:Tellico Dam

File:Timberlake TVA conceptual model.png

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is a federally owned electric utility company created by U.S. Code Title 16, Chapter 12A, the Tennessee Valley Authority Act of 1933. Despite its shares being owned by the federal government, TVA operates like a private corporation, and receives no taxpayer funding.{{cite web |url=https://www.tva.com/About-TVA |title=About TVA |author= |date=2018 |website=tva.com |publisher=Tennessee Valley Authority |access-date=January 7, 2018 }} The TVA was formally established in 1933 as part of programs under the New Deal.

The agency was initially tasked with modernizing the Tennessee Valley region, using experts in economic development, engineering, planning, and agriculture. Nonetheless, the TVA focused primarily on electricity generation, flood control, and combatting human and economic problems.{{cite book |last1=Schulman |first1=Bruce J. |title=From Cotton Belt to Sunbelt: Federal policy, economic development, and the transformation of the South, 1938–1980 |date=1991 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-536344-9 |location=New York |oclc=300412389}}

In 1936, TVA began studies for hydroelectric dam sites as part of its Unified Development of the Tennessee River (UDTR) plan. Early TVA plans suggested the construction of a dam along the Little Tennessee River at its mouth at the Tennessee River adjacent to Bussell Island.{{cite web |title=Telling the Story of Tellico: It's Complicated |url=https://www.tva.com/about-tva/our-history/built-for-the-people/telling-the-story-of-tellico-it-s-complicated |website=Tennessee Valley Authority |access-date=July 24, 2022 |archive-date=June 16, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220616105923/https://www.tva.com/about-tva/our-history/built-for-the-people/telling-the-story-of-tellico-it-s-complicated |url-status=live }} This later became known as the Fort Loudoun Extension, an expansion of the adjacent Fort Loudoun Dam. However, the project was canceled on October 20, 1942, due to a lack of federal funding resulting from financial constraints imposed by US involvement in World War II.

File:Land use plan of TVA's failed Timberlake City project.png plan for the City of Timberlake project.]]

In 1959, the TVA reapproved development of the Fort Loudoun Extension, now called the Tellico Project. The justification for the project was to improve the economic conditions of the Little Tennessee watershed, through land and recreational development.{{cite news |last1=Wilson |first1=Robert |title=Tellico Dam still generating debate |url=https://archive.knoxnews.com/business/tellico-dam-still-generating-debate-ep-411807529-359923851.html/ |access-date=July 24, 2022 |work=Knoxville News Sentinel |date=April 13, 2008 |archive-date=October 13, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161013142515/http://archive.knoxnews.com/business/tellico-dam-still-generating-debate-ep-411807529-359923851.html |url-status=live }} This project, which encompassed acreage in Loudon, Blount, and Monroe counties, became known as the City of Timberlake Plan, named for journalist Henry Timberlake who explored the Cherokee villages that once occupied the area.{{cite web |author1=Tennessee Valley Authority |title=Timberlake New Community: Environmental Statement |url=https://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1040&context=darter_materials |website=Boston College Law School |publisher=U.S. Government Printing Office |access-date=July 25, 2022 |location=Knoxville, Tennessee |format=PDF |date=1976 |url-status=live |archive-date=August 12, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220812141123/https://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1040&context=darter_materials }} Timberlake, the TVA's ambitious attempt at creating a city from scratch, had a projected population of 42,000. The project was promoted as a demonstration of economic development for the rural poor, transforming the Little Tennessee Valley into a thriving urban center. The Tellico Dam would provide a large reservoir for recreation and for freight transport to proposed industrial sites with access to the Tennessee River through a canal. The dam would not produce electricity, but the canal would enable an additional 23 MW of power generation at the Fort Loudoun Dam by diverting flow from the Little Tennessee River.Jack Neely, "[https://web.archive.org/web/20060101000000*/http://are.berkeley.edu/~bickett/tellicorevisited.doc Tellico Dam Revisited]." Originally published in the Metro Pulse Online. Accessed at the Internet Archive, October 2, 2015. (.doc format) The Timberlake project was initially supported with congressional aid and investment from the American aerospace manufacturing company, the Boeing Corporation. In 1974, the Tennessee state legislature unsuccessfully proposed a bill seeking to incorporate the Timberlake area into a city. Boeing determined that the project was not economically feasible and withdrew in 1975; the plans never fully materialized.{{cite web |last1=Van West |first1=Carroll |title=Monroe County |url=https://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entries/monroe-county/ |website=Tennessee Encyclopedia |publisher=Tennessee Historical Society |access-date=July 25, 2022 |date=October 8, 2017 |archive-date=August 9, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220809070351/https://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entries/monroe-county/ |url-status=live }}

{{multiple image

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| image1 = Morganton-tennessee-1939-tva1.gif

| alt1 = Morganton site pre-Tellico

| image2 = Morganton-site-tennessee1.jpg

| alt2 = Morganton site post-Tellico

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| footer = The town of Morganton was one of several communities seized and inundated by the TVA for the Tellico Project.}}

