The TVA System of Multi-Purpose Dams
The Tennessee River has its headwaters in the mountains of Tennessee, Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia. The main stream forms at Knoxville, where the Holston and the French Broad Rivers join.
The Valley, 41,000 square miles in area, receives an average of 52 inches of rain a year. In terms of water discharged into the Ohio and Mississippi, the Tennessee River is about equal in size to the Missouri.
The Tennessee Valley Authority has harnessed the river with a multi-purpose system of dams and reservoirs which regulates floods, improves navigation, ad generates electric power.
High dams on the tributaries create large storage reservoirs which hold back flood waters, releasing them when necessary to maintain navigation depths downstream, ad at the same time generating electric power. The system also helps protect the lower Ohio and Mississippi Valleys.
The nine main river dams, with their locks, form a navigation channel 650 miles long, from Knoxville to the Ohio River, an important arm of the nations inland waterway system connecting 20 states.
Having developed virtually all the rivers power resources, TVA has built huge coal-burning steam electric plants to help serve the regions growing power needs. TVA power is sold at wholesale to cities and rural electric cooperatives which in turn, distribute it at retail to homes, farms, business and industry. A few industries and U.S. Government defense installations that use large amounts of power are served directly by TVA. The largest of these, using more power than a great city, are the atomic plants at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and Paducah, Kentucky.
[Sidebar:]
Bull Run Steam Plant. The TVA River Control System helps to generate power at steam plants by providing an abundant supply of cold water for condensing steam. Here at Bull Run Steam Plant water is taken from Melton Hill Reservoir through the intake channel (right foreground) and after leaving the condensers is returned to the reservoir.
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Location. 36° 1.292′ N, 84° 9.552′ W. Marker is in Clinton, Tennessee, in Anderson County. It is on Edgemoor Road (Tennessee Route 170) 4 miles east of Lakeview Circle, on the right when traveling east. Touch for map. Marker is at or near this postal address: 1350 Edgemoor Rd, Clinton TN 37716, United States of America. Touch for directions.
Regionally, this marker is in East Tennessee and in Greater Knoxville. It is also in the American South, specifically in the Upper South, in Appalachia, and specifically in Southern Appalachia. Globally, it is in North America, the Western Hemisphere, the Western World, and the Anglosphere. Historically, it finds itself in what was once the original Cherokee Nation, the territory of the Mississippian Culture, one of the Confederate States of America, and the Antebellum South.
Other nearby markers. At least 8 other markers are within 5 miles of this marker, measured as the crow flies: Bull Run Steam Plant
Credits. This page was last revised on February 1, 2021. It was originally submitted on February 1, 2021, by Tom Bosse of Jefferson City, Tennessee. This page has been viewed 388 times since then and 29 times this year. Photos: 1, 2. submitted on January 31, 2021, by Tom Bosse of Jefferson City, Tennessee. • Devry Becker Jones was the editor who published this page.
Editor’s want-list for this marker. A wide shot of the marker in context. • Can you help?
