Gov. Bill Lee wanted $100M for Duck River projects. Lawmakers approved $65M
The Tennessee General Assembly approved $65 million of Gov. Bill Lee's $100 million ask for projects to support regional water utility partnerships in Middle Tennessee and conserve the Duck River, pictured in May 2024. (Photo: John Partipilo)
The Tennessee General Assembly's 2026 budget trimmed $35 million from a funding bucket intended to support ongoing efforts to preserve North America's most ecologically diverse freshwater river while serving the growing Middle Tennessee population's water needs.
The Duck River, a 'scenic treasure' according to Gov. Bill Lee, provides water to an estimated 250,000 Middle Tennessee residents. Its water levels reached concerning lows in 2025, and an increase in dead mussels signaled the river's health is in peril, scientists say.
Lee's budget proposal originally earmarked $100 million 'to create a regional water supply strategy that will solve this problem once and for all,' he said in his 2025 State of the State Address.
The $59.8 billion budget approved by the Tennessee General Assembly on Wednesday allocated $65 million to projects involving the river. House Majority Leader William Lamberth, a Sumner County Republican, said in a Thursday news conference that when viewed 'as a whole, 98% plus of the budget was almost exactly what the governor proposed.'
TDEC: $100M Duck River budget ask could be used toward regional Tennessee River pipeline
Rep. Jody Barrett, a Dickson Republican, represents Hickman County, which is bisected by the Duck River. While his constituents' concerns about the river are mostly environmental for now, residents of neighboring Maury County are looking toward the Duck as a 'saving grace' for water shortages, he said.
'Certainly $35 million is going to have some practical impact. As far as how that money was going to be used, I'm not exactly sure, so I don't know that it will be a considerable immediate impact,' Barrett said. 'But obviously it's an emergency situation, depending upon where you are along the river.'
Barrett said he understands part of the reasoning behind the funding redirect was a lack of specificity on how the funding will be used.
Lee's November executive order to conserve the Duck River tasks the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC) to 'evaluate large-scale engineering projects' for cost and feasibility.
TDEC Commissioner David Salyers in March referred to the proposed $100 million as 'incentive money' to encourage partnerships among regional utilities.
Salyers chairs the 19-member advisory group created by Lee to make recommendations to the governor and state lawmakers. He told lawmakers last month that the funding could be put toward a potential pipeline from the Cumberland or Tennessee rivers to 'really solve the problem' of drinking water access.
But Salyers also acknowledged that a full solution will likely require hundreds of millions of dollars over the course of several years.
'While we are disappointed by the reduction in funding by $35 million for the Duck River projects, we recognize that conservation requires sustained commitment over time, not just in moments of opportunity,' Harpeth Conservancy CEO Grace Stranch, also a member of the governor's advisory group, wrote in an email to Tennessee Lookout. 'I am honored to serve on the Duck River Planning Partnership and look forward to working with partners across the region to identify sustainable, collaborative solutions for protecting one of Tennessee's most vital natural resources.'
SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
22 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Looking ahead to Missouri special session, Show Me Sports Investment Act
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Missouri General Assembly's special session reconvenes Monday, and it's the House side of the rotunda's turn in Jefferson City. The state Senate passed a trio of bills last week, one providing a plan to fund up to half of stadium projects for the Chiefs or Royals or Cardinals in St. Louis. The Missouri State House will consider the Show Me Sports Investment Act. The stadium funding bill sets the framework for the Royals and the Chiefs to pay back some of the costs for new and renovated venues. Construction bonds would be paid back using tax money generated at the stadiums and would cover up to 50% of the cost to build it. The teams would have to qualify to have access to that money. The stadiums would need to be built for football or baseball, have more than 30,000 seats, and cost at least half a billion dollars. On Sunday, Rudi Keller, the deputy editor of the Missouri Independent, discussed what could happen as the special session continues this week. Kansas City superheroes assemble behind local child battling cancer 'A member of the House budget Committee who will consider the spending bill on Tuesday said there is an assumption the House will pass this, and that's correct. I also talked to the Chair of the House Budget Committee earlier today, and it turns out he's not going to be demanding anything new. So as long as there aren't serious demands that endanger the bill from the House, much as the way demands from Senators resulted in a change to the call, I'm anticipating this will go relatively smoothly this week,' Keller said on 4 The People. The stadium funding bill does not have the words 'Royals' or 'Chiefs' in it, but a big reason for the calling of this special session was to find a way to keep both teams in the state and counter the plans of Kansas lawmakers. Nearly a year ago, the Kansas legislature approved a bill to utilize STAR bonds to cover stadium construction costs. The deadline for that bill is coming up at the end of June. 'If Kansas believes that we could really be in the conversation, you could see some limited extension,' said Kansas Senate President Ty Masterson. 'The way the law is written, it could be extended for up to a year. I don't see that happening.' You can watch the full conversation with Masterson and Keller here. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Business Insider
an hour ago
- Business Insider
BlackRock, State Street to urge dismissal of collusion case, Bloomberg says
BlackRock (BLK), Vanguard Group, and the asset management arm of State Street (STT) are headed to court over a lawsuit brought by Republican state attorneys general claiming they colluded to reduce coal output, Josh Sisco and Silla Brush of Bloomberg reports. Lawyers from the companies are set to urge a federal judge to dismiss the case. The suit claims the firm have large stakes in coal producers and profited when energy prices soared. Confident Investing Starts Here:
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Unsubstantiated 'chemtrail' conspiracy theories lead to legislation proposed in US statehouses
