Feedback sought on proposed changes to Percy Priest Reservoir
According to a release, the Corps is seeking to revise the 1998 manual to include current project operations under existing Congressional authorizations.
Potential changes include updating historical data from 1970 to 2025, naming conventions, forecasting methods, structural features, watershed characteristics, communication networks and changes from previously approved EAs, according to the district.
Staying safe on Tennessee rivers as outdoor recreation ramps up
The Corps claims the revisions are needed for the optimal management of the reservoir as the manual 'contains project data, background information, the plan for day-to-day and emergency water management and the effects of the plan on authorized project purposes.'
There are two main proposed changes for the reservoir:
J. Percy Priest is currently operating under a seasonal flow regime with fewer releases from January to May during crop season. The seasonal flow was initially implemented to reduce the potential for flooding of farmland downstream. USACE is exploring alterations to this seasonal reduction in releases.
Currently J. Percy Priest Reservoir experiences a drawdown to winter pool levels beginning in October and targeted to end in early November. USACE is exploring a delay in the timing of this drawdown through reservoir operations.
⏩
There will be a public meeting at the Hermitage library on James Kay Lane on June 12, 2025 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.
The Corps is seeking comments from public, federal, state, local agencies and officials, Native Americans and any interested parties.
Comments can be sent by email to CorpsLRNPlanningPublicCom@usace.army.mil through June 27, 2025. Written comments can be sent to:
Attn: CELRM-PMP, Capt. LawsDepartment of the ArmyU.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Nashville District110 9th Avenue South, Room A-405Nashville, Tennessee 37203
The Percy Priest Reservoir is one of four major flood risk management reservoirs for the Cumberland River and spreads throughout Cannon, Davidson, Rutherford and Wilson counties within the Stones River Watershed.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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Fox Sports
16 hours ago
- Fox Sports
Trump's demand for Washington NFL team name change ignores years of psychological data, experts say
Associated Press This week, President Donald Trump threatened to hold up a new stadium deal if Washington's NFL team did not restore its name to a racial slur, despite decades of psychological research showing the negative mental health impacts of Native American mascots. The president is demanding a private company change its name to something that researchers have linked to a variety of negative mental health outcomes, particularly for children, said Mark Macarro, president of the National Congress of American Indians. The organization has been pushing back on stereotypes of Native Americans since the 1950s, including Native sports mascots. 'This is a big reminder with this administration that we're going to take some backward steps,' Macarro said. 'We have our studies, we have our receipts, and we can demonstrate that this causes real harm.' More than two decades of research on Native mascots have shown they lead to heightened rates of depression, self-harm, substance abuse and suicidal ideation among Indigenous peoples, and those impacts are the greatest on children. Citing this data, the American Psychological Association has been recommending the retirement of Native mascots since 2001. The president believes that franchises who changed their names to 'pander to the Woke Left' should immediately restore their original names,' White House spokesperson Davis Ingle said in a statement to The Associated Press. 'Thanks to President Trump, the days of political correctness and cancel culture are over,' he said. Some teams change names while others resist Under pressure from decades of activism, the Washington Redskins — a racial slur and arguably the most egregious example — retired the name in 2020, eventually settling on the Commanders. Later that year, the Cleveland Indians changed its name to the Guardians. Two major league teams, the NFL's Kansas City Chiefs and the NHL's Chicago Blackhawks, continue to resist calls to change their names. The Chiefs have banned fans from wearing headdresses or face paint meant to depict Native Americans at games but has resisted prohibiting the use of the 'tomahawk chop', which critics have long called derogatory. More than 1,500 grade schools across the country — a decrease over the past few years — still use Native mascots, according to the National Congress of American Indians, using names like 'Savages' as well as the slur that Trump aims to bring back to the Washington team. Experts say Native mascots reinforce racial bias Native American people, activists, and leaders have been asking for the retirement of Native mascots for generations. Popular arguments defending the mascots have been that they 'honor' Native people or that it simply boiled down to people being 'offended," said Steph Cross, a professor of psychology and researcher at the University of Oklahoma and a citizen of the Comanche Nation. But now we have decades of data that agrees on the negative mental health impacts, she said. 