Kingston Plant and Ridgeline Pipeline
map courtesy of the Southern Environmental Law Center
People across the Tennessee Valley deserve clean air, peace of mind and affordable power. But right now, TVA wants to replace its coal-fired Kingston power plant with a methane gas plant and pipeline.
In August 2021, TVA signed a contract with East Tennessee Natural Gas LLC, a subsidiary of Enbridge Inc. to build the 122-mile Ridgeline pipeline to supply fuel to a proposed gas plant. TVA signed this contract prior to completing a legally required study of alternative options for how to replace the coal plant.
Ridgeline would cut through eight counties in Middle and East Tennessee: Trousdale, Smith, Putnam, Jackson, Overton, Fentress, Morgan, and Roane. Construction would involve crossing cherished waterways over 400 times, using explosives to blast through bedrock, and clear-cutting almost 550 acres of trees.
The fight against TVA’s gas project for East and Middle Tennessee
Enbridge announced that it began construction of the Ridgeline pipeline on Oct. 20, 2025, beginning with the Hartsville Compressor Station and site preparation. This comes after the private corporation took 29 people and organizations along the route to court, using eminent domain to get its final easements for the project. But this gas plant and pipeline are still not a done deal.
Enbridge has a long history of pipeline leaks, explosions, and water quality violations. It was responsible for the 2010 Kalamazoo oil spill in Michigan – one of the largest inland oil spills in U.S. history – and caused millions of dollars’ worth of water quality violations, drilling fluid spills, and aquifer breaches during gas pipeline construction in Minnesota. More locally, a 2019 explosion on one of its gas pipelines in Kentucky killed one person, hospitalized six, destroyed or damaged 19 homes, and burned 30 acres.
Why would we trust a corporation like this in our communities? It doesn’t have to be this way: instead of making deals with Enbridge, TVA could forgo this pipeline entirely by investing in clean energy resources.
Ridgeline is part of TVA’s plan to replace the Kingston coal plant, which is among the oldest in the nation and no longer cost-effective or reliable. Right now, TVA wants to demolish the coal plant, build a gas plant nearby, and contract with Enbridge for this pipeline to supply it with gas.
What’s more, the new gas plant would be built at the site of TVA’s 2008 Kingston Coal Ash Spill, where more than a billion gallons of toxic coal ash waste broke through a dike and flooded nearby communities and waterways, requiring a years-long cleanup that sickened hundreds of workers. It was the largest industrial spill in U.S. history.
There are safer, more affordable alternatives for making electricity. Expert analysts have found that clean energy options would cost over $1 billion less than Ridgeline and the new gas plant. Since working families across the Tennessee Valley ultimately pay the price for this project on our power bills, this matters to us all.
On behalf of Appalachian Voices, the Center for Biological Diversity, the Sierra Club, and impacted members of our organizations, the Southern Environmental Law Center filed a lawsuit in October 2024 challenging TVA’s decision-making process. The lawsuit alleges that TVA violated federal law by signing a contract with Enbridge and spending millions on gas-related infrastructure before studying the project’s impacts or alternatives.
TVA signed the 2021 contract for Ridgeline nearly two years prior to releasing its required study of alternatives. TVA and Enbridge had already spent at least $275 million on the gas plant and pipeline by the time TVA announced its final decision to proceed with gas.
People across the Tennessee Valley are coming together to say no to Ridgeline and the Kingston gas plant. Thousands have submitted comments opposing this project to decision-makers, and grassroots groups are building power. In Middle Tennessee, community members formed SAGE TN in late 2022, and in East Tennessee, Ridgeline Voices has been mobilizing people along the pipeline route and in Knoxville.
Sign up to join the movement or reach out to tnpipelines[at]appvoices.org.