all this and FISHING too!
MILLER, HAROLD V.
all this and FISHING too! by HAROLD V. MILLER The Tennessee Valley Authority is so often discussed in terms of navigation-flood control-electric power, that we are liable to overlook some of the...
...Then the water levels were manipulated in the lakes so that shallow-water vegetation was discouraged, and by fluctuating water levels each week during the early summer, the eggs and larvae were stranded on the shore to die...
...This set the stage for recruitment of the most qualified persons available and also set the stage for an exceptional degree of employe morale...
...For example: Malaria Control Twenty-five years ago malaria was a widely prevalent disease in the Tennessee Valley...
...Here, then, are some of the subsidiary benefits that have flowed for a quarter of a century from the major operations of TVA...
...The ability of the people and their capacity for developing skills was soundly demonstrated...
...nevertheless, TVA worked out a formula based on location and value of electric power generated and secured amendment to its basic Act in order to permit it to make payments in lieu of taxes to state and local governments...
...While proceeding with the creation of reservoirs, many impassioned charges were hurled at TVA because of inundating lands previously used for agriculture...
...One of these uses is the production of fish, and it has been calculated that the commercial catch alone in Wheeler Reservoir, in northern Alabama, yielded more in human nutrition during a recent year than if the equivalent acreage had been intensively grazed by beef cattle the same year...
...The land had little to no top soil left...
...In all of these activities TVA has been firmly persuasive in contending that park facilities be reasonably available for citizens of all races...
...Individuals improve themselves and perform brilliantly in this atmosphere...
...Many fields went untended because the farmers were too sick to do their work...
...In the field of forestry, much of TVA's work is carried out through or in close cooperation with the state forestry agency...
...Training of Workers As it undertook its great construc-ton and operating tasks, TVA brought a minimum of outside expert employes into the area and promptly initiated in-service training and apprentice classes to qualify persons from the region to perform important tasks in the agency's program...
...More than 300 boat docks are available, and more than 40,000 boats of all kinds now operate where only a few crude craft were in use 25 years ago...
...Oak Ridge nuclear facilities were oriented to the Clinch River, controlled by Norris Dam, and to the upper reaches of the" relatively constant level Watts Bar Reservoir...
...Former TVA engineers have by now built many of the world's major dams and engineering projects as employes of private firms or national governments...
...From this theater of personal development and achievement they have moved out, literally by the thousands, to strategic posts in other federal agencies and other areas of public and private employment...
...Beyond that, the availability of predictable amounts of water at a particular time and place is of tremendous importance in industrial location...
...For example: Paper mills are large users of water...
...Many people have their first boating or fishing experience at a public access point...
...When TVA proposed to build dams that would create broad lakes with miles of shallow-water shorelines, there were objections and dire predictions of a much wider scourge of malaria...
...It soon became apparent, however, that with the damming of a stream and the impounding of waters, the fish present proceeded to multiply readily and get on with natural stocking of the new habitat...
...When TVA was established, experts of the U.S...
...Out of this early localized program of planning assistance grew a statewide program which ultimately became the basis for nationwide federal aid to local planning through the states under the Housing Act of 1954...
...These recommendations were met with surprise and skepticism and for a time encountered resistance and disbelief...
...This successful procedure has been valuable as a guide to other federal agencies with similar problems...
...They emphasize in their quiet way that TVA was indeed "built for the people of the United States of America...
...Below the draw-down levels in the deeper parts of the reservoirs some of the trees and brush felled in the clearing process were fastened down to stumps and rocks in order to provide hiding places for fish and to make it possible for smaller fish to survive pursuit by the larger ones...
...Many less spectacular installations are made' possible as industries locate in the several communities, assured of water supply^ whether through their own or'municipal sysPRITCHETT FARM—1951...
...Accordingly, nearly 2,000 small areas around the lakes, selected after careful study, were set aside for roadside parks and public access points where people can get on the lakes...
...PRITCHETT FARM—1953...
...From nearly 30 per cent incidence in 1934 the rate dropped to one per cent in 1941 and to zero in 1949...
...The states were encouraged to include shoreline locations in their systems of state parks, and to date twelve areas with an aggregate of more than 18,000 acres have become state parks either through sales, lease, or the granting of easements...
...In its role as a regional development agency, TVA concerned itself with many of the natural resources of the region...
...by HAROLD V. MILLER The Tennessee Valley Authority is so often discussed in terms of navigation-flood control-electric power, that we are liable to overlook some of the subsidiary benefits arising from the agency and its operation...
...Impact on Government The upgrading- effect of TVA on government generally has been of far-reaching significance...
...In the tier of counties on both sides of the Tennessee River, in northern Alabama, a third of the people had the debilitating disease...
...TVA recognized that its activities had immediate disrupting effect on established patterns of taxation and local finance as it purchased the physical assets of various electric companies operating within its region...
...He has served as adviser to the West German government on urban planning and reconstruction and as consultant on city planning to Bangkok, Thailand...
...The recreational use of the TVA lakes is a major factor in the tremendous growth of recreation and tourism as a category in the economy of the states and is now generally reckoned, along with manufacturing and agriculture, among the top three sources of income...
...Legal and administrative personnel have been called to a number of major federal agencies ranging from temporary agencies created during World War II to cabinet level posts and the Atomic Energy Commission...
...those who become addicted to the water sports are customers for the many boat dealers, patrons of the private boat docks, and perhaps even buy into the hundreds of subdivisions and thousands of building lots laid out in relation to the reservoirs...
...Finally, state laws were changed on an experimental basis and the successful year-'round fishing season now exists throughout the system of TVA lakes...
