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As World War II begins in Europe, three
of four dams on the Hiwassee River are built for the national defense
effort
TVA power helps make planes, munitions
and A-bomb.
An area to be flooded is deemed best for
‘afforestation’.
By Tom
Bennett
Special
to Hiwassee River Watershed Coalition, Inc
Murphy, N.C., Nov. 28, 2006 -- The Tennessee Valley Authority’s
records of building dams around Murphy are in the National Archives and
Records Administration (NARA) Southeast Region office in Morrow, Ga. I
drove there and read many of them today. As you might imagine, these
tell a lot about the history of the Hiwassee River Watershed.
Rob
Richards is the courteous NARA archivist who had read my e-mail asking
for the records of dams on the Hiwassee, and who was assigned to help
me.
“I’ve been
here for a few months,” Richards said, who relocated from Las Vegas.
“The reason they brought me in is to put TVA in order, which it is not.
“I have
found for you twenty-seven boxes marked Hiwassee Dam, and thirteen
others marked either Nottely, Chatuge or Apalachia dams.”
These
records now in acid-free folders at Morrow appear to have been
undisturbed until now. The folders are pristine and don’t bear any
smudges or fingerprints. During the day I spent with them, I wanted to
know: Why are there 1,269,050 cubic yards of concrete and 3,899,700
cubic yards of earth-and rock-fill in the Hiwassee River?
Here
is what I concluded: Until the threat of a world war loomed on the
horizon, the 1936 Hiwassee Dam’s turbines turned with the clear purpose
of achieving TVA’s lofty goals of that first decade. These were to
provide jobs and turn on the lights, generating electricity to improve
the lives of the people while also preventing flooding downstream.
However, I came to believe this isn’t true for the 1941-43 Nottely,
Chatuge and Apalachia dams. The actual records of the engineers
themselves describe how those three were built in a hurry to store more
water for Hiwassee Dam. Nottely and Chatuge took only about eight
months, Apalachia, which is cement concrete like Hiwassee, took longer.
Together
these dams joined a giant system making power to help the U.S. defeat
the Axis powers of Germany, Japan and Italy in the World War then
starting up in Europe. Soon it would be formally entered by the U.S.,
after the attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. Specifically, TVA
power helped make warplanes, conventional munitions and the atomic bomb.
“The
Nottely project is one of four Hiwassee Basin dams authorized by the
Congress on July 16, 1941 as an emergency national defense measure,” an
unnamed TVA manager wrote in “The Nottely Project on the Nottely River,
a Preliminary Report, July 1941.”
He or she
goes on to say: “The purpose is to make available the storage capacity
of the reservoir in the shortest feasible period of time to provide
power for the present National Defense system.”
TVA
served two main customers. The first, Alcoa Aluminum Company of America,
made aluminum for airplanes at its plant south of Knoxville. A second
client was the euphemistically named Clinton Engineer Works. This
ultimately massive plant was located near Clinton, Tenn., and became
surrounded by the new town of Alcoa. The works were part of the
Manhattan Project, the biggest secret of the war. Its aim was for the
U.S. to beat Germany in creating an atomic bomb, and it did. Oak Ridge
made the elements of nuclear-materials production. To know this, you
don’t have to drive to Morrow. You can read about it in the article
“TVA goes to war” on its web site.
A SWIFT
RIVER FLOWING PAST UNAPPRECIATED FARMERS
The
most important document I found in Morrow, Ga., is the 783-page
hardcover book in Box 368. It’s no cliffhanger, and it certainly wasn’t
written for mass readership. Its title is simply “Technical Report
Number 5, Tennessee Valley Authority,” and the authors were anonymous
engineers for TVA.
It
states on page 19: “The four Hiwassee projects were operated initially
for their best contribution to the World War II emergency.”
The only
description I have been able to find of what the Hiwassee River was like
before TVA began intense damming is on page 19 of “Technical Report
#5.” Here it is:
“Throughout most of its length, the Hiwassee River was a swift mountain
stream with rapids falling as much as 30 feet to the mile through the
Hiwassee Gorge.”
Another interesting document at Morrow is one in which engineers appear
to have tried to become sociologists. This is the Sept. 26, 1935 record
entitled, “Confidential report, The proposed dam on the Hiwassee River,
an evaluation of possible effects.” It is by G. Donald Hudson and
Malcolm J. Proudfoot. After you read it, it’s easy to form the view
that these men didn’t think much of Cherokee County, N.C. farmers.
“The
area is characterized by a condition of social and economic
maladjustment, which has reduced its agricultural production to a
low-subsistence standard of living,” they wrote. “It is so low that the
area as a whole may be considered as sub-marginal and best fitted for
afforestation or any practical use other than agriculture.”
H. JERVY
KELLY’S SOBERING TASK
An
especially poignant document at Morrow is the Feb. 1941 report,
“Cemetery relocations.” It is by H. Jervy Kelly, civil engineer. He
must have been a diplomatic man to have been chosen for this work.
