Tellico Dam
Tellico Dam is a hydroelectric dam located on the Little Tennessee River near Knoxville, Tennessee, completed on November 29, 1979. Its construction was a point of significant controversy, highlighting the tension between wilderness preservation and human development. Initially proposed by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) as early as 1936, plans were delayed due to various factors, including economic conditions and legal opposition from local residents and the Cherokee Nation, who were concerned about the impact on historic sites and ancestral lands. Despite these challenges, including environmental concerns over the habitat of the endangered snail darter fish, the TVA proceeded with the project after receiving federal funding.
The dam ultimately cost around $120 million—much higher than anticipated—partly due to inflation and the diversion of federal funds during the Vietnam War. While the dam facilitated electricity generation and created recreational opportunities, critics noted that it would provide minimal benefits relative to the ecological and cultural losses incurred, such as the flooding of prime farmland and sacred Cherokee sites. In the years following its completion, the snail darter was successfully transplanted and its status improved, reflecting ongoing environmental management efforts. Tellico Dam thus serves as a significant case study in balancing development with ecological and cultural preservation.
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Tellico Dam
IDENTIFICATION: Hydroelectric dam on the Little Tennessee River near Knoxville, Tennessee
DATE: Completed on November 29, 1979
Controversy over the transformation of a river valley into an artificial lake brought national attention to the conflict between wilderness preservation and human development.
As early as 1936, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) had made plans to build a across the Little Tennessee River to facilitate navigation below Fort Loudoun, but the project was vetoed in 1942 because of a scarcity of steel. Building the dam remained a high priority for the TVA, and in 1959 the agency undertook a thorough study of how the region would be affected by the dam. The study also compared the projected cost of the dam to the benefits it would create, which included electricity as well as employment opportunities and recreational sites. The cost was estimated to be about equal to the possible benefits, and the TVA decided that building the dam would be economically feasible and beneficial to the area.
The appropriation of federal money for the dam’s construction had to be approved by the president of the United States. On October 17, 1966, the TVA received $3.2 million to begin building the dam in 1967, with the completion date estimated to be 1970 or 1971. The final cost of the dam was actually $120 million, and it was not completed until November 29, 1979. The delay and extra costs were caused by many factors, including inflation and the diversion of federal money to support the Vietnam War.
Aside from economic factors, however, the construction of the dam was also delayed during the 1970’s by legal action taken against the project by the Cherokee Nation, local residents, and environmentalists. The Little Tennessee Valley, which would be flooded upon completion of the project, contained many Cherokee historical sites, including sacred burial grounds and ruins of the Seven Towns, which were the center of the Cherokee Nation before the Cherokees were sent to reservations in Oklahoma and North Carolina. Residents of the area that would be flooded asserted their interest in maintaining homes that had been in their families for generations.
Prime farmland would also be lost once the valley flooded. Environmentalists pointed out that the dam was unnecessary given that, in comparison with the TVA’s total electrical output, the dam would produce very little electricity. Within 96 kilometers (60 miles) of Tellico, twenty-four major dams already existed. The environmentalists also argued that the recreational opportunities offered by a new lake, such as boating, swimming, and fishing, were trivial compared to the greater wilderness activities associated with an untamed river near Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Building the dam would restrict the last free-flowing stretch of the Little Tennessee River.
After the discovery of an of fish, the snail darter, in the Little Tennessee River in 1973, environmentalists filed suit in 1977 to halt construction of the dam because operation of the dam would destroy the fish’s habitat. After many legal battles, however, a special law was passed to exempt the TVA from complying with the Endangered Species Act of 1973, and Tellico Dam went into operation in January of 1980. The snail darter was successfully transplanted and was upgraded from endangered to threatened in 1984. In 2021, the fish was removed from the threatened list.
Bibliography
Murchison, Kenneth M. The Snail Darter Case: TVA Versus the Endangered Species Act. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2007.
Palmer, Tim. “The Movement to Save Rivers.” In Endangered Rivers and the Conservation Movement. 2d ed. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004.
"Tiny Fish Makes Big Splash." University of Tennessee, 25 Mar. 2024, higherground.utk.edu/snail-darter/. Accessed 24 July 2024.
Wheeler, William Bruce, and Michael J. McDonald. TVA and the Tellico Dam, 1936-1979: A Bureaucratic Crisis in Post-industrial America. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1986.