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — As Louisiana Rep. Kimberly Landry Coates stood before her colleagues in the state's Legislature she warned that the bill she was presenting might 'seem strange' or even crazy. Some lawmakers laughed with disbelief and others listened intently, as Coates described situations that are often noted in discussions of 'chemtrails' — a decades-old conspiracy theory that posits the white lines left behind by aircraft in the sky are releasing chemicals for any number of reasons, some of them nefarious. As she urged lawmakers to ban the unsubstantiated practice, she told skeptics to 'start looking up' at the sky. 'I'm really worried about what is going on above us and what is happening, and we as Louisiana citizens did not give anyone the right to do this above us,' the Republican said. Louisiana is the latest state taking inspiration from a wide-ranging conspiratorial narrative, mixing it with facts, to create legislation. Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee signed a similar measure into law last year and one in Florida has passed both the House and the Senate. More than a dozen other states, from New York to Arizona, have introduced their own legislation. Such bills being crafted is indicative of how misinformation is moving beyond the online world and into public policy. Elevating unsubstantiated theories or outright falsehoods into the legislative arena not only erodes democratic processes, according to experts, it provides credibility where there is none and takes away resources from actual issues that need to be addressed. 'Every bill like this is kind of symbolic, or is introduced to appease a very vocal group, but it can still cause real harm by signaling that these conspiracies deserve this level of legal attention,' said Donnell Probst, interim executive director of the National Association for Media Literacy Education. Louisiana's bill, which is awaiting Republican Gov. Jeff Landry's signature, prohibits anyone from 'intentionally" injecting, releasing, applying or dispersing chemicals into the atmosphere with the purpose of affecting the 'temperature, weather, climate, or intensity of sunlight.' It also requires the Department of Environmental Quality to collect reports from anyone who believes they have observed such activities. While some lawmakers have targeted real weather modification techniques that are not widespread or still in their infancy, others have pointed to dubious evidence to support legislation. Discussion about weather control and banning 'chemtrails' has been hoisted into the spotlight by high-profile political officials, including Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. Recently, Marla Maples, the ex-wife of President Donald Trump, spoke in support of Florida's legislation. She said she was motivated to 'start digging' after seeing a rise in Alzheimer's. Asked jokingly by a Democratic state senator if she knew anyone in the federal government who could help on the issue, Maples smiled and said, 'I sure do.' Chemtrails vs. contrails Chemtrail conspiracy theories, which have been widely debunked and include a myriad of claims, are not new. The publication of a 1996 Air Force report on the possible future benefits of weather modification is often cited as an early driver of the narrative. Some say that evidence of the claims is happening right before the publics' eyes, alleging that the white streaks stretching behind aircrafts reveal chemicals being spread in the air, for everything from climate manipulation to mind control. Ken Leppert, an associate professor of atmospheric science at the University of Louisiana Monroe, said the streaks are actually primarily composed of water and that there is 'no malicious intent behind' the thin clouds. He says the streaks are formed as exhaust is emitted from aircrafts, when the humidity is high and air temperature is low, and that ship engines produce the same phenomenon. A fact sheet about contrails, published by multiple government agencies including NASA and the Environmental Protection Agency, explains that the streaks left behind by planes do not pose health risks to humans. However, the trails, which have been produced since the earliest days of jet aviation, do impact the cloudiness of Earth's atmosphere and can therefore affect atmospheric temperature and climate. Scientists have overwhelmingly agreed that data or evidence cited as proof of chemtrails 'could be explained through other factors, including well-understood physics and chemistry associated with aircraft contrails and atmospheric aerosols,' according to a 2016 survey published in the journal Environmental Research Letters. In the survey of 77 chemists and geochemists, 76 said they were not aware of evidence proving the existence of a secret large-scale atmospheric program. 'It's pure myth and conspiracy,' Leppert said. Cloud seeding While many of the arguments lawmakers have used to support the chemtrails narrative are not based in fact, others misrepresent actual scientific endeavors, such as cloud seeding; a process by which an artificial material — usually silver iodide — is used to induce precipitation or to clear fog. 'It's maybe really weak control of the weather, but it's not like we're going to move this cloud here, move this hurricane here, or anything like that,' Leppert said. Parker Cardwell, an employee of a California-based cloud seeding company called Rainmaker, testified before lawmakers in Louisiana and asked that an amendment be made to the legislation to avoid impacts to the industry. The practice is an imprecise undertaking with mixed results that isn't widely used, especially in Louisiana, which has significant natural rainfall. According to Louisiana's Department of Agriculture and Forestry, a cloud seeding permit or license has never been issued in the state. Geoengineering While presenting Louisiana's bill last week, Coates said her research found charts and graphics from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on spraying the air with heavy metals to reflect sunlight back into space to cool the Earth. The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2022 directed the Office of Science and Technology Policy, with support from NOAA, to develop an initial governance framework and research plan related to solar radiation modification, or SRM. A resulting report, which Coates holds up in the House session, focuses on possible future actions and does not reflect decisions that had already been made. SRM 'refers to deliberate, large-scale actions intended to decrease global average surface temperatures by increasing the reflection of sunlight away from the Earth,' according to NOAA. It is a type of geoengineering. Research into the viability of many methods and potential unintended consequences is ongoing, but none have actually been deployed. Taking focus In recent years, misinformation and conspiratorial narratives have become more common during the debates and committee testimonies that are a part of Louisiana's lawmaking process. And while legislators say Louisiana's new bill doesn't really have teeth, opponents say it still takes away time and focus from important work and more pressing topics. State Rep. Denise Marcelle, a Democrat who opposed Louisiana's bill, pointed to other issues ailing the state, which has some of the highest incarceration, poverty, crime, and maternal mortality rates. 'I just feel like we owe the people of Louisiana much more than to be talking about things that I don't see and that aren't real,' she said. ___ Associated Press writers Kate Payne in Tallahassee, Florida, and Jack Dura in Bismarck, North Dakota, contributed to this story.
