Critic calls for TVA to reform

'Thorn in TVA's side' demands agency be accountable

By JOE ROGERS
Staff Writer

Stephen Smith figures the low point of his relationship with TVA Chairman Craven Crowell came in July 1994, when Smith was arrested after helping shut down construction at the Watts Bar Nuclear Plant.

Then came the investigation by the TVA inspector general.

TVA records show Smith's cellular and hotel phone records were obtained.

He was viewed on videotape and his movements tracked. Witnesses of the protest were interviewed and asked what they saw Smith do.

"They wanted to try to discredit me as a critic," Smith says. "It was a very tense time."

Almost three years later, Smith is still around, a self-professed "thorn in the side" of Crowell in particular and TVA in general. The environmental coalition he heads, Tennessee Valley Energy Reform Coalition, takes every opportunity possible to challenge TVA practices it considers contrary to the overall public interest, from financial dealings to land management or energy policy.

The goal: "Let's return TVA to the original mission," says Smith, who lives in Knoxville.

"TVA doesn't need to be the nation's largest power company. They need to be focused on what they were set up to do, which was a broad-based watershed management and economic development agency, not a utility."

The primary push now is support for a regional commission to study TVA's potential role after the anticipated electric utility deregulation. U.S. Rep. Bob Clement, D-Nashville, has introduced legislation to create the commission.

Smith's sometimes theatrical, sometimes confrontational tactics — have not made him a favorite in TVA offices.

Officially, TVA is reserved in its remarks about Smith.

"We've always listened to Steven Smith's comments and opinions at our public meetings," says spokesman John Moulton. "But his special interest coalition is just one of many constituent groups in the Tennessee Valley."

A better reflection of how residents and consumers feel about TVA comes from residents serving on local power boards of the 160 distributors; Moulton says.

"I know him as a consummate environmentalist who has the best interests of the American citizen at heart," says John Noel, a local environmentalist and member of the TVERC board.

Still, Noel concedes, Smith is sometimes viewed as "a radical."

That's what happens when you do things like climb a crane and handcuff yourself to a rigging to protest environmental damage caused by chipper plants, as Smith and four others did in 1995.

"I really think of all the things an individual could be spending their time on, that we as a species — the human species — have got to grapple with the impact we're having on the natural environment," Smith says.

Smith, 36, was a student at Hillsboro High in Nashville when TVERC's predecessor — the Tennessee Valley Energy Coalition — was supporting such things as renewable energy and conservation in the late 1970s.

His first stint with activism came in 1982 when he got involved with animal issues. The interest continued in his nominal choice of profession: he is a veterinarian, a 1992 graduate of the University of Tennessee, which is what took him to East Tennessee around 1988.

Once there, he got involved in work protesting nuclear weapons production, founding the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance and the Foundation for Global Sustainability, which spoke out on environmental issues.

By 1991 Smith and others took on TVEC, and he began what is now a "more than full time" job. He limits his vet practice to part time, enough to keep the skills sharp but not so much as to interfere.

Much of his time is spent tailing TVA, piloting the planes he rents to Washington, Nashville, Tupelo, Huntsville — wherever there is a board meeting or other function involving TVA.

Among the goals: focusing public attention on TVA's $27 billion debt.

"We do things like hold bake sales and come to TVA board meetings with like 10 or 12 dollars," he says, "and say, 'Hey, we want to contribute this.'"

"There's no public utility commission in the state of Tennessee that has any oversight of TVA whatsoever."

STEPHEN SMITH
Leader of the Tennessee Valley Energy Reform Coalition

Last fall Smith also made a venture into politics, running for Congress as a Democrat from the 2nd District. His campaign included joking promises, as a vet, to "neuter" House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

"I wanted to talk about TVA and some of the pressing environmental issues," he says. "I ended up spending a lot of time talking about Medicare and Social Security."

Important issues, he agrees, but not his favorite. The district hasn't elected a Democrat since the Civil War, and Smith finished with only 29% of the vote against incumbent U.S. Rep. John Duncan.

And not all Smith's TVA association has been entirely as an outsider. Several years ago he served as part of a review group studying a long-range energy options plan. His Watts Bar protest and arrest almost cost him that spot, but Crowell decided to keep him on board.

"While I do not condone his activities in connection with the demonstration at Watts Bar Nuclear Plant, I think he should be given a second chance," Crowell said at the time.

Smith had less luck with the chairman at a board meeting earlier this spring in Tullahoma. He was ejected when he tried to ask a question after failing to sign-up by the required time before the meeting. He was, he argued, only five minutes late.

That cut no ice with Crowell.

"His weakness is his direct approach is often perceived as somewhat abrasive," says Noel of Smith. "He can flat pl. off Craven Crowell."

TVERC's work is important, Noel says, because it serves as a corporate conscience for TVA, speaking for "the little old lady who pays the bill, somebody who's retired," as opposed to large consumers.

It isn't necessarily an easy sales pitch when seeking grants to support the work, Smith says. This year's budget is about $155,000, with money getting harder and harder to find.

"A lot of people look at us almost like we're tilting at windmills, trying to get a handle on this entity that is what I consider a Teflon monolith," Smith says.

"It's three board members appointed by the President. They're unaccountable to anyone. There's no public utility commission in the state of Tennessee that has any oversight of TVA whatsoever. And the only way you can get oversight is to go up to Congress, and everybody up there is into playing political games as opposed to grappling with the real issues."

The Quixotic reference to windmills is just one of Smith's allusions for his and TVERC's ongoing relationship with TVA. "Voices in the wilderness" is another.

"It's tough to bird-dog these guys," he says. "But nobody else is doing it."