.”

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Wind Energy Coming to West Tennessee

CREDIT: Clean Line Energy

Wind energy may soon be blowing into West Tennessee thanks to a massive wind farm project based out of Oklahoma. The project, however, is still working its way through the approval process.

The Tennessee portion of the larger Plains and Eastern Clean Line wind energy project is located north of Millington, just inside the Shelby County limits. The project will span more than 700 miles to include Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Tennessee, aiming to deliver 3,500 megawatts of wind energy to more than a million households.

The project, spearheaded by Clean Line Energy, is currently undergoing a federal environmental impact statement review by the U.S. Department of Energy. A public meeting was held earlier this month to gather comments, but the public has until March 19th to provide comments at www.plainsandeasterneis.com.

The environmental impact statement identifies the proposed route for the transmission line. Since the route will cut through individual property owners’ land, Clean Line Energy is seeking comment on the route. In most areas, the final easement of the transmission line will be between 150 to 200 feet wide.

Clean Line Energy

This map shows how wind energy from Oklahoma will be distributed to homes in Arkansas, Tennessee, and beyond.

Because of the right-of-way needs for the project, the Plains and Eastern Clean Line has stirred up some opposition from landowners, especially in Arkansas. But Max Schilstone, the director of business development for Clean Line Energy Partners, touted wind energy’s affordable cost and eco-friendliness.

“The actual cost of generating wind energy has dropped dramatically,” Schilstone said. “As utilities such as [the Tennessee Valley Authority] look to broaden their assets and are seeking other ways they can provide affordable energy to their customers, they look at all resources. Wind energy is one of those components that has now become very affordable and one that has garnered a lot of attention. It’s clean [and] it doesn’t have emissions.”

Scott Banbury, the conservation programs coordinator for the Sierra Club’s Tennessee chapter, said the 4,000 megawatts of power that is proposed to be generated by the wind energy project could be the answer the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is looking for as the authority updates its Integrated Resource Plan, which addresses energy needs over the next 10 to 15 years. The TVA provides the power that MLGW sells to Memphis residents. The wind energy will be going through the TVA grid and can be sold by the TVA.

“We believe [the TVA’s] plan needs to be met by renewable energy sources,” Banbury said. “The Sierra Club is encouraging [TVA] to make commitments to buy that power, rather than wheeling it through to other utilities.”

“The reason Western Tennessee was chosen is because TVA has one of their largest connection points that can accommodate the size of the project we’re developing,” Schilstone said. “The project is a large infrastructure opportunity, even though it is a small footprint of a right-of-way.”

The project will also offer hundreds of jobs to Memphis-area residents, according to Schilstone.

“One of the big aspects of the project is to ensure we drive as much job opportunity to the local community as much as we can,” he said.

If everything goes according to plan, construction to build the wind structures can begin as early as 2016. Delivery of wind power could begin by 2018.

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Sierra Club Proposed Alternatives to Shelby Farms Parkway

CREDIT: Courtesy of Sierra Club

Each weekday, rush hour traffic backs up along Walnut Grove and Farm Road inside Shelby Farms Park, turning part of the city’s largest urban green space into a busy and congested thoroughfare.

The proposed $38 million Shelby Farms Parkway, which is currently under review by the Federal Highway Administration, would divert that traffic around the western edge of the park. But members of the local Sierra Club Chickasaw Group say they have a simpler solution that would save the city millions of dollars and solve traffic problems sooner.

The Sierra Club opposes the Shelby Farms Parkway plan because they believe it takes away too much park land and feels too much like an interstate.

Last week, the Sierra Club held a series of public rallies near Shelby Farms to bring some awareness to the alternatives, which were first proposed by national traffic engineering consultant Walter Kulash of the Center for Humans and Nature in Chicago. Kulash was invited to Memphis last year by the Sierra Club to study alternatives to Shelby Farms Parkway.

Courtesy of Sierra Club

Right: Farm Road with right turn lane added

Those alternatives include: 1) building a longer left turning lane onto Farm Road from eastbound Walnut Grove, 2) building a longer left turning lane for southbound Farm Road traffic turning onto Mullins Station or adding a right turning lane, 3) creating a westbound auxiliary lane from Farm Road to Humphries, 4) extending the northbound merging lane from Farm Road to Walnut Grove, and 5) making adjustments to signal timing.

“When you are headed east on Walnut Grove and you get to Farm Road, that left turn lane is not long enough. It doesn’t hold enough cars, so cars end up waiting to turn left in a lane that should be a travel lane,” said Dennis Lynch, transportation chair for the state and local Sierra Club.

City engineer John Cameron said the Sierra Club’s proposals may provide some short-term relief but that they would only be a “Band-Aid for the situation.” He says traffic counts through the area will rise in the future and that the larger Shelby Farms Parkway project will be needed.

“If the parkway project moves forward, we don’t want to put a whole lot of money into Farm Road. What the Sierra Club is proposing would cost between a half-million and a million dollars just to turn around three to five years later and take it all out,” Cameron said.

