County to meet Thursday; Endo settlement, TVA reactor on agenda

February 21, 2024 by Ben Pounds

The Anderson County Commission will meet on Thursday, Feb. 22, in Room 312 of Anderson County Courthouse in Clinton rather than at its usual Monday time.

The commission will vote on a deal involving the Endo bankruptcy settlement.

County Law Director Jay Yeager explained at the Feb. 12 Operations Committee meeting that Endo was a pharmaceutical company that was part of two lawsuits involving the damaging effects of opioids.

The Tennessee attorney general brought one of the suits, and the district attorneys of several counties, including Anderson, brought the other.

Endo recently filed bankruptcy, giving releases to its upper management and board of directors.

“We’re stuck with just the assets of the company,” Yeager said.

Going after the individuals involved in the company would be “extremely difficult,” he said, adding that the assets would be hard to locate, and a statute of limitations would probably be an obstacle, too.

So, the new deal, included in the Operations Committee’s agenda, takes the bankruptcy into account.

The agenda includes several measures related to the county’s relations with federal agencies such as the Tennessee Valley Authority and the Department of Energy.

The commission plans to vote on a letter supporting TVA’s permit application for construction of a small modular reactor in Oak Ridge at the Clinch River Reactor site on Bear Creek Road.

Although it’s in Roane County, Anderson County Mayor Terry Frank told the Operations Committee that the county can help with offsite emergency planning and preparedness exercises.

The commission will also vote on a letter from Frank to TVA regarding the future of the now-closed Bull Run Fossil Plant.

In the Operations Committee, Commissioner Tracy Wandell, who represents the district in which Bull Run stands, made the motion for this letter.

Wandell said he wanted to ask TVA how it saw the plant’s decommissioning going forward.

“I think they owe that to us,” he said. “I think they should tell us what the scope of work looks like, what the cost looks like.”

The commission also plans to vote on a payment-in-lieu-of-taxes agreement with the Department of Energy to pay for its land. Documents in the agenda show the amount at $640,393.

The commission will also include a motion from the Operations Committee for Frank to get information on a possible Interstate 75 north-south bypass.

The full agenda for the meeting is at andersoncountytn.gov.