Tennessee Valley Authority

Established in May 1933 during the first 100 days of the New Deal, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) was intended to revitalize and transform one of America's poorest regions. By the end of the 1990s, the TVA provided power to roughly 8.3 million people in an 80,000-square-mile area that includes the state of Tennessee and parts of Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi.

Because the Tennessee Valley was one of the poorest regions in the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt intended for the TVA to be more than a flood control and power development agency. Roosevelt wanted the TVA to have a wide mandate for economic development, recreation, and reforestation.

After Roosevelt took office in 1933, Americans devastated by the Great Depression were ready for the federal government to take a wider role in regional resource planning. However, like many New Deal planning activities and agencies, the TVA faced many opponents and faced a variety of internal problems. Conservatives often denounced it as a socialist agency, and power companies feared the competition that inexpensive electricity would produce. The TVA rekindled the Progressive Era debate over public versus private stewardship of America's natural resources.

Nonetheless, the agency continued with its plans. By late 1941, the TVA operated 11 dams that were providing low-cost electric power to half a million customers throughout the Tennessee Valley. In addition to teaching local citizens the benefits of more scientific farming, the agency helped replant forests, controlled forest fires, and improved habitats for wildlife. During World War II (1939–1945), nearly 70% of TVA power went to defense industries, and by the end of the war, the TVA had become the largest electricity supplier in the United States. In the 1960s, the Tennessee Valley experienced unprecedented growth, and the TVA began construction of nuclear plants as a new source of power. After fending off criticism from both conservatives and environmentalists, the TVA boasted an impressive record in the 1970s. In addition to providing power to industries, TVA provided power to nearly 2 million residential consumers.

By the 1990s, the TVA provided power to 158 local municipal and cooperative distributors that delivered electricity to homes and businesses within the Tennessee Valley. Besides providing power, the TVA conducts economic and industrial research and analysis, provides technical and financial support to small and minority-owned businesses, and works with regional development associations to attract new industry and jobs.

Although the construction of the TVA devastated habitats across the region, today the TVA works to improve the environmental and ecological conditions [Page 1365]of the region. The TVA is involved in the preservation of wildlife habitats and the management of biodiversity on TVA lands, and it works carefully to comply with all federal environmental regulations. The TVA has also developed habitat protection areas, ecological study areas, and wildlife observation areas that place limits on activities that could endanger important natural features.

The TVA's legacy has proved mixed. Within a decade, the TVA managed to transform an erratic and unreliable river into a controllable waterway that provides an enormous amount of power to thousands of isolated homes across seven U.S. states. Also, malaria, which was once widespread in the area, has been practically eliminated. Although the TVA provided the foundation for industrial and economic expansion, it did not eliminate the economic inequities or racism that was endemic in the Tennessee Valley.

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