Ocoee Dam Number 2 is a

hydroelectric dam Hydroelectricity, or hydroelectric power, is electricity generated from hydropower (water power). Hydropower supplies one sixth of the world's electricity, almost 4500 TWh in 2020, which is more than all other renewable sources combined and ...

on the

Ocoee River The Toccoa River and Ocoee River are the names in use for a single river that flows northwestward through the southern Appalachian Mountains of the southeastern United States. It is a tributary of the Hiwassee River, which it joins in Polk Coun ...

Polk County Polk County is the name of twelve counties in the United States, all except two named after president of the United States James Knox Polk: * Polk County, Arkansas * Polk County, Florida * Polk County, Georgia * Polk County, Iowa * Polk Count ...

in the U.S. state of

Tennessee Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...

. The dam impounds the Ocoee No. 2 Reservoir and is one of three dams on the Toccoa/Ocoee River owned and operated by the

Tennessee Valley Authority The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is a federally owned electric utility corporation in the United States. TVA's service area covers all of Tennessee, portions of Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky, and small areas of Georgia, North Carolina ...

. It was completed in 1913. Ocoee Dam No. 2 utilizes a wooden

flume A flume is a human-made channel for water, in the form of an open declined gravity chute whose walls are raised above the surrounding terrain, in contrast to a trench or ditch. Flumes are not to be confused with aqueducts, which are built to tr ...

that carries water from the reservoir down the side of the Ocoee Gorge to the dam's powerhouse downstream. It is situated at the center of one of the nation's top

whitewater rafting Rafting and whitewater rafting are recreational outdoor activities which use an inflatable raft to navigate a river or other body of water. This is often done on whitewater or different degrees of rough water. Dealing with risk is often a ...

locations, and the dam's releases help to maintain consistent rapids on the river during warmer months.Tennessee Valley Authority
Ocoee No. 2 Reservoir
Retrieved: 22 January 2009.

Location

Ocoee Dam No. 2 is located above the mouth of the Ocoee River, near the center of the Ocoee Gorge, a steep-sided valley sliced as the Ocoee winds its way westward through the

Appalachian Mountains The Appalachian Mountains, often called the Appalachians, (french: Appalaches), are a system of mountains in eastern to northeastern North America. The Appalachians first formed roughly 480 million years ago during the Ordovician Period. They ...

. Ocoee No. 2 is upstream from Ocoee Dam No. 1 and downstream from Ocoee Dam No. 3. The flume connecting Ocoee Dam No. 2 to its powerhouse winds its way along the cliffs overlooking the south side of the gorge before dropping the water to the powerhouse downstream from the dam. The dam and reservoir are surrounded by the

Cherokee National Forest The Cherokee National Forest is a United States National Forest located in the U.S. states of Tennessee and North Carolina that was created on June 14, 1920. The forest is maintained and managed by the United States Forest Service. It encompasses ...

, and the only major road access is provided via the Ocoee Scenic Byway, a section of

U.S. Route 64 U.S. Route 64 (US 64) is an east–west United States highway that runs for 2,326 miles (3,743 km) from Nags Head in eastern North Carolina to just southwest of the Four Corners in northeast Arizona. The western terminus is at U.S. Route 1 ...

Capacity

Ocoee Dam No. 2 is a rock-filled crib-type dam high and long. The two units at the powerhouse downstream from the dam have a generating capacity of 23,100

kilowatt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after James Wa ...

s. The dam typically schedules major recreational releases on weekends in spring and fall and five days per week in summer months. The dam's flume consists of a wooden trough situated upon a shelf carved out of the cliffside. The trough carries the water to a point just above the powerhouse where it drops the water through two large steel pipes to the powerhouse below. Without this flume system, the dam (at just 30 feet high) would be practically useless as a power plant. There is also a

funicular A funicular (, , ) is a type of cable railway system that connects points along a railway track laid on a steep slope. The system is characterized by two counterbalanced carriages (also called cars or trains) permanently attached to opposite en ...

railway at the powerhouse site that is used for transport from the powerhouse to the flume.

History

The growth of industry in

Chattanooga Chattanooga ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Hamilton County, Tennessee, United States. Located along the Tennessee River bordering Georgia, it also extends into Marion County on its western end. With a population of 181,099 in 2020, ...

some west of the Ocoee River in the latter part of the 19th and early 20th centuries required large amounts of electric power. Several private entities attempted to meet this demand by building dams that could produce hydroelectricity. In 1910, a group of financiers formed the Eastern Tennessee Power Company to use the Ocoee's hydro-power potential. ETPC completed Ocoee Dam No. 1 in late 1911, and work began on Ocoee Dam No. 2 the following year. To build the dam, ETPC constructed a wooden "crib" made of by timbers, and filled the crib with stone. ETPC engineers realized that if the dam were built at the ideal powerhouse site, it would be unable to utilize the potential energy from the five-mile stretch immediately upstream in which the river drops in elevation. Engineers solved this dilemma by constructing the flume on the cliffs above the river gorge, which allows just a drop in the water level from the point at which it exits the reservoir to the point at which it spills through the pipes into the powerhouse below. At by , the flume was unusually large for its day.Tennessee Valley Authority,
The Little Dam That Could
" Retrieved: 22 January 2009. The dam was completed in 1913, and its two generators went online in October of that year.Tennessee Valley Authority, ''Design of TVA Projects Volume 3: Mechanical Design of Hydro Plants'', Technical Report No. 24 (Washington, D.C.: Tennessee Valley Authority, 1952), pp. 304.

TVA

In 1922, Eastern Tennessee Power merged with several other entities to form the Tennessee Electric Power Company (TEPCO). TEPCO maintained Ocoee Dam No. 2 until 1939, when a

U.S. Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

decision forced the company to sell its assets to the Tennessee Valley Authority, which had been established to oversee flood control and development in the greater

Tennessee River The Tennessee River is the largest tributary of the Ohio River. It is approximately long and is located in the southeastern United States in the Tennessee Valley. The river was once popularly known as the Cherokee River, among other names, ...

valley.Timothy Ezzell,
Jo Conn Guild
" ''Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture'', 2009. Retrieved: 11 February 2013. The $78 million (equivalent to $ in ) TVA paid for TEPCO included $2.59 million (equivalent to $ in ) for Ocoee Dam No. 2. TVA made several improvements to the dam in the 1940s which increased the dam's generating capacity by 15%. The dam's basic diversion design was used by TVA in the construction of Ocoee Dam No. 3 several miles upstream in 1942. By 1976, Ocoee No. 2's flume had deteriorated, and TVA decided to shut it down. To prevent it from being dismantled, several preservationist groups had the dam and flume placed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 1979. TVA renovated the flume with treated wood, and placed it back in operation in 1983.

References

External links

Ocoee No. 2 Reservoir
— official TVA site

{{Tennessee Valley Authority Facilities Dams on the Hiwassee River Buildings and structures in Polk County, Tennessee Tennessee Valley Authority dams Dams on the National Register of Historic Places in Tennessee Hydroelectric power plants in Tennessee Dams in Tennessee Dams completed in 1913 Energy infrastructure completed in 1913 1913 establishments in Tennessee National Register of Historic Places in Polk County, Tennessee