The University of Memphis has been chosen to further explore transportation challenges for Stanton, Tennessee, as the city prepares to become the destination for Ford’s Blue Oval City.
An announcement from Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-9) said the university, along with civil engineering professor Sabya Mishra, will receive $75,000 to “study the transportation challenges facing Ford’s future Blue Oval City employees.”
Blue Oval City is a project that was announced in 2021 by Ford Motor Company as a part of its investment in electric vehicles and sustainable manufacturing. The planned expenditure of $5.6 billion marks the largest investment in the company’s history, with the goal of creating the “next-generation electric truck” from Ford.
“The site spans six square miles and will be among the largest auto manufacturing facilities in U.S. history. It will encompass vehicle assembly, battery production, and a supplier park in a vertically integrated ecosystem,” the company said.
Ford said the project will create approximately 6,000 jobs for West Tennesseeans.
This grant comes from the National Science Foundation as a part of the Civic Innovation Challenge (CIVIC) Stage One project. Officials said the initiative provides a closer look at “efficient public transit systems” by examining things such as fixed-line buses, on-demand micro-transit, and more.
The United States National Science Foundation (NSF) said CIVIC’s purpose is to bridge the gap between “essential resources and services and community needs.”
“By addressing priorities at the local scale that are relevant across the U.S., CIVIC is laying the foundation for a broader and more fluid exchange of research and technology capabilities and civic priorities through joint partnerships involving civic partners and the research community,” NSF said. “CIVIC funds projects that pilot state-of-the-art solutions to community challenges over 12 months.”
According to the abstract for the project, researchers plan on developing a “multi-modal transit system for Blue Oval City..”
Researchers said they will improve public transportation for prospective workers by using a mix of regular-sized buses and smaller ones. They will utilize on-demand transit to ensure on-time performance.
The university said it will create models using artificial intelligence (AI) to address the “high volumes of employee trips and create service zones with optimal pick-up and drop-off locations.” They will also work to make sure this initiative “incentivizes ridership and ensures social equity.”
Cohen said the project is crucial for the future success of Blue Oval City and it’s workforce. “I congratulate the University and Dr. Mishra for being awarded this prestigious grant for such forward-thinking and innovative research. Benefiting our entire region,” Cohen said.
According to NSF, the program will begin October 1, with an estimated end date of March 31, 2025.
Tyson chicken barns, like these in West Tennessee, house more than 624,000 chickens each and produce massive quantities of waste. (Photo: John Partipilo)
Brenda Scott’s father came to west Tennessee as a sharecropper. By 1971 — as a result of hard work and government loans — he had 129 acres of his own, some of which his descendants occupy today.
His adult children and grandchildren belong to an enclave of Black farming families that have lived in Henderson County’s Cedar Grove community for generations. Some continue to raise hogs, cattle and crops. Others, like Scott, left for college and jobs, only to return to raise their kids.
Scott, along with many Cedar Grove families, have now become part of a novel legal challenge to a federal government farm loan program they say has allowed industrial poultry operations to proliferate at a cost to the long established community.
I really want to stress the fact that this was a predominantly Black community growing up; it’s legacy land we want our kids to grow up on and enjoy the freedoms and experiences we had growing up. . . My fear now is that there’s no regulations for these chicken operators.
– Brenda Scott, Cedar Grove, Tennessee farmer
Chicken farms have rapidly expanded across rural west Tennessee in recent years in order to supply product to Tyson Foods, the world’s largest poultry producer. The Fortune 500 company’s footprint has been rapidly expanding in the state.
Last year, Tyson opened a $425 million meat processing plant in nearby Humboldt, Tenn., its third large-scale Tennessee plant. The operation was made possible, in part, by $20 million in taxpayer incentives from the administration of Gov. Bill Lee.
Tyson relies on contract growers located within about a 60 mile radius of their slaughtering plants. The contractors raise chicks supplied by Tyson in massive barns built according to Tyson specifications and bring them to Tyson’s Humboldt plant for slaughter in order to get paid.
Scott, who is 56, said her community shares the same concerns as family farmers in adjoining counties who in recent years have tried — and failed — to get local or state governments to more closely regulate industrial chicken farming operations.