...The same story of encouragement of the states and assumption of responsibilities by the states is reflected in numerous state departments and agencies...
...For example, while it was TVA's responsibility to construct dams and create reservoirs which inevitably had impact in individual towns, TVA took the position that it was not a necessary federal activity to direct the adjustments which communities should make to these changed conditions...
...tems, due to upstream storage maintaining an annual flow in the rivers and smaller streams...
...However, these lands now serve several purposes, any of which constitute economic justification for inundation...
...They knew how the visitor can drive for miles around the lakes in Florida or Michigan and around ponds in New England and never have a chance to get to the water because all of the shoreline is in private ownership and protected against trespassing...
...But the factor permitting its location at the precise desirable point some 40 miles northeast of Chattanooga was the predictable water supply in the Hiwassee River made possible by upstream storage at Apalachia, Hiwassee, Chatuge, Nottely, and lesser dams on the Hiwassee and its tributaries...
...But even the 65 developed parks would not give adequate and convenient opportunity for access to the lakes, spread among 10,000 miles of shoreline...
...In constructing reservoirs TVA made many provisions for good fishing...
...Together they add up to an impressive record of achievement in areas too little known...
...Here an early test-demonstration farmer talks over with his county agent the results of application of phosphate and lime...
...It had the additional effect of proving to people outside the area that these were not in fact an ignorant, incompetent bunch of hillbillies...
...In the process of land survey and land acquisition for reservoir purposes, those areas having particular potentialities for public park purposes were identified...
...This is no empty phrase, and its application extends to the reservoirs as well as to the dams...
...With the cooperation of state and local health departments thousands of blood samples were taken each year to check the prevalence of malaria...
...Recreation and Parks Visitors to the TVA dams see the plaques which read, "Built for the people of the United States...
...Crops" were worthless stubble and sage...
...In the national scene, TVA's system of making payments in lieu of taxes to state and local governments has had considerable value as an incentive and model for other federal agencies...
...Rather, it arranged through the State Planning Commission that professional city planning employes of the state be dispatched to offer technical advice to the local communities as an aid in making their own decisions in such matters...
...to permit year-'round fishing, including the spring spawning season...
...Much of the farmland in the TVA region has been improved as dramatically as this through TVA-inspired planning...
...This picture shows the same landscape with the open acres now completely covered with a highly nutritious mixture of legumes and grasses...
...The check strip in the center received no fertilizer or lime...
...Former TVA technical and professional personnel are serving in a variety of capacities around the globe in the service of foreign governments or as United States representatives in foreign aid programs...
...Fishing The TVA man-made lakes have gained a considerable reputation for good fishing...
...The purchase of lands for dam and reservoir construction disrupted the traditional real property tax base...
...In the appointment and promotion of personnel, according to the TVA Act, "no political test or qualification shall be permitted or given consideration, but all such appointments and promotions shall be given and made on the basis of merit and efficiency...
...Others are prominent members of the faculties of the nation's great universities or occupy strategic positions in state and local governments...
...Stabilized Flow The capacity to store and release water is vital, of course, to the programs of navigation, flood control, and hydro-electric power production...
...Of course, new wealth was created and other taxables appeared...
...There are 23 of them, totaling some 3,600 acres...
...Both the demonstration and the improved human resource stood the region and the nation in good stead...
...In the urgent days of World War il, the availability of process water was important in the locating of munitions-producing units...
...This immediately opened skilled jobs to persons already living in the area...
...Also, 30 municipal parks have been established...
...Again, the Volunteer Ordnance Works, near Chattanooga, used the stored water of Chickamauga Lake...
...First, the lands were cleaned and drained before the new lakes were filled...
...But TVA took strong preventive measures...
...The success of these training programs was immediate and far-reaching...
...The preservation of lands for public access to the reservoirs has enhanced rather than hindered the private development of shorelines...
...It did not presume to take over responsibility for these resources, but rather chose a course of action consciously designed to encourage and strengthen the institution and programs of the states concerned with the various resources...
...TVA does not own or operate any of the 300-odd boat docks—these are all private operations...
...It was originally contemplated that fish hatcheries would be operated from which these new lakes could be stocked...
...Still others have moved into the ranks of management or into the laboratories of industry and commerce...
...Cattle had grazed on it all winter, when no hay was available because of the drought of 1952...
...TVA technical personnel concerned with developing the recrea-ational values of the lakes and their surrounding shorelands had a rough time in the early days of the agency when they espoused the idea that public access to the lakes should be preserved and safeguarded...
...People might well want to have a picnic or launch a boat and go fishing without driving long distances to one of the developed parks...
...Department of Agriculture and the state agricultural colleges recommended research on phosphate fertilizers in which valley soils were deficient...
...From the beginning, TVA consistently encouraged the development of the recreational values of its lakes by both private and public means...
...Reproduction proceeded so vigorously that within a few years TVA biologists were encouraging the revision of state game and fish laws HAROLD V. MILLER is executive director of the Tennessee State Planning Commission and state coordinator of economic development...
...Areas not so large nor so strategically located from the state standpoints were made available for park purposes under county sponsorship...
...When the Bowaters Paper Company was seeking a location for its $55,000,000 plant, forestry data and matters of transportation and power supply were taken into account...
...Absenteeism was high in the small factories in the towns and productivity was low because of the life-sapping lethargy...
...Go-mer Pritchett, White Pine, Tennessee, associated with his father in operating the home farm in Jefferson County, bought additional acreage to enlarge the unit...
...Fishing is so popular that between 2,000,000 and 3,000,000 man-days of sport are enjoyed each year, and the annual catch is well over 10,000,000 pounds...
Vol. 22 • May 1958 • No. 5
