Cumberland Plant and Pipeline
map courtesy of the Southern Environmental Law Center
The Tennessee Valley Authority is planning to retire the Cumberland Fossil Plant and build a methane gas plant and a new 32-mile pipeline, which will cut through communities in Middle Tennessee’s Dickson, Houston and Stewart counties.
Building new gas generation at the Cumberland plant would create fewer jobs than renewable energy options and lock the region into at least another 30 years of avoidable pollution. TVA is investing millions of dollars from customers into more gas even after several of TVA’s gas plants failed during Winter Storm Elliot in 2022 and caused rolling electricity blackouts for millions of households on Christmas Eve.
Ratepayers experienced two raises in electricity rates—4.5% in 2023 and 5.25% in 2024—and TVA’s reckless spending spree will continue to cause electricity bills to rise while harming nearby communities, releasing harmful air pollution and threatening water along the pipeline route.
The fight against the Cumberland methane gas project
In 2022, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency submitted a 19-page comment in response to TVA’s Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the plant’s retirement, highlighting numerous insufficiencies in TVA’s analysis. But TVA’s then-CEO Jeff Lyash announced his decision to proceed with the methane gas plant and accompanying pipeline in 2023.
Community members and environmental organizations are opposing the project. A local group called the Tri-County Preservation Group formed near the end of 2022 to fight the methane gas plant and pipeline. The Cumberland Pipeline’s construction would involve 149 stream crossings—each one carrying a threat of water contamination and harm to aquatic ecosystems. The company responsible for building the pipeline, Tennessee Gas Pipeline Company, is owned by pipeline giant Kinder Morgan.
At the beginning of 2024, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved the Cumberland Pipeline by issuing a certificate of public convenience and necessity, giving the pipeline company the right to use eminent domain to take property rights from landowners. In April 2024, the Southern Environmental Law Center, on behalf of the Sierra Club and Appalachian Voices, filed a lawsuit challenging FERC’s decision.
Construction of the Cumberland Pipeline was halted on October 11, 2024, just days before it was originally set to begin. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit paused two key water permits while it considered the cases brought by the Southern Environmental Law Center and Appalachian Mountain Advocates, on behalf of Appalachian Voices and the Sierra Club. However, in April 2025, the court ruled in favor of the agencies that issued the water permits, giving the pipeline company the greenlight to begin construction, which is now underway.