Growth around Tennessee's urban centers is rapidly converting farmland into suburban development. The Tennessee Department of Agriculture recognized the need to address the new forms of water pollution coming from urban and suburban areas, and took action after being introduced to NEMO by the Alabama NEMO Program at a regional nonpoint source pollution meeting. After a multi-agency workshop was held in collaboration with the Network Hub, a pilot effort entitled the “Growth Readiness Project” was started in the summer of 2001, and funded by the Tennessee Department of Agriculture Section 319 Nonpoint Source Program.

Pilot communities began using training and presentation materials in the winter of 2002. The pilot is now evolving into a statewide program that will make training and materials available beginning in the summer of 2003. The state's Section 319 Nonpoint Source funding has been matched with support from the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), the University of Tennessee and the pilot communities themselves. Through TVA, the project is reaching out to surrounding states in the Tennessee River Basin.

The Growth Readiness Project, led by the TVA, involves many partners that include academia, city, county and state government and nonprofit watershed groups. These partners have formed an inter-agency development team which interacts with four pilot communities: Blount and Knox Counties and the Cities of Alcoa and Maryville. All four communities are concerned about preserving water quality in areas undergoing rapid development, and are using the project as a resource to help them comply with upcoming NPDES Stormwater Phase II requirements. Representatives from the pilot communities were trained by project staff to conduct NEMO educational presentations on natural resource-based planning and design. In addition, they were trained in water-protective site design principles developed by the national nonprofit Center for Watershed Protection (CWP), a NEMO Network partner. To date, 36 presentations have been made to over 500 local officials and other leaders. In addition, members of the development team have given presentations about the project at a dozen statewide conferences and meetings, reaching over 300 people in the water resource and land use planning disciplines.

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