The Tellico Dam project required the acquisition of nearly {{convert|38000|acres}} of property for its development. The reservoir created by the dam was forecast to extend over {{convert|16500|acres}} with an extra {{convert|2900|acres}} in flood control reserves. For the remaining area, TVA allocated {{convert|16500|acres}} for residential, recreational, and industrial development as part of the proposed Timberlake planned city project. The remaining land served as buffer zones between development areas and the reservoir.{{cite book |author1=Tennessee Valley Authority |title=Tellico Project Environmental Impact Statement · Volume 1 |date=February 10, 1972 |publisher=U.S. Government Printing Office |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=b9U3AQAAMAAJ&q=acres |access-date=July 24, 2022 |chapter=Land Use and Aesthetics |archive-date=January 11, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230111024403/https://www.google.com/books/edition/Tellico_Project/b9U3AQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=acres |url-status=live }} When the TVA began to approach property owners in the Lower Tennessee Valley for the development of Tellico Dam, several communities that TVA sought to "modernize" through this project were at the time in touch with most of the modern Appalachian society that TVA had contributed to since the 1930s. Members of the river shed communities least impacted by modernization reacted most positively to TVA's plans, compared with the more modern communities. Historians of the project have suggested that most TVA personnel did not understand the complexity of the communities that they were intruding into with the Tellico project, leading to more heated opposition.{{cite book |last1=Wheeler |first1=William Bruce |last2=McDonald |first2=Michael J. |title=TVA and the Tellico Dam, 1936-1979 A Bureaucratic Crisis in Post-Industrial America |date=1986 |publisher=University of Tennessee Press |location=Knoxville, Tennessee |isbn=9780870494925 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IDjL3DujK6wC&q=Communities |access-date=July 24, 2022 |archive-date=January 11, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230111024349/https://www.google.com/books/edition/TVA_and_the_Tellico_Dam_1936_1979/IDjL3DujK6wC?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=Communities |url-status=live }}{{rp|62–63}}

File:Little Tennessee River (5149475130).jpg in 2010. Prior to the Tellico Dam, the river resembled this portion in the Little Tennessee Valley.]]

The Tellico Project was revealed to the public as early as 1960, with reactions similar to previous TVA projects. Public meetings commenced throughout the Little Tennessee Valley in the mid-1960s at civic spaces in Loudon, Blount, and Monroe counties to address concerns raised by citizens about the Tellico and Timberlake projects. At the time, TVA officials did not expect that the Tellico Project would be met with anything more than token opposition.{{cite news |last1=Millsaps |first1=Tommy |title=A look back: Closing the Tellico Dam gates |url=https://www.advocateanddemocrat.com/news/article_1d20abdc-a6e6-5006-9931-389bbe40538e.html |access-date=July 24, 2022 |work=The Advocate Democrat |date=November 30, 2009 |archive-date=January 11, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230111024406/https://www.advocateanddemocrat.com/news/article_1d20abdc-a6e6-5006-9931-389bbe40538e.html |url-status=live }} In 1963, small clusters of Little Tennessee Valley landowners and businesspeople formed a community group known as the Fort Loudoun Association opposing the Tellico project. Extensive local opposition emerged at a public forum on September 22, 1964, at Greenback High School in the town of Greenback, located on the proposed eastern shore of the Tellico reservoir. Four hundred residents attended with over 90% reporting strong opposition. Attendees grew hostile, perceiving the Tellico project as an intrusion. One month after the contentious meeting at Greenback High School, anti-Tellico individuals formed a larger opposition group, the Association for the Preservation of the Little Tennessee River. This move showed that project opposition was not one that "would easily buckle and roll over before the mighty presence of the Tennessee Valley Authority".{{rp|64–86}}

The property acquisition phase of the project required the use of eminent domain, a statutory right granted to TVA at its establishment by Congress in 1933. This legal authority allowed TVA to take ownership of private property for uses the TVA deemed to be for public benefit.{{cite book |last1=Muldowny |first1=John |last2=McDonald |first2=Michael |title=TVA and the Dispossessed: The Resettlement of Population in the Norris Dam Area |date=1981 |publisher=University of Tennessee Press |isbn=9781572331648 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_vUrhbkRLiAC |access-date=July 4, 2021 |archive-date=January 11, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230111024357/https://www.google.com/books/edition/TVA_and_the_Dispossessed/_vUrhbkRLiAC?hl=en&gbpv=0 |url-status=live }} Many property owners concerned about seizure of land reported that TVA personnel provided "taking lines" about the extent of private land acquisition that was planned. Many viewed these actions as TVA overreaching their authority, provoking more public opposition to the project.{{rp|125–129}} Compared with TVA's early hydroelectric projects, the documentation of residents to be relocated was poorly executed. TVA officials did not document the exact number of families that were affected, even after the property acquisition process had started in 1963. Initial estimates suggested the removal of 600 families, whereas the actual number was closer to 350 families. The individuals in each of these 350 families were not recorded.{{rp|125–129}} Most of the families who were required to move complied, but three unwilling property owners were evicted by U.S. Marshals and watched their houses being demolished as they were evicted.{{cite news |last1=Rawls Jr. |first1=Wendell |title=Forgotten People of the Tellico Dam Fight |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1979/11/11/archives/forgotten-people-of-the-tellico-dam-fight-right-of-eminent-domain.html |access-date=July 25, 2022 |work=The New York Times |date=November 11, 1979 |archive-date=July 26, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220726020225/https://www.nytimes.com/1979/11/11/archives/forgotten-people-of-the-tellico-dam-fight-right-of-eminent-domain.html |url-status=live }} The Tellico project also had a significant impact on farming, with 330 farms along the Little Tennessee River lost following inundation.{{cite web |title="The Snail Darter and the Dam" Author Speaks at Eastern |url=https://www.easternct.edu/news/_stories-and-releases/2016/04-april/the-snail-darter-and-the-dam-author-speaks-at-eastern.html |website=Eastern Connecticut State University |access-date=August 5, 2022 |date=April 6, 2016 |archive-date=August 5, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220805143543/https://www.easternct.edu/news/_stories-and-releases/2016/04-april/the-snail-darter-and-the-dam-author-speaks-at-eastern.html |url-status=live }} In total, $25.5 million was spent by the TVA for land acquisition.