The operations produce vast quantities of chicken manure that she fears will pollute the well water her family relies on for drinking, the streams and creeks they fish for catfish and the quality of life that beckoned her back home to raise her two sons.
“I really want to stress the fact that this was a predominantly Black community growing up; it’s legacy land we want our kids to grow up on and enjoy the freedoms and experiences we had growing up,” she said. “There’s nothing like country living.”
“My fear now is that there’s no regulations for these chicken operators. What’s going to happen to my grandchildren drinking our well water? What about the air quality? I have asthma. So do members of my family. And nobody is telling us anything.”
Gov. Bill Lee greeting workers at the 2021 opening of a Tyson plant in Humboldt, Tennessee. (Photo: John Partipilo)
A new lawsuit brought by the Southern Environmental Law Center, representing Scott and neighbors who banded together to form “Concerned Citizens of West Tennessee,” is now challenging the federal government’s role in providing tens of millions of dollars in taxpayer-backed loans to Tyson contract growers.
The litigation claims the United States Department of Agriculture, through the Farm Service Agency, is illegally subsidizing industrial chicken operations through a federal lending program intended to provide “family farms” with startup and operational capital.
“The FSA loan guarantees are illegal corporate welfare that contravene federal lending rules,” the lawsuit said.
“The federal loan guarantees are illegal because the lending program is reserved for helping ‘family farms.’ Because Tyson controls virtually all aspects of the industrial chicken growing operations, those facilities are not ‘family farms’ under applicable lending rules.”
The lawsuit also accuses the Farm Service Agency of failing to follow its own rules in conducting thorough environmental impact studies of farm operations seeking the loans — or in keeping local communities informed.
Instead, the federal agency only conducts perfunctory environmental reviews, before issuing “rubber stamped approval,” according to the suit.
The lawsuit names a pair of affiliated operations across the street from one another in the Cedar Grove community that are owned by two limited liability companies — Trang Nguyen, LLC and Nguyen LLC. Each LLC is owned by one individual.
Each operation has 8 chicken barns, massive single-story structures the length of a football field that hold 624,000 Tyson chickens at any given time.
The barns, along with an open-air chicken waste dumping area, lie adjacent to a subdivision of more than a dozen homes and are located within 3 miles of the Cedar Grove community’s four Black churches, Scott said. On the far side of the barns, a Mennonite farming community has lived for decades.
Scott is a longtime member of Bible Hill Baptist Church. Her husband pastors two of the other churches: Mount Pleasant Methodist and Seats Chapel Holiness Church.
“We see them every Sunday,” Scott said. “I can see them on my way to church.”
The USDA did not respond to a request for comment, and contact information for Trang Nguyen LLC and Nguyen LLC’s could not be immediately found.
Poultry farmers that contract with Tyson buy land and build barns in communities surrounding the company’s processing plants to serve as sole company suppliers. Many of the farmers have little or no prior farming background. A growing number of Vietnamese-American families have moved to Tennessee from elsewhere in the nation to start their own Tyson-contracted chicken-growing operations.
In 2017 — the same year Tyson announced its plans to open its Humboldt facility — Tennessee lawmakers rolled back a requirement for poultry growers to obtain water quality permits from the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation.
According to the lawsuit, Trang Nguyen, LLC bought 152 acres in Henderson County and Nguyen, LLC bought 128 acres; then the two farmers collectively secured federal loan guarantees of approximately $3.5 million to purchase, construct and operate the facilities.
The federal loan assistance can take the form of direct loans of up to $600,000 from the Farm Service Agency or up to $2,037,000 through a commercial lender with FSA loan guarantees. The loans are confined to farmers and their family members
The rules guide agency officials to define a “family farm” as one that is “recognized in the community as a farm,” and that has “day-to-day management operational decisions should be made by members of the family farm”
Tyson financed a large portion of the cost of the building the Nguyens’ facilities, contributing more than $960,000 in construction funding, the lawsuit said.
“The Nguyen’s will not be poultry ‘farmers,’” the lawsuit alleged. “They will be poultry caretakers who own neither chicken nor feed. They will be much like indentured servants, strapped with tremendous debt and laboring within an industrial meat complex in which they are required to follow Tyson’s rules, lest they suffer extreme financial consequences.”
