Tennessee Valley Authority

Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), federal corporation, created by the Congress of the United States in 1933 as part of the New Deal to operate Wilson Dam and to develop the Tennessee River and its tributaries in the interest of navigation, flood control, and the production and distribution of electricity. Power generated in TVA plants is distributed over an area of about 207,000 sq km (80,000 sq mi). This region has a population of more than 7 million; it comprises Tennessee and parts of Alabama, Virginia, Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, and Mississippi.

The 50 dams operated by the TVA provide electricity, control flooding, increase the region's water supply, and provide lakes for recreational purposes. In addition, nine dams on the main stream of the Tennessee River create a series of narrow lakes that together form a continuous navigation channel 1,045 km (650 mi) long and 2.7 m (9 ft) deep. Other TVA dams are on tributaries of the Tennessee River. In flood season they store potential floodwaters, lowering flood crests substantially on the Tennessee, Ohio, and Mississippi rivers.

Twenty-nine of the dams operated by the TVA generate electricity. The TVA system also includes 11 large coal-burning steam plants generating most of the electricity produced by the TVA, which currently operates nuclear-powered electric-generating plants at sites in Alabama and Tennessee. The TVA power system annually produces more than 125 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity, which is almost 90 times as much electricity as was generated in the same region in 1933.

The TVA also conducts research and development programmes in forestry, fish and wildlife preservation, watershed protection, and air and water quality control. More than 100 valley communities with local flood problems have been offered technical guidance and improved channels and detention dams have been built where feasible.

The TVA was created in an attempt to improve the steadily worsening conditions in the Tennessee River Basin, which was suffering from frequent destructive floods, intermittent unnavigability of the river, deforestation, and severely eroded land.

In 1933 a bill creating the TVA was adopted by the US Congress and signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

During World War II, TVA power and manufacturing facilities made significant contributions to America's national defence effort. At Oak Ridge, Tennessee, a key atomic-energy installation was operated largely with TVA-produced electricity. TVA plants also produced significant quantities of munitions materials and fertilizers.