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TVA River Forecast Center Answers Your Questions about Boone Lake
James Everett, senior manager of the TVA River Forecast Center, recently provided a series of stakeholder updates to share information about Boone Lake. Boone plays an important role in the overall operation of the Tennessee River system as one, integrated system serving the region.
James said that Boone Lake levels impact communities downstream along the river system. Boone Lake’s levels come down in the fall to provide flood storage capacity in the wet winter months, an imperative for protecting downstream communities. Because of Boone’s fixed docks and heavy population, however, Boone is drawn down later in the fall than many other TVA reservoirs, where drawdown starts in the summer.
During construction, TVA posted an initial fluctuations graph to explain that the lake could stay up *in case* our engineering team needed to perform additional testing and evaluation during the 2021 period of fluctuations and evaluations. The underground cutoff wall met its performance expectations with the reservoir at summer pool (1382 feet), so TVA made plans to return to the normal operating guide curve with a gradual drawdown of Boone Lake following Labor Day. (The drawdown is initially 3-4 feet per month and later in the fall is 4-5 feet per month). Levels should reach winter pool (1362 feet) around mid-December, then start back up according to guide curve levels next spring. TVA plans to return Boone Lake to normal operations for the summer of 2022.
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Sergeant Emily Kidwell, 2021 Toys for Tots Lead Program Coordinator, presents the TVA Boone Dam project award to Lenny Peterson, Kevin McMillion and Chris Saucier.
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First Sergeant Ricky Allen and Major Brian Hua join Sandi Peterson and Lenny Peterson and Sergeant Emily Kidwell at Boone Dam. The Marines presented Lenny Peterson with an award for his volunteer service on the annual Toys for Tots program.
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Marines Honor TVA Boone Dam Project Leaders, Lenny Peterson, for Toys for Tots Giving
Members of the TVA Boone Dam project team and Quality Control Manager Lenny Peterson were honored by the U.S. Marine Corps for annual giving to the Toys for Tots program during a ceremony Aug. 10 at Boone Dam. The Marines said the Boone Dam team’s contributions provided children in seven counties with new toys. The active-duty soldiers are from India Company 3rd Battalion 25th Marines in Gray, Tenn. The Marines gave a special award to Peterson for his leadership.
The Boone Dam project annually provides a school-bus and two pick-up trucks full of new toys for the Toys for Tots program. In 2020 the project accounted for half of all toys donated to the local program. The Boone Dam project will host a toy drive again this year.
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A team of volunteers from the Boone Dam project served the hungry in our region Sept. 11 by packing food.
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Second Harvest Service
As part of the September 11 Patriot’s Day volunteer service opportunities, workers from the Boone Dam project and their families pitched in for a day of service at Second Harvest Food Bank of Northeast Tennessee! Together they packaged 4,646 pounds of food, and the annual Second Harvest Food Bank food drive is continuing at Boone Dam.
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Volunteers at the TVA/BrightRidge booth were left-right (pictured): Mary Ellen “Mel” Miller, Kirsten Brown, Chris Quillen and BrightRidge’s Bonnie Donnolly. Other TVA volunteers included Anne Patrick, Shannon O’Quinn, Robert Galvez, Scott Haulsee.
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TVA Teams with BrightRidge for Meet the Mountains Festival
Representatives from TVA External Relations, Natural Resources and the Boone Dam project took turns staffing a tent at the Meet the Mountains Outdoor Festival in Founders Park in Johnson City Aug. 20-21. TVA teamed up with customer BrightRidge to support the festival. Chris Quillen said the event, which took place on a hot, sunny weekend, was a success.
Chris said the event was a great opportunity to partner with TVA customer BrightRidge, which saw a lot of public interest in its Broadband services. TVA’s booth at the festival also got a lot of traffic, he said. “Most people wanted to talk fishing with TVA specialist Shannon O’Quinn, and there was also interest in the Boone Dam model.”
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TVA Board Member Dr. Noland (left), president of ETSU, speaks with the TVA-sponsored Tennessee High School team from Bristol, Tenn.