File:Early Tellico Dam Construction.jpg

The engineering design of the Tellico Dam project consisted of a {{convert|600|ft|m|adj=mid|-long|abbr=on}} by {{convert|129|ft|m|adj=mid|-high|abbr=on}} concrete gravity dam with flood gates, a {{convert|2500|ft|m|adj=mid|-long|abbr=on}} earthen dam, and an {{convert|850|ft|m|adj=mid|-long|abbr=on}}, {{convert|500|ft|m|adj=mid|-wide|abbr=on}} navigable canal connecting the Tellico Reservoir impoundment to the Fort Loudoun impoundment of the Tennessee River. The dam itself created the Tellico Reservoir impoundment of the Little Tennessee River. The Tellico Reservoir with a full pool water capacity of {{cvt|467600|acre feet|m3}}, a drainage basin of {{cvt|2627|mi2|km2}}, and a water surface area of {{cvt|14200|acre|ha}}. Along the shoreline of the proposed reservoir, roughly {{cvt|23600|acre|ha}} would be acquired to be cleared and graded for future residential, commercial, industrial, and recreational area development.{{cite book |last1=Plater |first1=Zygmunt J.B. |title=The Snail Darter and the Dam: How Pork-Barrel Politics Endangered a Little Fish and Killed a River |date=June 18, 2013 |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=9780300195262 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8L_8nV6j4TQC&q=more%20than%2023,600 |access-date=August 10, 2023}}

Construction on the Tellico Project began on March 7, 1967, with clearing work for the main dam structure. Work on the concrete structure of the dam was complete by October of the next year.{{cite book |author1=Tennessee Valley Authority |title=Environmental Statement, Tellico Project Volume 1 |date=1972 |publisher=U.S. Government Printing Office |location=Knoxville, Tennessee |pages=I-1-1-I-1-5 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=15xTAAAAYAAJ |access-date=August 6, 2022 |archive-date=January 11, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230111024354/https://www.google.com/books/edition/Environmental_Statement_Tellico_Project/15xTAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0 |url-status=live }} Other portions of the dam constructed with earth fill were complete by August 1975, with the river flow from the original Little Tennessee soon forced via pump through the completed sluice gates of the main concrete dam.{{cite book |author1=Tennessee Valley Authority |title=Alternatives for Completing the Tellico Project |date=December 1978 |publisher=U.S. Government Printing Office |location=Knoxville, Tennessee |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=i9U3AQAAMAAJ&q=construction |access-date=August 7, 2022 |archive-date=January 11, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230111024409/https://www.google.com/books/edition/Tellico_Project/i9U3AQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=construction |url-status=live }} Around this time, work on coffer dams to assist with the main dam were complete. By the time of the forced closure of construction, work on the Tellico Project was nearly 90% complete, aside from final land clearing, recreational facility preparation, and a highway system that was nearly finished.

File:TVA engineers monitoring Tellico Dam model.jpg on a prototype of Tellico Dam.]]

In total, $63 million was endowed for the construction of the concrete dam and spillway, the main earth dam, coffer dams, roadway and railroad facilities, reservoir clearing, utility relocations, access roads, a canal with access to the Tennessee River, public use facilities, and general yard improvements.{{cite book |last1=Dorward |first1=Frances Brown |title=Dam Greed |date=2009 |publisher=Xlibris Corporation |isbn=9781436379472 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=e61D9jp1cC8C |access-date=August 7, 2022 |archive-date=January 11, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230111024359/https://www.google.com/books/edition/Dam_Greed/e61D9jp1cC8C?hl=en&gbpv=0 |url-status=live }} Most of this funding was used for the dam, over {{Convert|65|mi|abbr=}} of state, county, and local access roads, and three large-scale bridge replacement projects. The TVA also invested another $3.6 million for two major road projects scheduled for initial work starting after the completion and opening of the Tellico Dam structure. Officials with the Tennessee Department of Transportation expressed doubt about the completion of the Tellico Parkway (State Route 444), one of these major road projects.