'Being offended is not even really the problem. That's a symptom,' Cross said. She noted that Native mascots aren't just harmful to Indigenous peoples, they also reinforce racial prejudices among non-Natives, including people who will work directly with Native people like health care professionals and teachers. 'I think about these people who are going to be working with Native children, whether they realize that or not, and how they may unintentionally have these biases," Cross said. Stephanie Fryberg, a professor at Northwestern University, who is a member of the Tulalip Tribes and one of the country's leading researchers on Native mascots, said, 'The ultimate impact, whether conscious or unconscious, is bias in American society." Her work has also shown Native mascots increase the risk of real psychological harm, especially for young Native people. 'Honoring Native peoples means ending dehumanization in both imagery and policy," she said. "Indian Country needs meaningful investment, respect, and the restoration of federal commitments, not more distractions or excuses for inaction.' Several states pass Native mascot bans In recent years, several states — including Maine, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, and New York — have passed laws or issued directives that ban or require districts to change Native mascots. A law prohibiting them in Illinois stalled this year in the state Senate. The Trump administration has interjected into other efforts to change Native mascots. This month, the U.S. Department of Education launched an investigation into a Long Island public school district working to retire its Native American-themed mascot. 'The Department of Education has been clear with the state of New York: it is neither legal nor right to prohibit Native American mascots and logos while celebrating European and other cultural imagery in schools," said U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon. When it comes to grade schools specifically, the negative impacts on children's mental health is compounded by the fact that U.S. history standards largely ignore Indigenous history and rarely frame Native Americans as modern people, said Sarah Shear, a professor and researcher at the University of Washington. In 2015, she was part of a study that found 87% of schools in the U.S. teach about Native Americans in only a pre-1900 context. That hasn't improved much in the decade since the study, Shear said. Most curriculum also doesn't present the arguments against harmful stereotypes, like Native Mascots. 'Just on the standards documents alone," Shear said, 'I'm not surprised that Trump and other folks continue to advocate that these mascots are celebratory when they're not.'


Hamilton Spectator
16 hours ago
- Hamilton Spectator
Trump's demand for Washington NFL team name change ignores years of psychological data, experts say
This week, President Donald Trump threatened to hold up a new stadium deal if Washington's NFL team did not restore its name to a racial slur, despite decades of psychological research showing the negative mental health impacts of Native American mascots. The president is demanding a private company change its name to something that researchers have linked to a variety of negative mental health outcomes, particularly for children, said Mark Macarro, president of the National Congress of American Indians. The organization has been pushing back on stereotypes of Native Americans since the 1950s, including Native sports mascots. 'This is a big reminder with this administration that we're going to take some backward steps,' Macarro said. 'We have our studies, we have our receipts, and we can demonstrate that this causes real harm.' More than two decades of research on Native mascots have shown they lead to heightened rates of depression, self-harm, substance abuse and suicidal ideation among Indigenous peoples, and those impacts are the greatest on children. Citing this data, the American Psychological Association has been recommending the retirement of Native mascots since 2001. The president believes that franchises who changed their names to 'pander to the Woke Left' should immediately restore their original names,' White House spokesperson Davis Ingle said in a statement to The Associated Press. 'Thanks to President Trump, the days of political correctness and cancel culture are over,' he said. Some teams change names while others resist Under pressure from decades of activism, the Washington Redskins — a racial slur and arguably the most egregious example — retired the name in 2020 , eventually settling on the Commanders. Later that year, the Cleveland Indians changed its name to the Guardians . Two major league teams, the NFL's Kansas City Chiefs and the NHL's Chicago Blackhawks, continue to resist calls to change their names . The Chiefs have banned fans from wearing headdresses or face paint meant to depict Native Americans at games but has resisted prohibiting the use of the 'tomahawk chop' , which critics have long called derogatory. More than 1,500 grade schools across the country — a decrease over the past few years — still use Native mascots, according to the National Congress of American Indians, using names like 'Savages' as well as the slur that Trump aims to bring back to the Washington team. Experts say Native mascots reinforce racial bias Native American people, activists, and leaders have been asking for the retirement of Native mascots for generations . Popular arguments defending the mascots have been that they 'honor' Native people or that it simply boiled down to people being 'offended,' said Steph Cross, a professor of psychology and researcher at the University of Oklahoma and a citizen of the Comanche Nation. But now we have decades of data that agrees on the negative mental health impacts, she said. 