George Chambers was voted in as the new fire chief for the city of Manchester on Tuesday night. Aldermen Cheryl Swan, Tim Pauley, Lana Matthews-Sain and Tim Kilgore voted in favor of Chambers. Alderman Russell Bryan abstained and Vice-Mayor Ryan French did not attend the meeting. Alderman Swan says that Chambers is set to take over the department on May 18.
Chambers is a career firefighter starting with the Air Force in 1975 and retired from the military in 2004. Following that he was the assistant fire chief at AEDC from 2004-2010 and then left to be a fire chief in Afghanistan from 2010-2013.
Former chief George DeShields resigned on March 16. Department captains have been conducting the day-to-day operations of Manchester Fire and Rescue since he resigned.

Since 2003 Recovery Drug Courts in Tennessee have offered intensive judicial supervision, substance treatment services, sanctions, and incentives to address the needs of drug-addicted non-violent offenders. The Tennessee Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse has been providing funding for the courts since 2012.
May is “National Drug Court Month” and Tennessee is joining with courts across the country that are demonstrating how a combination of accountability and compassion is the foundation for handling individuals addicted to drugs in the criminal justice system.
Douglas Varney, Commissioner, Tennessee Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services says, “By treating those who are struggling with substance abuse, we can save taxpayer money, promote public safety and reduce drug abuse in communities.”

Just a few of the benefits of Recovery Drug Court:

• Reducing correctional costs
• Protecting community safety
• Improving public welfare
• Across the U.S. more than 3,000 Recovery Drug Courts including Coffee County offer communities a judicially-supervised court docket. In Drug Courts, seriously drug-addicted individuals remain in treatment for long periods of time while under close supervision.

Research continues to show that Recovery Drug Courts work better than jail or prison, better than probation, and better than treatment alone.

Nuclear Fuel Services has been manufacturing fuel in Erwin, Tenn., for more than 50 years. Photo credit: Mark Fickett/Wikimedia Commons

Residents of northeast Tennessee are speaking out against what they say is a questionable safety record of Nuclear Fuel Services, located in Erwin.
The manufacturing facility makes materials for the U.S. Navy and for private companies. Recently the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced it was reducing the number of regular safety inspections NFS will undergo, and that concerns Barbara O’Neal.
“I was born and raised there,” she said. “It’s really my hometown, and I feel that the people have been told by the NRC for years that everything was OK.”
O’Neal recently moved away from Erwin because of safety concerns, citing public documents that detail incidents at the facility where the environment was exposed to toxic materials.
The National Research Council is conducting a study of cancer risks in Erwin and at five other nuclear facilities around the nation. A spokeswoman from the NRC said the government is reducing the number of inspectors present at the facility to one because of an improved safety and compliance record.
NFS did not return requests for comment for this story.
O’Neal said she has analyzed thousands of pages of public documents that detail incidents of spills and releases of pollutants that exceed the legal limits. She said much of the information wasn’t available until 2004, and even what she can obtain lacks some details.
“There is not that much available,” she said. “The NRC has kept information like inspection reports, effluent releases – they’ve kept all of that stuff away from the public for years.”
In April, NFS had an unplanned chemical reaction in a storage area. No one was hurt and the incident is under investigation.
A government investigation in 2006 discovered there was a uranium solution leak into an elevator shaft that could have caused a nuclear reaction.
More information on the cancer study is online at dels.nas.edu. More information on the NRC is at nrc.gov.