Under the Shelby Farms Parkway plan, Farm Road, will be closed to through traffic and used as a pedestrian route. The Memphis City Council delayed a funding match for the parkway plan earlier this year, but Cameron said they’ll be seeking funding from the council again next year. Cameron said the parkway could be fully constructed in three to five years.

Laura Morris, executive director for the Shelby Farms Park Conservancy, said the conservancy is backing the most recent parkway design, which wraps the new road around the western edge of the park. Morris says it does not “damage the park and also relieves traffic.” Morris said she doesn’t oppose the Sierra Club’s ideas, but she doesn’t believe they’ll solve congestion in the future.

“We don’t disagree that temporary fixes like this could relieve some of the pressure right now, but we know that won’t be enough,” Morris said. “It might fix today’s problems but only by a small measure.”

Lynch doesn’t agree.

“We don’t think the parkway is needed and anything that can be done to keep it from being built is a good thing,” Lynch said. “I calculated that the cost to the people stuck in congestion. The value of their time plus the extra gasoline they’re using over five to six years comes to $32 million to $58 million. But it would only cost the city $1 million to make the improvements.”

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Velsicol Seeks Permit for Site Clean-up

CREDIT: George Harvell

The Velsicol Chemical Corporation in North Memphis ceased its manufacture of toxic chemicals used in pesticides and flame-retardants back in 2011, and since then, much of the plant’s infrastructure has been demolished. But Velsicol is now making way for new life on the site.

Last week, the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC) held a public hearing at the Hollywood Community Center during which Velsicol was requested permits to continue cleaning up contamination on the plant’s site at Jackson and Warford and to officially wrap up its closure of a hazardous waste incinerator that was recently torn down.

At that meeting, George Harvell, vice-president of Velsicol’s Memphis Environmental Center, said Velsicol was retaining a warehouse on-site to store chemicals but that the company was open to sharing their property with other companies. Delta Recycling, which recycles concrete, and the Donovo Group, which helps develop and remediate environmentally impaired properties, are already operating on the Velsicol site.

Harvell said, as Velsicol moves forward with cleaning up contaminated soils, he hopes to welcome other industrial businesses.

“Velsicol is going to be here, but we have to get jobs out here [on the site],” Harvell said. “At one time, there were 400 jobs at Velsicol, and now there’s one full-time operations manager. We want to keep our operation here, but we have to get some other businesses in here to help carry the light bill.”

For about 70 years prior to the plant’s 2011 closing, Velsicol manufactured hexachlorocyclopentadiene, more commonly referred to as “hex.” It was primarily used in the pesticide endosulfan, which was banned in the U.S. in the late 1970s. After the ban on endosulfan here, Velsicol continued to ship hex to other countries. Endosulfan is believed to cause both reproductive and developmental damage in humans and animals.

“Now only a few places in the world have registration to use endosulfan. Demand has just gone down,” Harvell said.

George Harvell

The new Velsicol sign mentions Delta Recycling, which has begun operation on the former plant site.

That led to the plant’s closure in 2011. But Velsicol still stores a few chemicals made in other plants, including a new product called Velsiflex that replaces phthalates in plastic, at the Memphis site.

Harvell said the rest of the site’s infrastructure is about 90 percent demolished, and now they’re working on cleaning up contaminated areas on and around the site.

Forty-four areas around the site have been targeted as having high levels of contamination. Harvell said there are a number of ways they can go about cleaning those up.

“It could be digging up the soil and replacing it with clean material. Or the remedy could be covering [the area] with a membrane cover or an asphalt cap or a parking lot,” Harvell said.

Several environmentalists attended the TDEC meeting last week, and they stressed the importance of cleaning up not only the contamination on Velsicol’s property but surrounding areas, including Cypress Creek, which Velsicol dumped its waste into for years before the revised federal Clean Water Act was enacted.

Sandra Upchurch, who attended last week’s meeting, grew up on Edward Avenue in North Memphis in a house that backed up to Cypress Creek. Unaware of the pollution, a young Upchurch often floated down the creek on homemade rafts.

“I got some acid burns on my legs, and my mother kept telling us not to go out there. We had a path down behind the house leading to the creek, and eventually my father destroyed it to keep us out. I was just trying to be Huckleberry Finn,” Upchurch said.

Cypress Creek is outlined as an “area of concern” for Velsicol’s cleanup efforts, and Harvell said the company “still has work to do in Cypress Creek” as well as on the Springdale Apartments site, where contaminated dirt from the creek was piled up for years.

Scott Banbury, conservation program chair for the statewide Sierra Club, said he’s glad to see the company picking up its mess rather than abandoning the property.

“I think it’s good that they’re maintaining the viability of the property,” Banbury said. “The last thing we’d want is for them to just walk away from it. It would become a brownfield, and there would never be a chance for industrial reuse.”