'Being offended is not even really the problem. That's a symptom,' Cross said. She noted that Native mascots aren't just harmful to Indigenous peoples, they also reinforce racial prejudices among non-Natives, including people who will work directly with Native people like health care professionals and teachers. 'I think about these people who are going to be working with Native children, whether they realize that or not, and how they may unintentionally have these biases,' Cross said. Stephanie Fryberg, a professor at Northwestern University, who is a member of the Tulalip Tribes and one of the country's leading researchers on Native mascots, said, 'The ultimate impact, whether conscious or unconscious, is bias in American society.' Her work has also shown Native mascots increase the risk of real psychological harm, especially for young Native people. 'Honoring Native peoples means ending dehumanization in both imagery and policy,' she said. 'Indian Country needs meaningful investment, respect, and the restoration of federal commitments, not more distractions or excuses for inaction.' Several states pass Native mascot bans In recent years, several states — including Maine, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, and New York — have passed laws or issued directives that ban or require districts to change Native mascots. A law prohibiting them in Illinois stalled this year in the state Senate. The Trump administration has interjected into other efforts to change Native mascots. This month, the U.S. Department of Education launched an investigation into a Long Island public school district working to retire its Native American-themed mascot. 'The Department of Education has been clear with the state of New York: it is neither legal nor right to prohibit Native American mascots and logos while celebrating European and other cultural imagery in schools,' said U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon. When it comes to grade schools specifically, the negative impacts on children's mental health is compounded by the fact that U.S. history standards largely ignore Indigenous history and rarely frame Native Americans as modern people, said Sarah Shear, a professor and researcher at the University of Washington. In 2015, she was part of a study that found 87% of schools in the U.S. teach about Native Americans in only a pre-1900 context. That hasn't improved much in the decade since the study, Shear said. Most curriculum also doesn't present the arguments against harmful stereotypes, like Native Mascots. 'Just on the standards documents alone,' Shear said, 'I'm not surprised that Trump and other folks continue to advocate that these mascots are celebratory when they're not.' Error! Sorry, there was an error processing your request. There was a problem with the recaptcha. Please try again. You may unsubscribe at any time. By signing up, you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google privacy policy and terms of service apply. Want more of the latest from us? Sign up for more at our newsletter page .


Los Angeles Times
2 days ago
- Los Angeles Times
With Manifest Destiny art, DHS goes hard on ‘white makes right'
Since the start of President Trump's second term, the Department of Homeland Security's social media team has published a stream of content worthy of a meme-slinging basement dweller on 4chan. Grainy, distorted mug shots of immigrants. Links to butt-kissing Fox News stories about MAGA anything. Whiny slams against politicians who call out la migra for treating the Constitution like a pee pad. Paeans to 'heritage' and 'homeland' worthy of Goebbels. A Thomas Kinkade painting of 1950s-era white picket fence suburbia straight out of 'Leave It to Beaver,' with the caption 'Protect the Homeland.' All of this is gag-inducing, but it has a purpose — it's revealing the racist id of this administration in real time, in case anyone was still doubtful. In June, DHS shared a poster, originally created by the white-power scene, of a grim-faced Uncle Sam urging Americans to 'report all foreign invaders' by calling Immigration and Customs Enforcement. On July 14, the DHS X account featured a painting of a young white couple cradling a baby in a covered wagon on the Great Plains with the caption, 'Remember your Homeland's Heritage.' When my colleague Hailey Branson-Potts asked about the pioneer painting and the Trump administration's trollish social media strategy, a White House spokesperson asked her to 'explain how deporting illegal aliens is racist,' adding that haters should 'stay mad.' Now, behold the latest DHS salvo: a July 23 X post of a 19th century painting by John Gast titled 'American Progress.' A blond white woman robed in — yep — white, with a gold star just above her forehead, floats in the center. She holds a book in her right hand and a loop of telegraph wire that her left hand trails across poles. Below her on the right side are miners, hunters, farmers, loggers, a stagecoach and trains. They rush westward, illuminated by puffy clouds and the soft glow of dawn. The angelic woman is Columbia, the historic female personification of the United States. She seems to be guiding everyone forward, toward Native Americans — bare breasted women, headdress-bedecked warriors — who are fleeing in terror along with a herd of bison and a bear with its mouth agape. It's too late, though: Covered wagon trains and a teamster wielding a whip have already encroached on their land. The white settlers are literally in the light-bathed side of the painting, while the Native Americans are shrouded in the dusky, murky side. It ain't subtle, folks! 