The lawsuit notes that other government loan programs have determined that poultry contractors do not qualify for loans because of their integration into corporate operations.
Our legislature has passed laws that make it impossible for neighbors suffering or losing their home values to go to court. The courthouse doors to these individuals are closed.
– George Nolan, Southern Environmental Law Center
Tyson “exercise(s) such comprehensive control over poultry growers that those growers do not qualify for small business loans,” the lawsuit said, noting that the Small Business Association refuses to consider the poultry growers as “small businesses” for the purpose of loans because of their control by corporate poultry corporations.
The federal loans and loan guarantees must also include an environmental assessment of the planned farm operations to “determine whether a proposed action would significantly affect the environment.” and to “involve the public in the environmental review process as early as possible.”
The federal challenge follows years of failed efforts by family farmers in other rural west Tennessee communities to challenge poultry growing operations. Those efforts have largely been stymied by state deregulation.
In 2017 — the same year Tyson announced its plans to open its Humboldt facility — Tennessee lawmakers rolled back a requirement for poultry growers to obtain water quality permits from the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation.
In 2021, Tennessee legislature removed the power of local health boards to regulate industrial animal operations on health grounds, a preemptive move that came as the boards of health in Henderson County and adjacent Madison County weighed whether to regulate Tyson contract growers on health grounds.
And, noted George Nolan, an attorney with the environmental law firm, residents have little recourse to take legal action against the massive chicken operations because Tennessee is a Right to Farm state, a reference to a 1982 law enacted to protect farmers from nuisance lawsuits by city or suburban dwellers who moved to rural communities, then protested about the noise, odor and pesticides from farms next door.
“It’s a very problematic situation,” he said. “Our legislature has passed laws that make it impossible for neighbors suffering or losing their home values to go to court. The courthouse doors to these individuals are closed.”
James Lavel, who retired from the U.S. Navy, is an outspoken critic of the Tyson factory farms moving to west Tennessee. (Photo: John Partipilo)
James Lavel, a retired Navy commander in Henderson County, who has advocated for greater poultry operation regulation, said last week he has been frustrated by local and state elected leaders actions, and inactions, in the movement of large scale animal operations to the area, where the dangers of air and water pollution, and the overwhelming smell generated by chicken feces, have disrupted quality of life.
“I’ve gotten a hodgepodge of excuses from them,” Lavel said. “And then the FSA comes in here and uses our taxpayer money for this. If you just keep putting the people at risk you’re trying to feed, what’s the point? We need regulations. They exist to protect the people.”
Scott said the willingness of the federal government to provide Tyson contractors with federally subsidized loans and loan guarantees carry a particular sting for her, a second generation African-American farmer.
In 2018, Scott applied for the same loan program to grow watermelons on the tract she inherited from her dad, who passed away in 2003.
She was denied, she said, because she lacked “managerial experience.”
Tennessee Lookout is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Tennessee Lookout maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Holly McCall for questions: info@tennesseelookout.com. Follow Tennessee Lookout on Facebook and Twitter.
State lawmakers approved an $884 million incentive package to bring Ford Motor Co. to West Tennessee on Wednesday with votes wrapping up a special session in Nashville.
The incentive package will bring a $5.6 billion investment to Haywood County. The 4,100-acre site — now called the Memphis Regional Megasite — will be renamed Blue Oval City, a nod to Ford’s iconic logo. On 3,600-acres of the massive site, Ford will build its electric F-150 trucks and SK Innovation will build batteries and other electronic components.
The factories will bring 5,800 jobs to West Tennessee, the largest job announcement in Tennessee history. Tennessee officials competed with those in 15 other states for the project. State Sen. Ed Jackson (R-Jackson) was told Ford said Tennessee’s site and incentive package was “heads and shoulders above the rest.”
“This is the most important and life-changing bill,” Jackson told senators during a Wednesday floor speech. “It will be generational and positive change for. … all of West Tennessee.”
More than $383 million of the incentive package will be used by the state to build roads, infrastructure, and even a trade school on the site. The rest — $500 million — will be given to Ford as a grant.
