Proposed electric-vehicle infrastructure corridors in Tennessee. TDOT

Inside of Knoxville: State seeks input on charging stations, EV corridors

(Update: The survey has now ended.) The Tennessee Department of Transportation’s traveling and electrifying road show made an appearance in Knoxville this week. The intent of the meeting, as others scheduled around the state, was to collect public feedback on proposed charging station networks and other components of EV infrastructure.

Tennessee will receive a significant chunk of change toward developing its own share of National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure, provided as part of the infrastructure bill passed by Congress last year. The state will receive $88 million over five years, and has begun drafting some options.

“The initial push nationally is for travel corridors to have charging stations at least every fifty miles,” according to Knoxville blogger Alan Sims. “They must have at least four chargers and they must be within one mile of the travel corridor. Most travel corridors are identified as Interstates, though Tennessee, for example, has also included U.S. Highway 64. Once those corridors are built out, any remaining funds may be directed elsewhere. The cost of each station is approximately $1 million, which is largely infrastructure cost.”

Volunteers who helped with the Save our Smokies cleanup on April 23 are shown here among their booty. Anna Lawrence/Hellbender Press

Amid the booze bottles and toilet paper, it’s ‘incredible what we found here’

Cleanup crews cleared garbage Earth Day weekend across Great Smoky Mountains National Park from mountain crests to the shores of Fontana Lake.

Save Our Smokies, which organized the April 23 event, called it the largest single cleanup ever attempted in the park. Volunteers wrangled some 5,000 pounds of garbage.

Save our Smokies Vice President Benny Braden said the organization removed 10,133 pounds of trash in all of 2021.

“Litter is a big problem. We can clean up a location and two months later we have to be back there because it’s worse than when we started,” Braden said in an interview Saturday morning at the Tremont section of the national park. “What gives us hope is our volunteers showing up,” he said, citing their tireless dedication.

The horizon over Argentina is seen in this image taken from the International Space Station.  NASA

Earth Day is every day, but it’s officially on Friday, April 22 this year. Get involved.

The 2022 observance of Earth Day is officially Friday, April 22, but the Knoxville area plans celebrations, work parties and seminars in honor of the 50-year-old annual recognition of Mother Nature through Saturday. Here’s a quick look at some local ways to love your mama. This list will be updated.

You can still share your own ideas to improve and protect our community   Advance Knox

Updated again on May 4: Hundreds of ideas, complaints and comments, many of them with map locations, have been posted on the Advance Knox website.

As announced in Hellbender Press earlier, Advance Knox held a series of public input events across Knox County during its Ideas Week at the end of March.

If you missed those in-person gatherings and could not attend the virtual session, we hope you recorded your preferences and opinions online at the Advance Knox website.

You can now see what others had to say about your neighborhood and your favorite places.

And, even if you already participated, you may have had new ideas or important thoughts not recorded yet. Please let us know,

— what you treasure in Knox County

— what you miss

— what you think is most important to consider as the county keeps growing.  

The interactive facility to submit ideas will remain open online through May 10, as suggested at the last Advisory Committee meeting.

Dry Hollow before the bulldozers devastated it. This rural area is zoned agricultural except for the old commercial/light industrial cluster and the church area at right. The barn at the end of the church parking lot and the trees in the project area are already gone! The trees can grow back over time if Knox county commissioners make a wise decision.  Synthetic virtual oblique aerial view generated by Atelier N / Hellbender Press

More and much improved picture galleries

May 20: included new “Six on Your Side” report from WATE TV Channel 6 News

Massive residential development planned without regard for beautiful farmland, historic context and rich wildlife habitat — what’s at stake?

SOUTH KNOX COUNTY — When you drive out of Knoxville on Chapman Highway toward Seymour and Sevierville, you see little more than ugly strip development. That bleakness is interrupted only when passing through narrow gaps in the ridges, which tend to focus your view even more on the heavy traffic. No notable pleasant vista until just before the county boundary at Shooks Gap! If you look to your left, across the slope of Berry Highland South Cemetery, you get a brief glimpse of Dry Hollow.

That is the only view I remember from my first drive on Chapman Highway after moving to East Tennessee in 1985. Then, we did not yet have so much urban sprawl that one hardly gets a feeling of having left Knoxville before crossing into Sevier County and momentarily passing through a corner of Blount County.