There’s a public comment period on the TDEC permits through September 2nd. Written comments can be submitted to Solid.Waste@tn.gov.

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TVA Board Approves Retiring Allen Fossil Plant, Replacing with Gas Plant

CREDIT: Justin Fox Burks

A coal shipment at TVAs Allen Fossil Plant

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) board of directors voted to retire Memphis’ Allen Fossil Plant in Frank C. Pidgeon Industrial Park and replace it with a 1,000 megawatt natural gas plant by December 31st, 2018 at their regular meeting on Thursday morning in Knoxville. The new plant is expected to cost $975 million.

The TVA is under a consent decree from the Environmental Protection Agency to either close the Allen coal plant or install emission controls by that 2018 deadline. Over the past few months, the TVA has been taking public comments on the decision. An Environmental Assessment report studied various options, including replacing Allen’s generation capacity with renewable power sources, such as wind, solar, and biomass.

At the board’s public listening session, several environmentalists spoke about their wishes for the TVA to focus more on wind and solar power.

But TVA president Bill Johnson said, while the TVA hopes to work more with renewables in the future, “we need utility-scale support.” In other words, the TVA wants a more reliable source of generation now, but it may add more renewable generation sources later on.

“If we ever hope to do work with Clean Line, we need to have this plant behind it,” Johnson said.

Houston-based Clean Line Energy Partners has proposed the Plains and Eastern Clean Line, a 700-mile overhead direct-current transmission line that would deliver 3,500 megawatts of low-cost wind power from the Great Plains to Tennessee and other areas in the Southeast. It wants to build its energy delivery station in northeast Shelby County. Clean Line is working under a memorandum of understanding with the TVA to study the benefits of how it could be used as a power supply source for its overall grid.

The TVA’s Environmental Assessment suggested a natural gas plant ranging in capacity from 600 to 1,400 megawatts, but the board chose the 1,000 megawatt option.

Scott Banbury, conservation program coordinator for the statewide Sierra Club, is calling the move a win because the smaller generation capacity for the gas plant leaves more room for the TVA to work with solar and wind options. Johnson said at the meeting that they plan to diversify their generation portfolio with more renewable options as they become more reliable and cost-effective.

“We can save money, decrease pollution and ensure that the proposed gas plant is used sparingly with strategic investment in key renewable resources, like wind, solar and energy efficiency,” Banbury said. “These twenty-first century solutions to our energy needs will save consumers money while creating good-paying jobs right here in Tennessee.”

The closure will mean a reduction in jobs at the site. The Allen coal plant requires more workers than a natural gas plant will, but TVA’s Ashley Farless has stated that the company will work to shift displaced workers into other jobs with TVA or try to help them find new jobs using the skills they have gained at the TVA. Banbury has previously stated that if the TVA adds more renewable capacity, those displaced workers could take jobs in the wind and solar sectors.

To read more about the TVA’s decision, check out last week’s Memphis Flyer cover story.

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Sierra Club Holds 12th Annual Environmental Conference

sierra_club_logo.jpg

The Sierra Club will hold its 12th annual Grassroots Environmental Conference this Saturday at Lindenwood Christian Church. The conference will cover a wide variety of subjects, with a focus on health, safety, and quality of life. Government regulations, air pollution standards, ways to save polluted rivers, and ways to generate more green jobs will also be discussed.

The keynote speaker is Rev. Lennox Yearwood, president and CEO of the Hip Hop Caucus. Yearwood served many years as a chaplain in the military and now leads efforts to bring awareness to environmental justice and social justice activism. Also speaking at the conference is Jeananne Gettle of the Environmental Protection Agency and acting director of the Office of Air, Pesticides and Toxic Management. Gettle will speak on the EPA’s new regulations to curb carbon emissions from coal plants and other sources.

The 12th Annual Grassroots Environmental Conference will be this Saturday from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. The conference is free and open to the public, but pre-registration is required. To register, click here or call 901-497-5798.

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SMA Founder Recognized By Sierra Club

Reginald Milton

  • Reginald Milton

This Saturday, the Sierra Club will recognize South Memphis Alliance (SMA) founder Reginald Milton for his continued service to the South Memphis community.

Both the founder and executive director of the South Memphis Alliance, Milton has been selected as the recipient of the 2012 Dick Mochow Environmental Justice Award. The SMA recently began turning the old Reed’s Dairy complex on Bellevue into an affordable laundromat and has also secured funding for a recreation and resource center to be constructed at the corner of Walker Avenue and South Bellevue.

Started in 2000, the SMA has tried to make South Memphis a better place to live by setting up and supporting neighborhood associations, civic clubs, and other forces for good in the community. In addition to their work in the historic Soulsville community, the SMA also has programs that deal directly with the safety and well-being of foster children, dealing with everything from drug abstinence to proper financial planning.

Milton will receive the award at the 11th Annual Sierra Club Environmental Justice Conference this Saturday at Lindenwood Christian Church. Author and NAACP member Jacqui Patterson is the keynote speaker.