The City of Manchester’s rehabilitated and expanded wastewater treatment plant held an open house Wednesday.
The project cost $14,303,000 and received funding from all different sources – including $5 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment (stimulus) money.
The city received a state-revolving loan for $7.5 million and $5 million in forgiveness money from the state to fund the bulk of the project. The city also received $1.34 million from USDA and a $455,000 grant. Of the $12.5 million received from the state, the city will only repay $7.5 million. The $5 million forgiveness is money that does not have to be repaid.
The renovation increases the capacity of the plant from 3.4 million gallons to 4.3 million gallons to meet the growth rate of the last decade – meaning Manchester should be set until at least 2031.
The project brought the old wastewater treatment facility up to date with safer, more effective wastewater treatment.

United Regional Medical Center in Manchester is facing a $20-million dollar lawsuit. The suit was filed last year in Coffee County Circuit Court. This after a nurse was accused of injecting the wrong patient with a powerful painkiller on 2010.
Priscilla Wilder died ten days after her husband said she was mistakenly given the wrong medicine.
Wilder was sharing a room with a cancer patient at the United Regional Medical Center in Manchester for treatment of shortness of breath and chest pains. Her husband says a nurse gave his wife a painkilling shot that was meant for her roommate.
Tom Wilder says the patient in the next bed next to his wife spoke up and said she wanted the pain shot and not Priscilla. The man said he told the nurse that she had given his wife the wrong shot.
The lawsuit alleges that shortly “after receiving the medication, Sherry Wilder developed difficulty breathing which progressed quickly to acute respiratory failure.”
An autopsy was not done on the body.
While it’s not the hospital’s policy to comment on pending litigation especially in matters such as this one which has been pending for 14 months URMC responded to Thunder Radio’s request with this exclusive statement: First URMC would like to extend its sympathy to the Wilder family for their loss. It is important to note, however, that Ms. Wilder did not pass away at URMC. It is URMC’s understanding that Ms. Wilder passed away at a Nashville hospital approximately 10 days after being discharged from URMC. According to the death certificate, the cause of death was coronary artery disease and diabetes mellitus.
URMC in the statement says they look forward to their day in court to present the actual facts in this case and set the record straight.

A proposal that seeks to crack down on the tattooing of minors has been signed into law by Governor Bill Haslam.
The measure, signed by the Republican governor this week, unanimously passed the Senate 31-0 and was approved 86-6 in the House.
The law makes it illegal for anyone who is unlicensed to possess tattooing paraphernalia. The measure also encourages reporting incidents of underage tattooing to the Health Department. Those making the report might be a police officer or someone in education, such as a teacher or school resource officer.
Currently, a person under 18 cannot get a tattoo. A 16-year-old can be tattooed to cover up an existing tattoo, but only if a parent or guardian is present.

The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation has released its annual study dedicated to crime in Tennessee’s public and private school systems, excluding colleges/universities and technical schools. Produced by TBI’s Crime Statistics Unit, the study spans a three-year period between 2009 and 2011 and is based on numbers submitted by Tennessee law enforcement agencies to the Tennessee Incident Based Reporting System (TIBRS).

The reported number of crimes that occurred at schools decreased by 5.5% from 2010 to 2011 and there was an overall decrease of 6.7% between 2009 and 2011. There were 12,435 crimes reported at schools in 2011 compared to 13,155 in 2010. This report is based on incidents submitted by law enforcement agencies. Those statistics are compiled in TBI’s “Crime on Campus” report that was released earlier this year.

“School Crimes Report” Quick Facts:

— 2.2% of all crimes reported in the state occurred at a school.

— Simple assault was the most frequently reported crime at 4,593 offenses.

— Crimes against persons decreased by 4.3% and crimes against property decreased by 8.2%.

— More crimes occurred on Friday than any other day of the week and most resulted in no injury to the victim.

— 47% of the time, the relationship between the offender and victim was acquaintance.

— The most reported arrestee gender was male at 73%.

Former University of Tennessee football coach Phillip Fulmer was inducted into the Hall of Fame Wednesday.  However, he was not celebrating in Nashville, Knoxville, or Memphis.  Instead, Fulmer returned to where he played high school football…Franklin County High School. Phillip Fulmer spoke to the Franklin County Christian Athletes Association annual banquet. “It’s a little bit ironic, because I’m back home where everything started,” he said. “There are so many people here that taught me and coached me and helped me get going on this path. It’s neat to come back and relive some of those memories.”
He honored long time Franklin County head coach Bill Henley, Jim Cunningham, and Tippy Tipps for influencing his future and guiding him.

The Tennessee Valley Authority is increasing its fuel adjustment charge by 0.7% in June.

According to the Chattanooga Times Free Press, a typical household power bill will rise 80 cents for the same amount of use. A TVA spokesman said the mild winter that was beneficial to customers allowed the federal utility to credit some of the savings to the monthly fuel charge in February, March and April. Those savings have been used up and the fuel charge for June is more reflective of TVA’s actual costs for producing electricity. TVA said earlier that the mild winter and cheaper natural gas prices lowered its fuel expenses through March by $323 million from the first six months of its previous fiscal year.