However, Sen. Bo Watson (R-Hixson) explained that “we’re not writing a $500 million check and giving it to them.” As Ford spends money to build its facility, the state will reimburse them for the costs, up to $500 million. The agreement includes clawbacks, too. So, if Ford does create the amount of jobs it promises, they’ll lose some of the money given to them. All of it, Watson said, was a way to ensure Ford completes its commitments to the state.
All of the money will come from state surplus funds. Jackson explained the state now has about $2 billion in surplus finding and, thus, “has the money to finance this.” With that, he reminded anyone watching that no taxes will be raised to fund the project. Instead, he said, the project will generate far more in taxes than it will cost the state up front.
Lawmakers predict the project will add $22.4 million directly to state coffers each year. It is expected to grow the gross state product by $3.5 billion each year. In the two-to-three-year construction phase of building Blue Oval City, it is expected to yield $178 million in state taxes.
Sen. Mike Bell (R-Riceville) said he found a recurring theme as he scrolled through the state economic development website. Wilson, Cumberland, Williamson, Davidson, Hamilton, Murray, Knox, and Sumner Counties were “coming up time and again” for new projects or expansions.
“West Tennessee, it’s your time,” Bell said.
No gathering of lawmakers in Nashville would be complete, however, without off-the-wall comments that border on bad taste. As senators gave congratulations after the vote, Sen. Frank Nicely (R-Strawberry Plains) rose to say once his grandson asked him if the South really lost what Nicely called the “the war between the states.” Nicely told his grandson, “it’s too early to tell,” he said.
“When I compare their Northern cities with our Southern cities, and their debt loads to our debt -free states and all these great companies like Ford and Smith & Wesson coming down South, I think I can tell my grandson the war between the states is going on and we’re winning.”
The incentive package got three “no” votes in the Senate and four in the House.
A House GOP bill on Covid precautions did not move past the committee stage, as no Senator sponsored the legislation in the upper house. Lawmakers will gather again next week in another special session to focus on Covid issues.
A Shelby County Health Department representative speaks at the West Tennessee Opioid Summit
Through the occasional tear, a longtime Memphis journalist told the story of his 27-year-old daughter’s heroin overdose to a crowded room on Tuesday.
At the West Tennessee Opioid Summit, Ron Maxey of The Daily Memphian said it has been almost five years since he found his daughter’s lifeless body following a fatal overdose.
He said he tells her story so that people will understand the effect that opioid abuse can have on families.
Hundreds, including Shelby County Health Department (SCHD) officials, Memphis Fire and Police personnel, representatives of insurance carriers and pharmaceutical companies, law enforcement officials, and physicians gathered Tuesday to discuss the opioid epidemic in West Tennessee and brainstorm possible solutions.
The latest available data from the Tennessee Department of Health (TDH) shows that of the 1,776 drug overdose deaths that occurred in the state in 2017, 1,268 of them were opioid related.
Nationwide, 30 Americans die every day from opioid overdose, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
Memphis Police Department (MPD) director Michael Rallings said since he was appointed in 2016, he has gained a different perspective on the opioid crisis, recognizing its implications. Rallings said there are a lot of conversations about reducing violent crime, but not enough about the opioid epidemic.
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Across the country, there are about 17,000 homicides each year, but there are 70,000 drug-related deaths, Rallings said. Seventy percent of all crime here is related to drugs, Rallings added.
“We need to focus on some of the real problems,” Rallings said. “And this is one of those real problems. You don’t need the police director to come here and tell you we have a problem. We all know that we have a problem. The question becomes what are we going to do about it.”
Each quarter, Rallings said he meets with chiefs from police departments around the country to discuss major issues in their respective communities, and that the opioid epidemic is “at the top of the list.”
“So I’m worried about the future,” he said. “I’m worried about the future because we are hooked on drugs. We have a number of epidemics that we should be alarmed about. Not only do we have an opioid epidemic, but we have a public health emergency with mental illness.”
Rallings said “we cannot turn this epidemic into a law enforcement problem.”