The TVA received nearly $665,000 in revenue as the project was underway. Timber cleared for the project provided $99,000 and farmland and housing seized by the agency was leased with a revenue close to $566,000. Labor costs for the project totaled $24.7 million, with most of this associated with the construction of the main Tellico Dam structure. Engineering, planning, and administrative services for the project cost $14.7 million.

{{redirect|Tellico Dam controversy|more details about the snail darters|Snail darter controversy}}

File:Percina tanasi01.jpg fish, endangered at the time of the Tellico project's construction, was the subject of calls to halt work on the dam, and a Supreme Court decision regarding the Endangered Species Act.]]

Prior to any construction work, the Tennessee Fish and Game Commission addressed concerns to TVA personnel that the construction of Tellico Dam would bring the demise of trout fishing on the Little Tennessee.

TVA attempted to control and defuse local controversy regarding the Tellico Project with the formation of local group known as the Little Tennessee River Valley Development Association (LTRVDA) in 1963. However, within a year, the LTRVDA was unable to control local opposition. Citing the loss of prime farmland, in December 1964 the Tennessee Farm Bureau Association passed resolutions protesting the completion of Tellico Dam. One year later, delegates from the Cherokee Nation filed a petition protesting the desecration of their ancestral lands that were proposed to be flooded for the Tellico Dam. This petition was sent to the office of Supreme Court Associate Justice William O. Douglas, who forwarded the petition to President Lyndon B. Johnson.

In 1971, University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK) economics professor Keith Phillips criticized TVA's plans for Tellico Dam in a reappraisal of the project. Phillips found fault with the cost and benefits evaluation conducted by the TVA, and suggested that the agency's officials on the project were technically incompetent.

Following continued press of TVA's excessive and "abusive" power regarding the agency's property acquisition methods for the Tellico Project, Republican governor Winfield Dunn wrote in a 1971 letter of dissent to TVA chair Wagner to stop construction of Tellico Dam, stating that the TVA should recognize "that the Little Tennessee as it now exists is a waterway too valuable for the State of Tennessee to sacrifice." TVA rejected Dunn's request in a letter of response one year later.

Finding an opportunity, Little Tennessee Valley farmers and environmentalists formed a joint activist group known as the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) in 1972. The EDF brought suit against TVA under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), claiming that no environmental impact statement (EIS) had been made, violating the NEPA. In court, TVA personnel presented an EIS completed prior to the lawsuit by the EDF. The case was dismissed, allowing construction to continue without disruption.{{Cite web |title=Environmental Defense Fund v. Tennessee Valley Auth., 339 F. Supp. 806 (E.D. Tenn. 1972) |url=https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/339/806/1460661/ |access-date=January 1, 2021 |website=Justia Law |language=en |archive-date=August 10, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200810000224/https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/339/806/1460661/ |url-status=live }}

File:Howard Baker 1989.jpg openly supported the completion of the Tellico Dam, and had referred to the snail darter as his "nemesis."{{cite news |last1=Matthiessen |first1=Peter |title=How to Kill a Valley |url=https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1980/02/07/how-to-kill-a-valley/ |access-date=August 6, 2022 |work=The New York Review |date=February 7, 1980 |archive-date=August 7, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220807025322/https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1980/02/07/how-to-kill-a-valley/ |url-status=live }}]]

On August 12, 1973, a group of students led by UTK biology professor David Etnier conducted a study for possible endangered species via snorkeling in the Little Tennessee River during construction operations on Tellico Dam. Prior to the expedition, Etnier predicted up to ten endangered species occupied the proposed Tellico Reservoir basin. In the Coytee Springs shoal area of the Little Tennessee, Etnier identified several snail darters, to which in a later interview with the Knoxville News Sentinel suggested he "knew nobody had ever seen it before." Four months later, the Nixon administration passed the Endangered Species Act of 1973 (ESA), providing federal protection for endangered species from potential habitat destructions. By this point, the dam was well under construction and already over US$53 million (equivalent to ${{formatprice|{{inflation|US-GDP|53000000|1973}}}} in {{inflation-year|US-GDP}}{{inflation-fn|US-GDP}}) had been spent on the construction work, requiring an injunction to stop the building from continuing and the flooding to happen. On November 10, 1975, the snail darter was placed on the Endangered Species list by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS).

{{main|Tennessee Valley Authority v. Hill}}

Seeking to protect the snail darter, UTK law student Hiram "Hank" Hill, in collaboration with David Etnier, filed the case Tennessee Valley Authority v. Hill, 437 U.S. 153 in federal court, citing that the TVA was in violation of the ESA. District Court Judge Robert Taylor declined an injunction to order the cessation of construction work on Tellico Dam on May 25, 1976.

