The Browns Ferry nuclear plant was begun in , Sequoyah in , and Bellefonte in , with more plants on the drawing boards. Worse, by the s construction deficiencies and safety concerns had forced the closing of all the nuclear plants and a curtailment of the entire program. As expected, rate payers who for years had enjoyed some of the lowest electric bills in the nation were furious. Since its founding in , the TVA had become accustomed to almost constant assaults from the political right.
Beginning in the late s, however, attacks on the agency also began coming from the left as well. Too, although the TVA had instituted plans for post-strip mine land reclamation, environmentalists claimed that water pollution was widespread and land reclamation efforts were insufficient.
Continued dam building programs on the tributaries of the Tennessee River also raised opposition. Similarly, when the agency began work on the Tellico Dam where the Little Tennessee River flowed into the main channel near Lenoir City, Tennessee , a loose coalition of fishing enthusiasts, local residents, Cherokee Indians whose area burial grounds would be inundated , and environmentalists raised enough opposition to gain nationwide attention.
In , when University of Tennessee zoologist David Etnier discovered a three-inch perch-like fish about seven miles upriver from the dam construction subsequently named the snail darter , environmentalists believed they had found the weapon that would stop the dam. In an effort to make good on his pledge of no electricity rate increases for three years, Runyon cut over 9, jobs from the approximately 49, employees on the TVA payroll.
Chairman Craven Crowell has pledged the opening of the nuclear facilities opposed by sit-ins by environmentalists and keeping the agency on a sound business footing.
As the New Deal is gradually dismembered in the s, the Tennessee Valley Authority stands as a beacon of idealistic planning, regional economic success, and bureaucratic missteps. Erwin C. Hargrove and Paul K. Conkin, eds. All Rights Reserved. Functionality and information are in compliance with guidelines established by the American Association for State and Local History for online state and regional encyclopedias.
Written by W Bruce Wheeler. Close Sliding Bar Area. Senator George Norris of Nebraska proposed the Muscle Shoals Bill which would allow government use of the dam to produce and sell electricity.
President Herbert Hoover vetoed the bill in , insisting that it was the job of private enterprise and not government. As the country plunged deeper into the Great Depression , however, distrust of private utilities festered.
Many believed the utilities charged too much for power. Americans began to support the idea of public ownership of electric utilities. President Franklin D. The Act tasked the TVA with: improving the navigability of the Tennessee River; providing flood control through reforestation of marginal lands in the Tennessee Valley watershed; developing agriculture, commerce and industry in the valley; and operating the hydroelectric Wilson Dam. In addition to the Wilson Dam, the Act gave TVA the authority to acquire lands along the Tennessee River and any of its tributaries for the construction of future dams, reservoirs, transmission lines or power plants.
Low energy rates would help to ensure affordable, reliable power for all. The TVA Act encouraged economic development and provided jobs by bringing electricity to rural areas for the first time. Power companies vehemently opposed the TVA, resenting the cheaper energy the TVA provided and saw the agency as a threat to private enterprise.
However, in , the U. New Deal proponents had hoped to use the TVA model to build other public utility and economic development agencies around the country, but these efforts were defeated by Willkie and conservatives in Congress.
Willkie ran for president as the Republican nominee in Depression-era political cartoonists frequently lampooned the TVA and other New Deal agencies and programs for taking on characteristics of socialism. By , more than 9, people found employment with the TVA. The agency built 16 hydroelectric dams in the Tennessee Valley between and TVA extension programs taught farmers new techniques that would help to control soil erosion and increase land productivity. Some of those techniques included crop rotation, plowing with the contours of the land to minimize erosion, planting cover crops and the use of phosphate fertilizers.
Many communities were impacted in positive ways by the TVA, by improving living standards and creating jobs. Yet others experienced long-lasting negative impacts.
Some communities, however, were displaced by TVA projects. For instance, roughly 3, families in eastern Tennessee lost their homes when the Norris Dam was built. The TVA played a critical role during World War II, its huge electricity supply used to produce raw materials for munitions, fertilizer for food production, and aluminum for aircraft.
The TVA also provided the electricity and the secret site for the development of the atomic bomb at Oak Ridge, Tennessee [6]. Other major river basin projects gave similar boosts to the war effort and growth in the Southwest and the Pacific Northwest, but TVA was the only one with regional planning authority.
After the war, TVA and its director, David Lilienthal, were heralded around the world as a model for government-led regional development. Today, TVA provides power to over 9 million people in 7 states from its 29 dams, 11 coal-fired power plants and 3 nuclear facilities [7]. While it has had to adapt to new economic, political and environmental conditions, it remains popular.
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