Knoxville News Sentinel: TVA employee “less than truthful” in Shuler deal
REGIONAL–The Knoxville News Sentinel and reporter Josh Flory have followed for over a year the story of Rep. Heath Shuler’s involvement in a real estate development company that swapped some land with the Tennessee Valley Authority.
The significance is that the TVA is a federal agency, and that Shuler sits on a committee that provides oversight of that agency.
In a blog post today, Flory reports that a TVA employee seemed to be playing duck’n'cover. Flory’s lead:
A former TVA employee allegedly provided false information to the agency’s inspector general in connection with an inquiry that involved U.S. Rep. Heath Shuler, according to an IG’s report.
The allegation was included in a report that was released to the News Sentinel under the federal Freedom of Information Act.
According to the TVA IG’s “Report of Administrative Inquiry”, which was released on Monday and dated June 9, the former employee denied knowing that Shuler, a North Carolina Democrat, held an ownership in The Cove at Blackberry Ridge LLC, a waterfront project in Roane County.
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The controversy centers on TVA’s Maintain and Gain Lakeshore Management Program, which allowed landowners to gain water-access rights in one location by trading rights they owned somewhere else on a reservoir.
Last year, the News Sentinel reported that an entity with ties to Shuler — a former University of Tennessee football star — received approval for a transaction that provided 145 feet of water-access rights along the shoreline of Watts Bar Reservoir in Roane County.
That entity, The Cove at Blackberry Ridge LLC, agreed to relinquish 150 feet of water-access rights in Rhea County and also provide about $15,000 for a shoreline bank stabilization project at a different location on Watts Bar Reservoir. Investors in The Cove at Blackberry Ridge included Shuler, who was formerly a member of the House transportation committee’s Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment. That subcommittee is one of two congressional panels that provide formal oversight of TVA.
Tags: federal freedom of information act, Knoxville, Knoxville News-Sentinel, North Carolina, Tennessee, Tennessee Valley Authority, TVA
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