However, on January 31, 1977, the District Court's decision was reversed and construction on the dam was ordered to stop, following an injunction from the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.{{cite web |title=The Tennessee Valley Authority's Tellico Dam Project--Costs, Alternatives, and Benefits |url=https://www.gao.gov/assets/emd-77-58.pdf |website=U.S. Government Accountability Office |publisher=U.S. Government Printing Office |access-date=July 26, 2022 |date=October 14, 1977 |url-status=live |archive-date=July 27, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220727013721/https://www.gao.gov/assets/emd-77-58.pdf }} The TVA then petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to remove the snail darter as an endangered species on February 28. The FWS denied this request in December. On behalf of the TVA, the United States Department of Justice filed an appeal against the decision of the 6th Circuit regarding Tennessee Valley Authority v. Hill on January 25, 1978, to the Supreme Court of the United States.{{cite web |url=https://www.loc.gov/today/pr/2014/14-031.html?loclr=rssloc |title=Zygmunt Plater to Discuss His Book The Snail Darter and the Dam, March 13 |publisher=Library of Congress |date=February 21, 2014 |access-date=February 21, 2014 |author=Urschel, Donna |archive-date=March 1, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140301210049/http://www.loc.gov/today/pr/2014/14-031.html?loclr=rssloc |url-status=live }} In Hill, the Supreme Court affirmed, by a 6–3 vote, the injunction issued by the 6th Circuit Appeals Court to stop construction of the dam. Citing explicit wording of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) to ensure that habitat for listed species is not disrupted, the Court said "it is clear that the TVA's proposed operation of the dam will have precisely the opposite effect, namely the eradication of an endangered species."[http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=437&invol=153 "Decision in TVA v. Hill"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040922011510/http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=437&invol=153 |date=September 22, 2004 }}, U.S. Supreme Court, 437 U.S. 153, decided June 15, 1978

File:Nellie McCall at her Greenback farm, 1979.png

In the ensuing controversy over the snail darter, the Endangered Species Committee (also known as the "God Squad") was convened to issue a waiver of ESA protection of the snail darter. In a unanimous decision, the Committee refused to exempt the Tellico Dam project. Charles Schultze, the chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers, later cited economic assessments concluding that, despite the Tellico Dam being 95% complete, "if one takes just the cost of finishing it against the benefits and does it properly, it doesn't pay, which says something about the original design."Zygmunt Plater, "[http://www.tba.org/Journal_Current/200804/TBJ-200804-coverStory.html Tiny Fish/Big Battle] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080907160611/http://www.tba.org/Journal_Current/200804/TBJ-200804-coverStory.html |date=September 7, 2008 }}." Tennessee Bar Journal 44, no. 4 (April 2008). Retrieved: April 21, 2008. Following publication of a story by The New York Times (NYT) regarding the death of nearly 100 snail darters during an October 1977 translocation operation, the TVA Director of Information John Van went on damage control in a subsequent NYT editorial, directing the blame towards the lack of adequate netting by the FWS.{{cite news |last1=Van |first1=John |title=Why 98 Snail Darters Died |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1977/12/03/archives/letter-on-tvas-tellico-dam.html |access-date=July 27, 2022 |work=The New York Times |date=December 3, 1977 |archive-date=July 28, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220728015216/https://www.nytimes.com/1977/12/03/archives/letter-on-tvas-tellico-dam.html |url-status=live }}

After a long battle, Congress exempted the Tellico Dam from the Endangered Species Act by adding a rider clause to an unrelated public works bill. On September 25, 1979, President Jimmy Carter signed the bill exempting the Tellico project from the ESA. Carter had previously and publicly opposed the completion of the dam, but administration officials speculated that an attempt to veto the bill would result in legislative retaliation against Carter's plans for revising treaties for the Panama Canal Zone's ownership, and the establishment of a federal department for educational affairs, two issues the Carter administration prioritized for passing.{{cite news |last1=Hornblower |first1=Margot |date=September 26, 1979 |title=Carter Signs Bill Forcing Tellico Dam Completion |newspaper=Washington Post |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1979/09/26/carter-signs-bill-forcing-tellico-dam-completion/7e57e3c0-d186-4bcf-9930-842c07e21c81/ |access-date=July 24, 2022 |archive-date=March 5, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220305000310/https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1979/09/26/carter-signs-bill-forcing-tellico-dam-completion/7e57e3c0-d186-4bcf-9930-842c07e21c81/ |url-status=live }}

{{main|Sequoyah v. Tennessee Valley Authority}}

Image:Draught of the Cherokee Country.jpg

In 1979, three Cherokee individuals and two Cherokee bands/organizations filed suit against the TVA to restrain the flooding of sacred homeland in Sequoyah v. Tennessee Valley Authority, to no avail. Archeological surveys and salvage excavations were conducted in some areas because this area was known to have contained numerous 18th-century Overhill Cherokee towns. But the sites of Tanasi, Chota, Toqua, Tomotley, Citico, Mialoquo and Tuskegee were all flooded by the reservoir behind the dam.{{cite thesis |last=Gilmer |first=Robert A. |title=In the shadow of removal:historical memory, Indianness, and the Tellico Dam Project. |url=https://conservancy.umn.edu/handle/11299/107657 |website=University of Michigan |publisher=University of Michigan |access-date=August 6, 2022 |format=PDF |date=2011 |hdl=11299/107657 |archive-date=December 7, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211207015033/https://conservancy.umn.edu/handle/11299/107657 |url-status=live }} Some of these had been occupied by ancestors of the Cherokee for up to 1,000 years, based on the earthwork platform mounds built at their centers by people of the South Appalachian Mississippian culture. In their succeeding long occupancy, the Cherokee had built councilhouses on top of the mounds. In addition, other prehistoric sites, dating to as early as the Archaic period, were flooded.

