Residents Determined to Keep Power Plant Out

PATTERSON, TENNESSEE - It's a fight over the price of progress and development. Residents in Rutherford and Williamson Counties are ready to fight the Tennessee Valley Authority.

Neighbors said they'll do whatever it takes to keep a proposed power plan out of their neighborhood.

Not many people can call the landscape in question home, but those who do said theyÂ’ll do anything to save it.

“It literally is our dream home,” Patterson resident Marcie Silverman said.

If approved, a 60-acre substation will sit on top of the Silverman's dream home, and the transmission lines will extend across the entire area.

“We won't sit quietly about this,” Anita Scott said.

Scott is heading up the petition signing campaign.

She and her neighbors are trying to stop the TVA from doing what it says is inevitable.

“I think it would be a crying shame to do this to this area,” Scott said.

Although it looks isolated, the TVA said the area is growing even faster than the national average, and by 2010 the current system can't possibly meet the power needs so this project is the only solution.

“Taking farmland for a substation, when there is perfectly good, unusable land available, seems to me just a crime,” Scott said.

The TVA insists this is the best location and said it will look at all residents concerns. Those in Patterson worry the TVA's dream will become their nightmare.

“It makes me really sad,” Silverman said.

Anita Scott and some of her neighbors presented their petition to officials at the TVA customer service center in Murfreesboro.

They have about 150 signatures, which is pretty much the entire community.

The residents say they're not only concerned about property values, but health risks as well.

The TVA sites studies showing no health risks associated with a substation or power lines.