Michael
Stay strong, keep fighting
“But everything about that land that I love, of course, is being affected by the pipeline… the inaccessibility, the remoteness, the peace and quiet, the getting away from the traffic, the city, all that. It’s a great place to get away from that, but I’m being foiled by the pipeline.”
Tucked back into the ancient, rock-folded hills and hollers of Jackson County, Tennessee, on a wintry day, one might find Michael and his dogs traipsing the well-worn trails made by his decades of curious exploration of the land he calls home. He and his late wife, Carolyn, who passed away in 2023, have had the farm there since 1987.
Now that farm lies directly in the proposed path of Enbridge Inc.’s Ridgeline Pipeline that is part of the Tennessee Valley Authority’s plan to replace its Kingston coal plant with a methane gas power plant.
Michael shares the history of how he and Carolyn came to buy their farm. After years of living in town, they found the creep of subdivisions and other developments unbearable. In the mid-1980s, they started looking for a more rural home. Michael says he had never experienced love at first sight until he walked onto the property that would become Carolyn’s and his home.
“It was a mystical experience for me, being able to buy this place,” he remembers. “It was everything I had dreamed of my entire life.”
Michael has always loved science, so he was even more pleased when he learned that his home is the site of the Flynn Creek Crater impact site, which was formed when a large meteor struck the area 360 million years ago. NASA, USGS, and other agencies and universities have extensively studied the crater, learning a great deal about cratering dynamics, which is the study of how solid objects collide with a planet's surface at high speeds. All of this piqued Michael’s lifelong curiosity about biology and ecology.
Now Enbridge’s pipeline directly threatens the Hawkins Impact Cave, a truly unique ecosystem created by the long-ago meteor and discovered by Michael on his explorations of the landscape.
Visitors explore the Hawkins Impact Cave on Michael’s property.
He enjoyed teaching school for 32 years, working with his students and colleagues in the classroom, at homecoming, at ball games and on study abroad trips. But out on the farm and in the woods with his dogs is where he finds solace these days. It’s where he can practice his love of geology and paleontology while soaking up the sense of serenity the land offers.
Having suffered his share of family trauma and losses, especially with the recent passing of his wife, Michael talks about the land as a balm, as a place where he can find peace and feel connection.
When asked about particularly special places on the land, Michael describes a spot uphill behind his house where Brotherton Mountain and the towns of Livingston and Monterey are visible. He says that’s where people can see the land that Flynn Creek drains into.
“You look up the Flynn Creek drainage there, and it’s just, it’s a fabulous view. You know, it’s just beautiful… There’s just so many spots on this farm that are inspirational in nature.”
Michael believes there are reasonable alternatives to using fossil fuels to meet the region’s future energy demands, such as improved weatherization and energy efficiency for homes and buildings. He is also inspired by innovations in clean energy technology like battery storage and solar-driven pumped storage, a flexible technique that transfers water uphill during low demand times and generates electricity from the water flowing back downhill during high demand times.
As a directly affected landowner, Michael got a letter in the mail from Enbridge informing him of the company’s plans to build a pipeline through his property. So he started going to meetings, connecting with local organizers opposing the pipeline and sharing his perspective.
Michael respects the Enbridge representatives he has dealt with directly. He has also been clear with them from the get-go about where he stands.
“I don't want your damn pipeline,” he says he told one company representative. “But I didn’t tell them in a mean, ugly way. I just told them hey, look, I don’t want your damn pipeline.”
Michael walks a forested trail on his property during the spring.
Michael says people have to speak up to not let pipeline companies bulldoze over them with their demands and fight to get concessions the pipeline companies are not willing to make at first.
He understands that some of his neighbors support the pipeline because they believe it would create jobs and boost the local economy, but he says those benefits would only be temporary and community members would be left dealing with the pollution and other harmful impacts of burning fossil fuels.
“We're going to be left with the danger of this high pressure methane gas line running [through our land],” he says.
“On some things we just cannot compromise, and one of them is clean air and clean water. We need water to drink and air to breathe and the freedom to move around and enjoy the things that God and nature has given us out there, and those things seem to be disappearing fast.”
By Holley Evergreen Roberts, based on a 2024 interview with Michael