The town of Morganton and its port was submerged by the Tellico reservoir.Jefferson Chapman, Tellico Archaeology: 12,000 Years of Native American History (Tennessee Valley Authority, 1985). The British colonial Fort Loudoun was relocated from its original site by excavation of soil required to raise the site by {{cvt|17|ft|m|0}}, and the fort was reconstructed into a state park.Vicki Rozema, Footsteps of the Cherokees: A Guide to the Eastern Homelands of the Cherokee Nation (Winston-Salem: John F. Blair), 135.

Remnant populations of the snail darter were later removed from the Little Tennessee River and translocated into other streams. In total, 219 snail darters were removed from the Tellico basin.{{cite news |title=A watery end: Tellico Dam fueled debate, lawsuits, tears |url=https://archive.knoxnews.com/news/local/a-watery-end-tellico-dam-fueled-debate-lawsuits-tears-ep-360218761-356724041.html/ |access-date=July 26, 2022 |work=Knoxville News Sentinel |date=August 26, 2012 |archive-date=July 27, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220727011257/https://archive.knoxnews.com/news/local/a-watery-end-tellico-dam-fueled-debate-lawsuits-tears-ep-360218761-356724041.html/ |url-status=live }} Most of these were transferred to the Hiwassee River in Polk County in southeast Tennessee, and were established by 1982. The Holston, French Broad, Nolichucky rivers of central East Tennessee have also been established as habitats for the snail darter.{{cite web |title=Percina tanasi Etnier, 1976 |url=https://nas.er.usgs.gov/queries/FactSheet.aspx?SpeciesID=827 |website=Nonindigenous Aquatic Species - United States Geological Survey |access-date=January 11, 2023}}

{{multiple image

| width=220

| image1=Fort-loudoun-southeast-tn1.jpg

| alt1=Log buildings along a reservoir shoreline

| image2=Tanasi-monument-tn1.jpg

| alt2=Concrete monument with view of reservoir in the background

| direction=vertical

| footer=The original location of two historic sites, Fort Loudoun, the first British outpost in Tennessee (top),James C. Kelly, "Fort Loudoun: A British Stronghold in the Tennessee Country," East Tennessee Historical Society Publications, Vol. 50 (1978), pp. 72-92. and Tanasi, a Cherokee tribal village that Tennessee's naming originated from (bottom),{{cite book |last=Bales |first=Stephen Lyn |date=2007 |title=Natural Histories: Stories from the Tennessee Valley |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aIZmfXFGydwC |location=Knoxville |publisher=University of Tennessee Press |pages=85–86 |isbn=978-1572335615 |via=Google Books |access-date=August 6, 2022 |archive-date=January 11, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230111024358/https://www.google.com/books/edition/Natural_Histories/aIZmfXFGydwC?hl |url-status=live }} were permanently lost with Tellico Project's completion. Fort Loudoun would be reconstructed on a new site, and a monument was constructed near the original site of Tanasi.{{cite book |last1=Callahan |first1=North |title=TVA: Bridge Over Troubled Waters |date=1980 |publisher=A. S. Barnes |isbn=9780498024900 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=p261AAAAIAAJ |access-date=August 5, 2022 |archive-date=January 11, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230111024352/https://www.google.com/books/edition/TVA/p261AAAAIAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0 |url-status=live }}}}

Tellico Reservoir began filling on November 29, 1979, after the gates were closed on the dam.

Still intent on development projects to improve the economic conditions of the Little Tennessee Valley, TVA began sales on lakefront acreage that the agency seized through eminent domain.{{cite news |last1=Madden |first1=Tom |title=Private land TVA claimed for lake to be given away to developers |url=https://www.upi.com/Archives/1981/07/02/Private-land-TVA-claimed-for-lake-to-be-given-away-to-developers/4201362894400/ |access-date=July 25, 2022 |work=UPI |date=July 2, 1981 |archive-date=October 25, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211025165742/https://www.upi.com/Archives/1981/07/02/Private-land-TVA-claimed-for-lake-to-be-given-away-to-developers/4201362894400/ |url-status=live }} Many impacted landowners were unable to qualify to bid on their former properties.{{cite news |last1=Holland |first1=Steve |title=TVA sold the shores of Tellico Lake to a... |url=https://www.upi.com/Archives/1982/11/26/TVA-sold-the-shores-of-Tellico-Lake-to-a/3603407134800/ |access-date=August 6, 2022 |work=UPI |date=November 26, 1982}} Respective analysis of TVA's acquisition methods with the Tellico Project have been cited as abuse of property rights.{{cite news |last1=Venable |first1=Sam |title=Many decades later, ramifications of the Tellico project endure |url=https://www.knoxnews.com/story/entertainment/columnists/sam-venable/2022/10/13/sam-venable-snail-darter-ramifications-tellico-dam-project-endure/69552752007/ |access-date=August 10, 2023 |work=Knoxville News Sentinel |date=October 13, 2022}}

