How the TVA brought progress – and controversy – to the South
When Tropical Storm Helene brought historic flooding to the region, an agency that has chiefly been a simple fact of life for many of us in the mountains came a little more sharply into focus.
With overwhelmed dams threatened to fail, the Tennessee Valley Authority suddenly found itself at the center of the news. It was an extreme taste of what our forebears would have dealt with in the days before the TVA. That kind of downstream flooding is something that we largely haven’t had to deal with for more than 75 years. It also put into stark relief that without the TVA, the flooding from the storm – which killed more than 100 people and cost billions in damages – would have been so much worse.
If you’re keeping score in the debate on whether or not the New Deal and the creation of the TVA was good for the South and East Tennessee, you can put the effects of Tropical Storm Helene squarely in the win column.
IN THIS ARTICLE
The history of the Tennessee Valley Authority
The TVA is one of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Great Depression-era agencies as part of the New Deal. The idea for TVA was to serve as a federally owned and operated utility and economic development agency using a series of dams and man-made reservoirs to provide cheap hydroelectric power to seven states in the Southeast. In addition, the TVA’s dams would help control annual spring flooding that washed away farmers’ topsoil and put lives at risk.
The roots of what would become the TVA date back to 1916 and World War I. Congress approved the Wilson Dam in Muscle Shoals, Alabama to provide power for factories needed to support the war effort. However, when the war ended in 1919, it left Congress with a dilemma on the future of the sight.
Meanwhile, Senator George Norris believed the government should have a firmer foothold in the nation’s power supply. The availability of power was too important to the country’s development to be left to profiteering private organizations. The various proposed initiatives failed to gain traction until FDR found himself leading a country with massive unemployment. The TVA – in addition to providing reliable, affordable power and controlling dangerous and damaging floods – created thousands of jobs in dam construction and other agency roles.
TVA’s role today
Today, the TVA manages 40,000 miles of rivers, streams and tributaries and supplies electricity to 10 million people. The TVA has a team of scientists, experts and engineers that can move thousands of gallons of water up or downstream as needed. Each fall, it lowers the water levels in preparation for the coming spring. This is why if you visit in the off-season there are massive rings of dirt around the TVA lakes. Each spring, it collects water until the lakes reach a status known as “summer pool” which is ideal for recreation. In addition, the TVA now has three nuclear plants which represent more than 40 percent of the electricity generated by the TVA.
The TVA also manages public lands that are ripe for hiking, fishing, camping and other outdoor activities surrounding its reservoirs.
The controversy over The New Deal
FDR’s New Deal was essentially a massive jobs program dedicated to getting Americans back to work. Unemployment during the Great Depression peaked at nearly 25 percent in 1933 – representing roughly 12.8 million people.
Of the 69 agencies created, some established by Congress and others by executive order, eight remain. One of these is the TVA. Such a massive expansion of government drew criticism. The National Industrial Recovery Act – which was eventually ruled unconstitutional – helped FDR gain power over purse strings that had previously been solely the purview of Congress.
There were many philosophical – and constitutional objections – to the New Deal. The main opposition to the TVA came from private power companies. They did not want to compete with a federal utility. Wendell Wilkie – president of the Commonwealth and Southern Company, a large power utility – led the charge against the TVA. Several lawsuits were filed, but the Supreme Court upheld the creation of the TVA.
Wilkie challenged FDR for the presidency in 1940. But, after only entering the race during the convention, failed to gather much support, losing the electoral vote count 449-82. Wilkie became a key supporter of Roosevelt’s actions in WWII.
The wins and the losses
Let’s start with the wins of the TVA. The TVA has allowed for the modernization of the seven-state region it serves. It continues to provide reliable power at arguably affordable rates. This has allowed the South to grow its industrial base in such a way that it now competes on at least an even keel with the other regions of the country.
The TVA has also boosted tourism. The lakes and reservoirs managed by the TVA bring people to the region for a variety of water sports and events such as fishing tournaments. While recent events have shown that portions of the system can be overwhelmed by a massive event, the destruction moving downstream can be managed. Real estate development has been bolstered by TVA lakes. Lots of lakefront housing to be had in the region where none was before.
Now for the losses
The TVA took land to build infrastructure that quite literally put some communities underwater. More than 125,000 valley residents were displaced by eminent domain due to the TVA. While landowners were compensated at “fair” rates, the potential for the kind of generational wealth created by passing land down from one generation to the next was taken from several valley families. The argument was made that the residents were paid “fair” value. However, the truth is that the government set the standard for what was fair. The landowners didn’t really have much of a choice.
The philosophical arguments over the creation of the TVA were not simply exercises in rhetoric. Norris was right that supplying power to a region is infrastructure just like providing roads or bridges. A community with access to reliable, affordable power would be hamstrung. Would a for-profit utility been willing to provide power into the hard-to-reach, tiny mountain communities where it could take generations to get the desired return on investment? But on the other hand, TVA has become – in many ways – that which Norris feared. It’s a monopoly of sorts. Without any real competition, it’s fair to wonder if TVA is pursuing innovation the way a private company with a need to keep a leg up on competition would. Now, I’m not sure the private utility companies would compete in a way that, say, auto manufacturers would. But it’s a fair discussion.
TVA has changed the lives of thousands of families
While the greater good was for the region, the TVA changed the lives of thousands of families. Therefore, whole communities were wiped off the map. If you pay attention, you can still see the places where roads used to lead to small communities now go directly into the lake. There are even a few silos still standing in the lake beds. If you’re interested in more on this, New York Times best-selling author and East Tennessee native’s fictional work “The Long Man” deals with a small community facing change as the waters start to rise.
But it’s also fair to point out that TVA acts in many ways as a for-profit business would. Its congressional often demands that institutions such as the post office or TVA operate as a private business would. The advantage provided by the back of the federal government becomes somewhat lessened. Also, TVA has been prone to the types of incentives and bonuses for high-level executives that are frequent in corporate America. While it’s fair to say TVA has to offer those to compete for top-level leadership, it can be a bitter pill to swallow for those paying the government entity to provide those bonuses and benefits.
An American success story
It’s hard for me – sitting here typing this on power created from the TVA grid, a few miles from a scenic TVA reservoir – to say the creation of the TVA was anything but a New Deal success story. The truth is from the National Park and its miles of trails to the TVA, the New Deal was overall pretty good for the people of East Tennessee and beyond even if hundreds of families found themselves the worse for it.
The grid is chiefly reliable. The river system has proven effective. In large terms, it survived a rain event the likes of which haven’t been seen, theoretically, since the Bronze Age. Could there be more innovation? Probably. Do we need more investment? Since a couple of dams under the TVA purview that predate the agency nearly failed, I’d say yes. But by and large, the TVA has been good for East Tennessee and beyond.
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