Natural Resources: Such a Lovely Green Valley

A lot of unkind things have been said about the Tennessee Valley Authority. When the TVA bill was before Congress in 1933, shortly after veterans' benefits were reduced, Rhode Island's Senator Jesse Houghton Metcalf cried: "How on earth can we justify taking a decent living from the soldiers who suffered on the battlefields of France and pour it into the mudholes of Tennessee?" Arizona's Sena tor Barry Goldwater today calls TVA "a giant federal power monopoly—a hoax."

But TVA has survived such criticism.

Next month TVA will celebrate its 30th anniversary and if nothing else, it is there. It works.

Tamed & Tranquil. The very mention of its name still triggers theoretical arguments about public v. private power. Yet debates over its theory fade to futility when set against the real-life changes in the valley.

The Tennessee was once a treacherous river, red with the topsoil it carried away by summer, aswirl with the houses, horses and barns its floods destroyed by winter. Today, more than two-thirds of its 900-mile length is virtually one tamed and tranquil lake. Hundreds of recreation sites occupy the valley's 10,000 miles of shoreline. Its waters provide one of the world's finest inland recreation areas, yield fishermen some 10,000,000 Ibs. a year of 23 species of fish.

These waters—actually a series of reservoirs—were created by 31 major dams (six of them privately owned), which now function in a highly integrated system. "Today TVA can shut off the Tennessee River when the Ohio is in flood-shut it off just like a faucet," says David Lilienthal, TVA's early crusading chairman. TVA did just that a few weeks ago. and saved an estimated $100,000,000 flood damage in Chattanooga alone.

Main stem dams have navigation locks, permitting the passage of vessels with 9-ft. drafts. Some 13,100,000 tons of traffic moved on this waterway last year. The Tennessee's ports are linked with those in 20 states. TVA officials claim that such navigation has stimulated the investment of some $875 million in shoreline industry in the valley.

Erosion & Mosquitoes. To keep the valley's best soil from being continually washed into the river by the area's heavy rains, TVA has coaxed the farmers into using a variety of conservation practices: planting trees, contour plowing, diversifying crops, enriching their land with TVA-developed fertilizers. One byproduct of the reforestation has been the cre ation of a $500 million private forest-products industry. TVA has also fought mosquitoes to lick the valley's malaria, which in 1934 had infected more than 30% of the people living along the river in northern Alabama. Since 1949 not a single case of local origin has been reported along the reservoirs.