In April 1982, the Tellico Reservoir Development Agency (TRDA) was established by the Tennessee state legislature with state and TVA funding, to promote economic development initiatives in the Tellico region. The TRDA assisted in the creation of several industrial parks for corporate investment seeking to reduce local unemployment. In September of the same year, the TVA proposed constructing toxic waste dumps on Tellico-acquired sites. One of these development sites known as the Tellico Peninsula, was billed as the prime site in the Tellico area. Despite several attempts, the Tellico Peninsula site has remained largely undeveloped since site preparation work was completed in the 1980s, aside from a Christensen Shipyards facility which closed following the Great Recession in 2011.{{cite news |last1=Nash |first1=Jeremy |title=Tellico peninsula to be reworked |url=https://www.news-herald.net/news/tellico-peninsula-to-be-reworked/article_20901d6e-6cc3-5b64-bf55-b0ae8e885f54.html |access-date=July 25, 2022 |work=News-Herald |date=September 6, 2017 |archive-date=January 11, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230111024404/https://www.news-herald.net/news/tellico-peninsula-to-be-reworked/article_20901d6e-6cc3-5b64-bf55-b0ae8e885f54.html |url-status=live }} In 2017, proposals were announced for the site to be redeveloped into a mixed-use community.

File:TVA Surplus.png

{{See also|Tellico Village, Tennessee|Rarity Bay, Tennessee|}}

The residential component of the failed Timberlake project was relaunched in late 1984 with the purchase of roughly {{convert|4800|acres}} along the western shore of the Tellico Reservoir by Cooper Communities Inc. (CCI), a real estate firm based out of Bella Vista, Arkansas.{{cite web |last1=Wilkerson |first1=Worth |title=Tellico Village: Its Origins and History |url=https://tellicovillage.org/wp-content/uploads/History-Tellico-Village.pdf |website=Tellico Village |access-date=July 25, 2022 |archive-date=November 17, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221117061025/https://tellicovillage.org/wp-content/uploads/History-Tellico-Village.pdf |url-status=live }} The development became a planned retirement community known as Tellico Village that officially opened in March 1986. CCI promoted Tellico Village and the Tellico Reservoir at golf and boat conventions across the Midwestern United States. Since the development of Tellico Village, the Tellico area has drawn retirees from the Midwest and Florida, initiating a retirement-oriented real estate boom in the area.{{cite news |last1=Chamberlain |first1=Lisa |title=Drawn to Eastern Tennessee's Natural Beauty |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/09/realestate/09nati.html |access-date=July 27, 2022 |work=The New York Times |date=July 9, 2006 |archive-date=July 28, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220728023410/https://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/09/realestate/09nati.html |url-status=live }}

By the late 1990s and into the 2000s, the TVA was pressured by private development groups to release additional acreage that had been seized via eminent domain along the shoreline of several reservoirs. The intention was for predominantly golf course-based residential resorts. In 1995, a 960-acre community known as Rarity Bay was constructed, including an equestrian center and 18-hole golf course. Mike Ross, the developer behind Rarity Bay built several additional resort developments on TVA's shoreline property, before being charged in federal court with mail fraud and money laundering in 2012.{{cite web |last1=Schaffer |first1=Marian |title=Rarity Communities Founder, Mike Ross Indicted |url=https://www.southeastdiscovery.com/blog/2012/12/rarity-communities-founder-mike-ross-indicted/ |website=Southeast Discovery |access-date=July 27, 2022 |date=December 7, 2012 |archive-date=July 28, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220728022935/https://www.southeastdiscovery.com/blog/2012/12/rarity-communities-founder-mike-ross-indicted/ |url-status=live }}

In 2002, the TVA board of directors approved the sale of preserved land on the eastern shore of Tellico Reservoir for a $750 million golf-course community known as Rarity Pointe.{{cite web |title=TVA awash in pressure on lakefront development |url=http://www.moccasinbend.net/cita/slcmdc/KNS-8dec04-TVA-awash.html |website=moccasinbend.net |publisher=Associated Press |access-date=July 27, 2022 |date=December 8, 2004 |archive-date=July 28, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220728021001/http://www.moccasinbend.net/cita/slcmdc/KNS-8dec04-TVA-awash.html |url-status=live }} In 2012, Rarity Pointe was purchased by WindRiver Management LLC, leading to expansion of the site and the renaming of the community from Rarity Pointe to WindRiver.{{cite web |title=Rarity Pointe Commercial Recreation and Residential Development on Tellico Reservoir, Loudon and Monroe Counties, Tennessee |url=https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2017-09-15/pdf/2017-19657.pdf |website=Federal Register |publisher=U.S. Government Printing Office |access-date=July 27, 2022 |date=September 15, 2017 |archive-date=November 17, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221117061141/https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2017-09-15/pdf/2017-19657.pdf |url-status=live }}