In the
path of the future Hiwassee Lake, there were 21 cemeteries. They were:
Rose, Fowler, Ogreeta, Hiwassee Baptist Church, John Timpson, Farmer,
Hightower, Old Persimmon Creek, Montgomery, Thomas Payne, Martins, Grape
Creek M.E. Church, Tom James, Asa James, James Carroll, Nottely River,
Hartness, Davidson and Bates, McDonald, Clonts and Pleasant Grove
cemeteries.
H.
Jervy Kelly published careful plats for each in his report. These are
painstaking one-page sketches depicting, row by row, where rested the
dead of Cherokee County.
Kelly
obtained permission from the State Board of Health to move dead bodies.
He published a legal notice for 30 days in the Cherokee Scout newspaper
warning that this was going to happen. When that period was over, he dug
up and moved 462 graves. They went to 19 of what TVA termed
re-internment cemeteries. As for the rest, Kelly reports
matter-of-factly:
“Agreements
were reached for 109 graves to remain in their original location.”
In the
path of the future Chatuge Lake, there were 20 cemeteries having 2,200
graves. Mentions of H. Jervy Kelly and plats detailing who is buried
where now end. An unnamed engineer writes: “After identifying all
possible graves and determining the wishes of the nearest relative that
could be located, it was found necessary to move 581 graves in five
cemeteries. They were removed to eight re-interment cemeteries.”
In the
path of the future Nottely Lake, there were eight cemeteries with 86
graves. The breakneck pace at which dams now were rising and the
expediency of the work, are readily apparent. Instead of a multi-page
report such as H. Jervy Kelly wrote for future Hiwassee Lake, there is
only one morbid, anonymous paragraph for Nottely Lake, and it states:
“Three
small cemeteries were below elevation 1,785, five feet above the top of
the spillway flashboard. After all possible grave identifications had
been made and the next of kin had been contacted, it developed that only
two removals would be required.”
Apalachia Dam is in remote far western Cherokee County and there were no
graves in the path of its future lake, according to TVA.
MURPHY
CONTRACTS WITH TVA TO SHORE UP THE SEWER
A
307-foot-high dam was nearing completion. Concrete cement in great
quantities was being poured midstream of a river known to be
“swift-moving.” The instant new lake would creep steadily eastward
toward Murphy. It’s clear that at this point, probably in 1938, the
townspeople demanded TVA do something to protect them.
The
parties negotiated contract TV 39658 on March 10, 1939. Mayor J.B. Gray
signed for Murphy, and General Manager John B. Blandfuel Jr. for TVA.
This document is in Box 5-562 in Morrow. It’s not pretty, and it can be
considered one of the types of harmful actions that public agencies took
before the Clean Water Act was signed by President Nixon in 1972. On
behalf of citizens, government agencies using tax money simply, in glib
and perfunctory ways, agreed to pollute streams. TVA and Murphy made a
contract that would affect the Hiwassee and Valley. This accord is for
TVA to construct “sanitary sewers conveying domestic sewage of the town
to said rivers.”
If
fish could read, they would have cringed, more so as they read the last
paragraph. This stipulates that Murphy’s new septic tank “shall be of
conventional design, and shall be provided with sludge blowoff
facilities discharging to the river.”
A POPLAR
TREE IS SAVED, A RIVER GAINS AN OUTFALL
Three
of the archival boxes have file after file of the copious daily progress
reports of the detail-minded chief engineer of the Hiwassee Dam, F.L.
Weiss. The first one that is available to researchers reflects his
concern for trees, but not necessarily for water quality. Here is what
Weiss’ 221 employees did on Oct. 8, 1936:
“Completed a rock wall around an 18-inch poplar and an adjoining group
of trees on Road A; set the road’s slope stakes, and re-computed its
alignment; computed the coordinates for the quarry road; excavated for
bunkhouse two; graded a storage area in the rear of the construction and
maintenance building; and plotted the outfall sewer location.”
The
Dam Division employees that day included supervisors, shovel operators,
shovel oilers, mechanics, carpenters, tractor operators, grader
operators, compressor operators, drillers, truck drivers, a welder, a
steel sharpener and a blacksmith. The Construction and Maintenance
employees included supervisors, carpenters and laborers. There also were
two eight-hour shifts in the quarry, and each included drillers, an
oiler, truck drivers, a “tally man” and a mixer operator.
Boxes
later, the record entitled “Last issue Hiwassee Dam Daily Progress
Report,” is dated Saturday and Sunday, June 29-30, 1940. This is by O.
Laargaard, construction engineer. I couldn’t find in any record of what
happened to F.L. Weiss. Laargard reports:
“Commenced mass layoff of hourly men, transferred several hourly and
annually rated men to other projects, and commenced interviews for
prospective police officers; removed transformers from construction
substation to new location in low-voltage switchyard; Medical Station
continued routine and first-aid treatment; Safety Division performed
routine inspections, and there were no lost-time accidents this week.”