'A Heritage to be proud of, a Homeland worth Defending,' DHS wrote as a caption for 'American Progress' — a mantra you may soon find printed on the $20 bill, the way this administration is going. Gast finished his painting in 1872, when the U.S. was in the last stages of conquest. The Civil War was done. White Americans were moving into the Southwest in large numbers, dispossessing the Mexican Americans who had been there for generations through the courts, squatting or outright murder. The Army was ramping up to defeat Native Americans once and for all. In the eyes of politicians, a new menace was emerging from the Pacific: mass Asian migration, especially Chinese. Scholars have long interpreted Gast's infamous work as an allegory about Manifest Destiny — that the U.S. had a God-given right to seize as much of the American continent as it could. John L. O'Sullivan, the newspaperman who coined the term in 1845, openly tied this country's expansion to white supremacy, expressing the hope that pushing Black people into Latin America, a region 'already of mixed and confused blood,' would lead to 'the ultimate disappearance of the negro race from our borders.' O'Sullivan also salivated at the idea of California leaving 'imbecile and distracted' Mexico and joining the U.S., adding, 'The Anglo-Saxon foot is already on its borders. Already the advance guard of the irresistible army of Anglo-Saxon emigration has begun to pour down upon it, armed with the plough and the rifle.' This is the heritage the Trump administration thinks is worth promoting. Administration officials act shocked and offended when critics accuse them of racism, but the Trump base knows exactly what's going on. 'This is our country, and we can't let the radical left make us ashamed of our heritage,' one X user commented on the 'American Progress' post. 'Manifest Destiny was an amazing thing!' 'It's time to re-conquer the land,' another wrote. DHS seems to be vibing with the Heritage American movement, now bleeding into the conservative mainstream from its far-right beginnings. Its adherents maintain that Americans whose ancestors have been here for generations are more deserving of this nation's riches than those whose families came over within living memory. Our values, proponents say, shouldn't be based on antiquated concepts like liberty and equality but rather, the customs and traditions established by Anglo Protestants before mass immigration forever changed this country's demographics. In other words, if you're white, you're all right. If you're brown or anything else, you're probably not down. Our own vice president, JD Vance, is espousing this pendejada. In a speech to the Claremont Institute earlier this month, Vance outlined his vision of what an American is. 'America is not just an idea,' Vance told the crowd. 'We're a particular place, with a particular people, and a particular set of beliefs and way of life.' Weird — I learned in high school that people come here not because of how Americans live, but because they have the freedom to live however they want. 'If you stop importing millions of foreigners,' the vice president continued, 'you allow social cohesion to form naturally.' All those Southern and Eastern Europeans who came at the turn of the 20th century seem to have assimilated just fine, even as Appalachia's Scots-Irish — Vance's claimed ethnic affiliation — are, by his own admission, still a tribe apart after centuries of living here. Trump, Vance added, is 'ensur[ing] that the people we serve have a better life in the country their grandparents built.' I guess that excludes me, since my Mexican grandparents settled here in the autumn of their lives. The irony of elevating so-called Heritage Americans is that many in Trumpworld would seem to be excluded. First Lady Melania Trump was born in what's now Slovenia. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is the child of Cuban immigrants. Vance's wife's parents came here from India. The Jewish immigrant ancestor of Trump's deportation mastermind, Stephen Miller, wouldn't be allowed in these days, after arriving at Ellis Island from czarist Russia with $8 to his name. Even Gast and O'Sullivan wouldn't count as Heritage Americans by the strictest definition, since the former was Prussian and the latter was the son of Irish and English immigrants. But that's the evil genius of MAGA. Trump has proclaimed that he welcomes anyone, regardless of race, creed or sexual orientation (except for trans people), into his movement, as long as they're committed to owning the libs. Americans are so myopic about their own history, if not downright ignorant, that some minorities think they're being welcomed into the Heritage Americans fold by Vance and his ilk. No wonder a record number of voters of color, especially Latinos, jumped on the Trump train in 2024. 'American Progress' might as well replace red hats as the ultimate MAGA symbol. To them, it's not a shameful artifact; it's a road map for Americans hell-bent on turning back the clock to the era of eradication. Like I said, not a subtle message at all — if your eyes aren't shut.