The snail darter was removed from the Endangered Species list by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service on August 6, 1983. The fish was still classified as a threatened species because the Hiwassee River, where the snail darters from the Little Tennessee had been translocated, had a previous history of acid spills from freight train accidents. By 2021, the snail darter was removed as a threatened species, with the FWS reporting the snail darter population had recovered from any risk of endangerment.{{cite news |last1=Kruesi |first1=Kimberlee |title=Snail darter, tiny and notorious, is no longer endangered |url=https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/snail-darter-humble-fish-blocked-dam-longer-endangered-79743238 |access-date=August 6, 2022 |work=ABC News |publisher=Associated Press |date=August 31, 2021 |archive-date=August 6, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220806162100/https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/snail-darter-humble-fish-blocked-dam-longer-endangered-79743238 |url-status=live }}

File:Morganton-tennessee-cemetery.jpg

As at 2022, the Tellico Dam remains the last dam to be built by the TVA.{{cite web |title=Building a Better Life for the Tennessee Valley |url=https://www.tva.com/About-TVA/Our-History/Built-for-the-People/Building-a-Better-Life-for-the-Tennessee-Valley |website=Tennessee Valley Authority |access-date=July 25, 2022 |archive-date=July 26, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220726011354/https://www.tva.com/About-TVA/Our-History/Built-for-the-People/Building-a-Better-Life-for-the-Tennessee-Valley |url-status=live }}{{cite web |title=Tellico Reservoir Land Management Plan |url=https://www.tva.com/environment/environmental-stewardship/land-management/reservoir-land-management-plans/tellico-reservoir-land-management-plan |website=Tennessee Valley Authority |access-date=July 31, 2022 |date=March 4, 2022 |archive-date=August 1, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220801012608/https://www.tva.com/environment/environmental-stewardship/land-management/reservoir-land-management-plans/tellico-reservoir-land-management-plan |url-status=live }} Until the events of the Tellico Project, the moral and economic value of building a dam was rarely questioned; dams were widely considered to represent progress and technological prowess. Throughout the 20th-century, the United States had built thousands of dams, often to generate hydroelectric power and provide flood control.Marc Reisner, Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water, (1986), p. 165 By the 1950s, most of the adequate dam sites in the United States had been used, and it became increasingly difficult to justify new dam projects. Government agencies such as TVA, the Bureau of Reclamation, and the Army Corps of Engineers continued to construct new dams, often at the behest of congressional representatives of impacted areas such as in the case of Tellico Dam. However, by the 1970s, the era of dam-building effectively ended in the U.S. with the Tellico Dam case illustrating changing attitudes. Retrospective analysis of the Tellico Dam case has referred to the project as a pork barrel.

From 1933, with the beginning of the pivotal Norris Project to the end of the Tellico project in 1979, TVA had forcibly removed more than 125,000 residents of the Tennessee Valley.{{cite journal |author1=John Gaventa |title=Book Review, 'TVA and the Dispossessed: The Resettlement of Population in the Norris Dam Area' |journal=Tennessee Law Review |date=1982 |pages=979–983 |series=Symposium, the Tennessee Valley Authority |publisher=Tennessee Law Review Association |location=Knoxville, Tennessee |quote=Over the past fifty years the agency has had many opportunities to learn from its mistakes. Since 1933, over 125,000 residents have been displaced from their homesteads by TVA dam construction projects.}} The removal of people remains a controversial talking point on the methods and morality of TVA's dam projects. In the 1980s, TVA attempted the construction of a $83 million dam with an intent similar to Tellico, for tourism and economic development on the Duck River near the city of Columbia, Tennessee. The Columbia project resulted in failure, and the 1999 demolition of the unfinished dam as a result of environmental concerns and the escalating costs of completing the project.{{cite news |last1=Aldrich |first1=Marta W. |title=$83 Million Later, Unfinished Dam Being Dismantled |url=https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/?date=19991010&slug=2988099 |access-date=August 6, 2022 |work=Seattle Times |date=October 10, 1999 |archive-date=August 6, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220806184347/https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/?date=19991010&slug=2988099 |url-status=live }} In 2001, the 13,000-acre area set aside for the project was transferred for public use to the state of Tennessee.{{cite news |title='Happy ending' to TVA dam controversy |url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2001-08-15-0108150325-story.html |access-date=August 6, 2022 |work=Chicago Tribune |date=August 15, 2001 |archive-date=August 6, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220806184346/https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2001-08-15-0108150325-story.html |url-status=live }}

• Bussell Island
• National Register of Historic Places listings in Loudon County, Tennessee
• United States energy law

{{Reflist}}

{{Commons category}}

{{official website|https://www.tva.com/energy/our-power-system/hydroelectric/tellico}}

• [http://www.tnfish.org/TellicoReservoir_TWRA/TellicoLakeInformation_TWRA.htm Tellico Reservoir] — Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency

{{Little Tennessee River dams}}

{{Tennessee Valley Authority Facilities}}

{{Authority control}}

Category:Dams on the Little Tennessee River

Category:Buildings and structures in Loudon County, Tennessee

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Category:Dams on the National Register of Historic Places in Tennessee

Category:United States environmental case law

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