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TVA Sponsors International Underwater MATE Robotics Competition at ETSU
Teams of students from around the world competed in the Marine Activated Technology Education (MATE) World Championship 2021 at East Tennessee State University Aug. 5-7. While teams from Egypt and Mexico participated in person, other international teams took part in the competition via a “telepresence” setting. Teams competed in product demonstration, engineering, presentations, marketing and technical documentation.
TVA had a booth at the event with volunteers from its staffs in Natural Resources, Customer Delivery, Boone Dam and Coal Combustion Residuals Project taking part. “It was an opportunity to serve others in the Tennessee Valley and to recruit workers of the future by showcasing the variety of STEM-related careers at TVA,” said TVA’s Chris Quillen, who worked the booth both days.
TVA Board Member Dr. Brian Noland stopped by the TVA booth to visit with the TVA-sponsored team from Bristol, Tennessee’s Volunteer High School. The team was thrilled to be taking part in an international competition in its own “backyard.”
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Dr. Noland (left) with Tennessee High teacher Lori Givney (center), members of her team and TVA representatives, Bobby Davis and Shannon O’Quinn (right).
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Henry Holben and the Milligan University team operate their underwater remote-operated vehicles in the pool at ETSU.
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A "Wild Card" View of the MATE Robotics Competition
Tennessee High School STEM teacher Lori Givney wrote the following account of her team’s first-ever experience at the MATE ROV World Championship event at ETSU.
The Tennessee High Marooned Mariners were delighted to receive a Wild Card spot for the MATE World Championship in late June. A rookie team that got our start in January 2020, we had only just attended our first competition in May of this year at the Appalachian Highlands Regional Event in Kingsport. The team scored in all categories and walked away with a solid 4th place finish. A great showing considering there were several nationally ranked teams at our regional event.
We knew going into World's that most other teams had been preparing since their regional events and with over half of our team having graduated (5 of our 9 members), we recognized that our focus really needed to be on the experience even more so than looking for a competitive edge. The team met several times a week over the summer, in person as well as online, to prepare for the event knowing that our focus at World's would really be on learning as much from other teams, vendors, mentors and judges and making the most of the experience. And that, they did!
Our team had amazing interactions with everyone associated with the event, mingling with teams from all around the world, engineers and scientists from multiple disciplines and even shopping with vendors to determine their wish lists for improvements they'd like to focus on moving forward. The highlight for the team was spending over an hour talking with Martin Klein, the "father of side scan sonar"! Everyone involved with the event was so generous with their time and expertise and so encouraging to our rookie team.
On the drive back to Bristol one night, one of the team members said, "This was the best day ever!” As a 25-year educator, those are the moments you live for! I've coached/mentored at many competitive events over the years, and I can say this was absolutely the most positive and inspiring competition I've ever attended! We are so grateful to our team sponsors, TVA, Bristol Chamber and BTES for helping get our team off the ground! We look forward to continuing to grow our team and expand our knowledge. When I asked the students their goal for this year, it was an overwhelming sentiment of "go back to World's!" The students have talked so much about what an amazing experience it was that we had 21 students show up for our first meeting this year!
Thank you again for all you do for our team!
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TVA Forester Randy Short speaks with the media about the opening of the Earl Light public land parcel off Minga Road.
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New signage indicates open public land at the Earl Light parcel off Minga Road.
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Earl Light Tract Reopens for Public Use
The TVA public land known as the Earl Light parcel located on Minga Road near Boone Dam has reopened to the public as part of the ongoing progress of the Boone Dam project. The TVA public use area is a popular outdoor recreation spot for local residents who enjoy hiking or hunting in accordance with statewide regulations.
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Jerry Frank and Deavon Walker at Boone Lake Marina.
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Boone Lake Marina Wins “Clean Marina” Award
Congratulations to Boone Lake Marina, once again winner of the TVA Clean Marina award on Boone Lake. Marinas earn the award by promoting water quality, oil and gas control, sewage management, marina siting and erosion prevention. “It’s better to be clean,” says Jerry Frank, Boone Lake Marina owner.
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Gone Quarterly!
Now that the Boone Dam project is winding down, this publication is quarterly. Look for us in your inbox in February. As always, we will keep our Boone Dam website up-to-date and provide any late breaking news on our Boone Repair Twitter channel.
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