Larry Ellis has only been on his land in Bradley County fifty years. By the standards of his neighbors along the Hiawassee, that makes him the newcomer.
His plot shares a right of way with the Project River property, so the drive in from the main road, out to his meadow and campsite along the Hiawassee, now passes straight through the clear cutting already underway. Hundreds of cut trees and machines sit on one of the ridges that will probably be flattened and Larry had to leave his truck to clear the road to his quiet spot on the water. He walked me along his property line to show where close to 500 trucks a day are expected to haul trees out to the biomass energy plant.
The Earnest family has been on this land the longest of the group. It started with a grandfather who bought it piece by piece beginning in the early 1900s. TVA later flooded part of the area, taking some of what he'd bought along with it. What was left stayed a working farm, generation after generation, dairy at first and cattle since. Carolyn Earnest leases the cattle that graze it today and treasures the family's history on the land. They've turned down buyouts with the reply that they “wouldn’t sell it, and never will”.
Down the road, Sherry and Ellis Neidich have lived on their property for almost 60 years. They've ridden horses with their daughter through these woods for decades, the same woods now marked for clearing.
The wildlife, livestock and water aren’t just parts of an environmental report for these folks. Neighbors describe eagle nests all along the river, birds that only recently came back after years of absence. Clearing and surfacing hundreds of acres, will push deer and other wildlife toward the highway, and whatever runs off the cleared land runs straight into the river. Asked what this means for the area, one of them didn't hesitate: "Environmentally, this is going to be a tragic event."
Getting through the ridgeline for construction means blasting through solid limestone according to the proposed plan, 3 ridges currently filled with pine and hardwood will be flattened. Families who rely on well water are watching an aquifer they say the whole area depends on, wondering what's left of it once the blasting and grading are finished.
Bradley County already put in place common sense guardrails on data centers, a 3,000 foot setback from any home, school, church or farm. So Wright Brothers, the local company pushing this project forward, is now petitioning Cleveland City Council to annex the property instead. Cleveland's council and the Wright Brothers know each other well, by residents' account, on a first name basis. These 850 acres are not the city. They never have been. They've never been part of any zoning plan or city expansion plan under consideration before now. Annexation is the workaround to a county that tried to protect its citizens.
The annexation hearing is set for Monday, September 28 at the Cleveland Municipal Building at 3pm. 190 Church Street NE, Cleveland, TN 37311.
The city of Cleveland has also announced a “Special Meeting” the week before in the same small community room capped at 106 people (standing in the aisles has been prohibited), supposedly to announce the project and annexation from their point of view. Local residents are asking for this meeting to take place in the County Courthouse or Pie Center, allowing for a much larger audience.
This isn't a fight over a line on a zoning map. It's a meadow, a specific right of way to a resting spot on the Hiawassee, a living herd of cattle and a specific set of trails the Earnests, Ellises, and the Neidichs have spent their lives on.
And it isn't only a Bradley County story. Projects like this one are erupting across Tennessee and the region at a pace few communities are prepared for. Wherever you're reading this, hundreds of miles away or right down the road, the same fight is either already at your doorstep or headed there.