FACTS
ABOUT THE DAMS
Hiwassee is a concrete gravity dam at Hiwassee River Mile (HRM) 76
of the Hiwassee River. It is 307 feet high and 1,376 feet long. Work
began July 15, 1936 and the dam was closed and the lake formed Feb. 8,
1940, three years and eight months later. It cost $21,107,000. In it
there are 793,000 cubic yards of concrete. This was “the highest
overflow concrete dam in the world,” according to a 1938 TVA document.
“Overflow” appears to be the key word, for the 1936 Hoover Dam on the
Arizona-Nevada border at 725 feet high more than doubles Hiwassee.
California’s 1944 Shasta Dam is 602 feet high. TVA’s 1945 Fontana Dam at
Robbinsville, N.C., is 480. My sources for dam math are World Book and
the document, “Facts about major TVA dams,” which is in the TVA vertical
file in the Nantahala Regional Library in Murphy.
HIWASSEE
LAKE WAS the scene of a Naval Ordnance Laboratory Experimental
Facilities during World War II. The sailors tested rockets by firing
them along a cable and into a berm in the lake. The state had 131 naval
facilities at 31 locations during the war, according to the University
of North Carolina Chapel Hill.
A
CONCRETE GRAVITY dam is “an obstruction created across a river gorge
using cement concrete to store water on the upstream side,” according to
the Google dictionary.
Nottely is an earth- and rock-fill dam at Nottely River Mile 21. It
is 184 feet high and 2,300 feet long. Work began July 17, 1941 and the
dam was closed and the lake formed Jan. 24, 1942, seven months later.
It cost $8,047,000. In it there are 1,552,300 cubic yards of earth and
rock fill, and 17,700 cubic yards of concrete. The number of employees
working to dam up the Hiwassee now swelled. “A peak of about 7,500
employees was reached in December 1941,” according to TVA. “Most drove
long distances from their homes.” A colony of forty 12’ X 14’ tents
went up in Murphy “between U.S. 19 and the Hiwassee River,” wrote TVA.
Later 60 Farm Security Administration trailers were moved there from
Boulder, Colo., where they had housed persons erecting the Boulder Dam,
later renamed Hoover. At the Murphy tent and trailer village by the
river, there were “toilet and bathing facilities in three separate 12’ X
40’ buildings.” I never found in any document in Morrow or in the
regional libraries at Murphy and Young Harris any reference to any
attempt to treat sewage before it entered the river.
TO WRITE
ABOUT place names here is to be corrected sooner or later in some
spelling that you use. I simply point out that the N. dam has the words
“Nottely Dam” in large letters on its intake tower out in the middle of
the lake, which you can view that while standing next to a Georgia road
sign on the dam road that has the words “Nottley Dam.”
Chatuge is an earth-fill dam at HRM 122. It is 144 feet high and
2,850 feet long. Work began July 17, 1941 and the dam was closed and
the lake formed Feb. 12, 1942, eight months later. It cost $9,504,000.
In it there are 2,347,400 cubic yards of earth and rock fill, and 10,000
cubic yards of concrete.
Apalachia is a concrete gravity dam at HRM 66. It is 150 feet high
and 1,308 feet long. Work began July 17, 1941 and the dam was closed and
the lake formed Feb. 14, 1943, one year and eight months later. It cost
$22,559,000. In it there are 448,350 cubic yards of concrete. This is a
remote dam in a rugged area. “A pipeline and tunnel system carries water
from the reservoir 8.3 miles downstream to the powerhouse to generate
electricity,” according to TVA.
TVA IN
NORTH CAROLINA
The
TVA “state fact sheet” describes activities through Fiscal Year 2005.
The authority “sold nearly 644 million kilowatt-hours of electricity to
one municipal power company and three cooperatively owned power
companies. They are the Murphy Power Board, Blue Ridge Mountain
Electric Membership Corporation, Tri-State Electric Membership
Corporation, and Mountain Electric Cooperative.
“The North
Carolina counties served by distributors of TVA power are Avery, Burke,
Cherokee, Clay and Watauga. TVA owns and operates Apalachia and Hiwassee
in Cherokee County, Chatuge in Clay County and Fontana in Swain and
Graham counties.” You can read this at www.tva.gov
To get
an idea of the size of the federal government’s massive TVA historical
archive, and to view a sampling – too few if you ask me – of 20 of the
hundreds of thousands of photographs there, go to http://www.archives.gov/southeast/exhibit/5.php
Even
in its altered state, the Hiwassee River and wide parts called lakes or
reservoirs generate billions of dollars in wealth for homeowners, real
estate salespersons, developers, contractors and boat manufacturers.
The town at the heart of the watershed, Murphy, has a declining
estimated July 2005 population of 1,565 and a median household income of
$24,952, according to www.city-data.com. Yet Murphy has four banks,
soon to be six.
* * *
Tom Bennett of the Martins Creek community west
of Murphy is a board member and a volunteer for Hiwassee River
Watershed Coalition.
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