To help reduce the number of overdoses here, Rallings said police officers are being trained to administer naloxone, a drug that can reverse the effects of an opioid overdose. Of the 2,100 active MPD officers, Rallings said 1,379 officers have received training and carry the drug while on duty.
Since 2017, there have been 116 doses of naloxone administered here, resulting in 106 survivals.
Another way that the department is working to address the issue is with the Street Team for Opioid Prevention (STOP). STOP, a product of the Shelby County Opioid Epidemic Response Plan which was formed last year, is made up of law enforcement and other community partners.
STOP will focus on engaging residents through education, referrals to community resources, and harm reduction.
Later this month the team is slated to hold a community event at the former Applebees on Sycamore View — a hotbed for opioid use and distribution, Rallings said. The team, along with volunteers, will be there to provide assistance and resources to those using opioids.
Rallings said the group’s focus will be on prevention, education, and treatment: “We’re not there to lock anybody up.”
We’re going to ground zero. We’re going to go in there and see if we can make a difference. That’s one of our highest call areas, so we feel like that’s a great place to be.”
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Memphis is situated in a location where people can easily pass narcotics through, Assistant United States Attorney, Michelle Kimbril-Parks said.
The Department of Justice’s primary focus here is addressing the supply and demand, she said.
Under the Heroin Initiative, a collaborative effort of local enforcement agencies, Kimbril-Parks said every individual in the possession of an opioid who gets stopped or arrested is reviewed by law enforcement.
The primary question the team looks to answer is where did the drugs come from.
“We’re not just interested in the street suppliers,” Kimbril-Parks said. “We’re utilizing every tool in the toolbox to determine where this individual got this dope. We want to identify every individual in the chain and hold them accountable.”
Jerry Jones, an anesthesiologist at Regional One Health, talked about the risk factors that could lead to an opioid addiction, such as undergoing surgery.
Jones said there are other ways to combat acute and chronic pain, such as nerve blockers. Even serious injuries don’t always require narcotics, he said.
But, Jones said it would take a culture change for medical professionals to be willing to try alternative treatments.
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Phillip Northcross, a doctor of internal medicine at LeBonheur Healthcare, agreed that there are other viable options to manage pain. Northcross said acupuncture, physical therapy, and lifestyle changes are a few of them. He also said that recent studies have shown that Tylenol and Ibuprofen can be very effective for managing pain.
However, he said it is hard to get patients who are used to being prescribed narcotics to try other options.
“They just don’t buy it,” Northcross said. “As physicians it’s our responsibility to change that thinking to get people to embrace other modes of pain treatment.”
After the presenters spoke, attendees of the conference broke into groups to brainstorm solutions to the opioid crisis here, focusing on the four pillars of the SCHD’s plan to address the epidemic: law enforcement and first responders, data usage and integration, prevention and education, and treatment and recovery.
Some of the solutions suggested include working to erase the stigma associated with opioid addiction, providing a holistic system of recovery, legalizing marijuana, and pushing elected officials and lawmakers to address the issue further through legislation, funding, and initiatives.
Officials with the SCHD said the real time solution produced by the groups will guide the department’s efforts to combat the crisis.
Thirteen residents of Dyer County have been indicted on federal drug trafficking violations.
Nine of the 13 suspects were located and arrested earlier today. Another three were already in custody. One individual identified in the indictment remains free.
During the round-up, illicit narcotics, firearms, drug paraphernalia and money were seized by law enforcement.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s office, the charges in the indictments stem from the selling, manufacturing, and distributing of powder cocaine, crack cocaine, and marijuana, as well as the unlawful possession of ammunition by convicted felons.
“These individuals are charged with serious drug crimes, and the consequences they face if convicted are also serious,” said U.S. Attorney Edward Stanton in a statement. “Illegal drug trafficking and the violence that often accompanies it are a plague upon our communities. My office will vigorously pursue any and all involved in these illegal activities.”
The case was investigated by members of the FBI’s Memphis Safe Streets Task Force (ME SSTF). The ME SSTF is comprised of agents from the FBI Memphis Division’s Jackson Resident Agency, the Dyer County Sheriff’s Department, and the Dyersburg, Jackson, and Lexington police departments.
Pickwick Landing State Park/Facebook 
