Browns Ferry workers renovate Austinville Elementary playground

May 12—A project prompted by a Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant employee's concerns that a wheelchair-bound Austinville Elementary first grader had difficulty accessing the school's playground evolved into a completely renovated, accessible playground with new attractions for all students.

Sixty Browns Ferry employees were involved in the project, which was completed April 30.

Laura Clem, a reading specialist at the school and former employee of TVA's Browns Ferry, reached out to her former co-workers about renovating the playground. She sent a video of the playground along with her request.

"Browns Ferry is very community spirited; they like to do things to help others," Clem said. "Steve Brown at Browns Ferry started this project. He asked us what we needed. ... He had this huge vision of what he wanted to do here."

Brown, the maintenance director at Browns Ferry, viewed the video.

"The video in the email that had been forwarded to me and to several people ... there was a voice in the background that said, 'Well, the handicapped kids don't come out here,'" Brown said. "That kind of piqued my interest and I went out there and found out about the student in the wheelchair and said, 'Ok, we're fixing this.'"

Brown said when he visited the Austinville playground in December, half of it was covered in mud.

"I actually witnessed three kids fall in the mud while I was there," Brown said.

Brown said he felt especially compelled to pursue the playground project so first grader Phoebe Eledge, in a wheelchair, could have a playground designed especially for her.

Brown showed the video to Browns Ferry Vice President Matt Rasmussen and said Rasmussen told him to "go fix it."

Eledge's mother, Heather, is a first grade teacher at Austinville and she said Phoebe had been able to play with her friends before, but the new playground is special.

"This is especially for her; if we can't get her out of her wheelchair, she can stay in her wheelchair and still play," Eledge said. "We can get her out there on the (walkway). ... This was just really thoughtful."

Eledge said the new additions to the playground — including fresh mulch, two large xylophones, a play police car, an accessible swingset and a vertical tic-tac-toe playboard — were much needed, and not just for Phoebe.

"They just didn't have enough equipment," Eledge said. "We had the swingset and the slide, but we didn't have the musical instruments or the specialty (toys) and we didn't have all the mulch out there."

Browns Ferry workers began cleaning the playground in December but Brown said a scheduled refueling and maintenance outage at the nuclear plant in February slowed progress on the playground.

Clem and Brown's crew at Browns Ferry began installing equipment on the playground the weekend of April 22 and finished up on April 30.

The playground also features a twisting tunnel maze built from old pipes that the Browns Ferry workers designed to represent the three different boiling water reactors at the nuclear plant.

"That was some pipe left over at Browns Ferry and it wasn't being used," Clem said. "Some skilled tradesmen put 24-degree bends in the pipe and each section of the pipe is painted different colors to represent the different units at the plant. The workers also put their name and their (specific trade) on it."

Each section of the tunnel is painted a different color, with green representing Unit 1, marigold representing Unit 2 and blue representing Unit 3.

"There's also a section painted white for anything that's common that supports the operation of all three plants," Brown said.

Brown's crew also built a track around the playground and Rogers Group Inc., a sand and gravel supplier with a location in Tanner, donated crushed limestone for the track.

Brown said the 60 employees from Browns Ferry were residents from all over the Tennessee Valley, "from Loretto, Tennessee, to Scottsboro."

"They worked until they were exhausted and did it all with a smile on their face," Brown said. "Basically, every trade that's represented at Browns Ferry and every work discipline from engineering to reactor operators were present."

Clem said the railroad ties that border the swingset were made from recycled water bottles and the new benches were made from recycled materials as well. She said the workers renovated the playground on their own time and Brown worked late nights to pressure-wash mud off the playground.

Brown said Clem's dedication to helping and teaching children also served as an inspiration for renovating the playground.

"That lady right there is committed to those kids in as big a way than you could ever ask of a human being to be committed," Brown said.

Browns Ferry funded the renovation project.

— wesley.tomlinson@decaturdaily.com or 256-340-2438.