By Alabama Public Radio
Tuscaloosa AL – Consultants hired to assess property for the Tennessee Valley Authority have named a site in West Tennessee as a "megasite". The 17-hundred acre "megasite" site is being shopped for development as an automotive manufacturing site. It sits near a railroad and Interstate 40 in Haywood County, about 40 miles northeast of Memphis. It was certified a ``megasite'' last week by McCallum Sweeney Consulting, which has been hired to assess properties in T-V-A's seven-state region. The announcement is news in Alabama because the site represents new competition for the state in luring another automaker ... but it also represents the possibilty of spin-off industries that might be created if a major project is landed. The "megasite" could include a maximum of 5-thousand acres, and has sparked a lawsuit by a group of local residents. They are challenging the "megasite'' designation process, which they say benefits Lieutenant Governor John Wilder, whose family owns around 200 acres in the area.