EDITORIAL NOTE: The TVA has been regarded by some as an interesting ex- During the present emergency all these jobs are timely, even impera- It may be interesting to add, perhaps, that during May 1941, total production of electric energy for public use amounted to 13,290,609,000 kilowatt-hours. Of this amount 4,223,328,000 kilowatt-hours, or 32 percent, were produced by water power. The average daily production of electric energy during the month was 428,729,000 kilowatt-hours, an increase of 16.3 percent over May 1940. The TVA's contribution to electric power, therefore, is particularly valuable. The following article presents a picture of the background of the TVA and its accomplishments to date. TVA--HOW IT CAME ABOUT AND WHAT IT HAS DONE Why was the Tennessee Valley chosen for what may well prove to be one of the great social and economic experiments of all time? One answer is 6,000 tons 6,000 tons of water per acre per year. That is the average annual rainfall for the Valley. Couple the rainfall with a watershed that varies in elevation from 300 feet at the confluence of the Tennessee with the Ohio to more than a mile on the precipitous western slopes of the Southern Appalachian Mountains. Add the fact that the winters in this latitude are relatively mild. Taken together, these physical facts are capable of destroying our resources base. Only recently, half of the Valley's 26 million acres were practically defenseless against a staggering sheet of water, scouring down the denuded hillsides unchecked, uncontrolled. As it tumbled and pitched, it washed away the topsoil. In the valleys, it silted up streams that might otherwise have become arteries of commerce. It crippled and smashed homes, factories, railroads, schools, and churches that man had built along its path. Beyond its path, over millions of acres of watershed, it encouraged poverty, malnutrition, disease, and despair. These problems were not discovered by the TVA. The unruly water resources of the Tennessee Valley have been a matter of national concern for more than 100 years. More recently, this resource has assumed national importance for another reason, the need for converting the force of falling water into higher income, better living, and national security. Background Several lines of development with regard to the conservation of water were brought together with the creation of the Tennessee Valley Authority. A brief review of that background will help you to understand "why the TVA." In 1824, John C. Calhoun, then Secretary of War, submitted a report to President Monroe in which he suggested improvements at Muscle Shoals in the interests of navigation. Nothing came of the proposal. A quarter of a century later, around 1850, President Fillmore said, speaking of direct waterway improvements for navigation: "If these works of such evident importance and utility are not to be accomplished by Congress, they cannot be accomplished at all. It is a mistake to regard expenditures judiciously made for these objectives as expenditures for local purposes." After the Civil War, settlement of the West gave new emphasis and new importance to the role of inland waterways. It was not until around the turn of the century, however, that the courts were won over to the view that people, acting through their government, have the right to improve and maintain waterways for navigation purposes. Winning this battle set the stage for further advance. Since structures built to improve navigation also concentrate the water fall at a single point, why not use that water power for public betterment? Alas, political and legal concepts tend to lag behind technological advance. "Local" Floods Floods, in the early days, were regarded largely as a local problem. Indeed, a flood actually appeared to be local. Communication was slow; the country was undeveloped; population and industry were scattered; and many sections were relatively isolated. Federal aid, at first, was limited to occasional land grants to flood-affected states. About 50 years ago recurring floods on the Mississippi gradually began to be recognized as something more than local catastrophes, although doubts concerning the constitutionality of direct federal appropriations for flood control long prevented Congress from taking the measures that were clearly indicated. In the meantime, however, Congress made surveys and studies, contributed small sums occasionally, and in other ways moved cautiously toward a unified approach to the flood control problem. Successive and increasing damage, climaxing in the Mississippi flood of 1927, finally removed most of our constitutional inhibitions. Thousands of square miles inundated; 330,000 people rescued from the levees, trees, and housetops; 700,000 people driven from their homes. Direct property damages alone were variously estimated at around $350,000,000. Indirect damages were estimated at another $200,000,000. A half billion dollars down the Mississippi drain pipe with nothing to show for it! New Era The flood control act of 1928 marked the beginning of a new era in national regulation and conservation of water resources. To meet an emergency need, Congress appropriated $325,000,000 for levees and diversion floodways. At the same time it provided for something much more basic. For in that act Congress, recognizing the folly of staking everything on attempts to confine floods to a fixed path, provided for studies looking toward a system of storage dams on tributary streams. The various theories concerning conservation of water resources began to converge. Our leading conservationists had known for a long time that uncoordinated local and state effort could not make the most of opportunities for inland waterway navigation. They had known for several decades that floods on our biggest river systems vitally affect the whole of our delicately adjusted, interdependent economic system. They had known, too, that water control structures, built at public expense to provide arteries for commerce and protection for property, are capable also of producing hydroelectric power. But neither Congress, nor the courts, nor perhaps even the public, was yet fully prepared to take the next step. Seeing 'Way Ahead President Theodore Roosevelt was the first great leader to see this thing clearly. He was 30 years ahead of his time. He revealed it in a message, in 1903, vetoing a singlepurpose power structure at Muscle Shoals. Why does this sort of agency happen to be in the Tennessee Valley region? The re are other regions you could name a dozen : the open range country of the arid Southwest, the spring and winter wheat belts; the corn-hog region of the North Central States, the region dominated by cotton in the Southeast, and so The Valley was also one of the few sections of the country that contained deposits of phosphate ore. It had a temperate climate that permitted a great diversity of plant life, together with an abundance of water. But with long neglect the water asset had acquired the reputation of being a heavy liability. Associated with abundant rainfall was a vicious cycle of open farming for cash crops accompanied by erosion and land impoverishment. Moreover, that same abundant rainfall was responsible for destructive floods and expensive, if ineffectual, control measures both in the Tennessee Valley and along the lower Mississippi. Here, therefore, region-wide needs, all related in one way or another to heavy rainfall, called imperatively for unified solution. Here, around the river and its drainage basin, was a great opportunity for a test demonstration of the efficacy of a regional agency. Ready to Act In 1933, following 14 years of debate over the disposal of the government's wartime |