Watts Bar Dam 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 an ...

on the

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 name ...

in Meigs and Rhea counties in

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 ...

, United States. The dam is one of nine dams on the main Tennessee River channel 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 Carolin ...

, which built the dam in the early 1940s to provide flood control and electricity and to help create a continuous navigable channel along the entire length of the river. The dam is the technical boundary between the Watts Bar Lake— which it impounds— and Chickamauga Lake, which stretches from the dam's tailwaters southward to Chattanooga. Watts Bar Dam is named for Watt Island, a

sandbar In oceanography, geomorphology, and geoscience, a shoal is a natural submerged ridge, bank, or bar that consists of, or is covered by, sand or other unconsolidated material and rises from the bed of a body of water to near the surface. ...

located at the dam site prior to the dam's construction.Tennessee Valley Authority, ''The Watts Bar Project: A Comprehensive Report on the Planning, Design, Construction, and Initial Operations of the Watts Bar Project'', Technical Report No. 9 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1949), 1-11, 39-47.

Location

Watts Bar Dam is located approximately upstream from the mouth of the Tennessee River, roughly halfway between

Knoxville Knoxville is a city in and the county seat of Knox County in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2020 United States census, Knoxville's population was 190,740, making it the largest city in the East Tennessee Grand Division and the state' ...

and Chattanooga. Just north of the dam, the Tennessee absorbs the Piney River, which flows down from the Cumberland Plateau to the west. The nearest towns of note are Spring City (a few miles to the northwest) and Decatur (a few miles to the south).

Tennessee State Route 68 State Route 68 (SR 68) is a state highway in the eastern part of the U.S. state of Tennessee. Route description SR 68 begins in southeastern Tennessee, at an intersection with Georgia State Route 5 (SR 5) and SR 60 at the Tenn ...

crosses Watts Bar Dam, connecting the area with

Interstate 75 Interstate 75 (I-75) is a major north–south Interstate Highway in the Great Lakes and Southeastern regions of the United States. As with most Interstates that end in 5, it is a major cross-country, north–south route, traveling from St ...

to the east and U.S. Route 27 to the west.

Capacity

Watts Bar Lake extends northeast from the dam to Fort Loudoun Dam, and includes parts of Meigs, Rhea, Roane, and Loudon counties. In addition to its main Tennessee River channel, Watts Bar Lake is navigable across the lower of the

Clinch River The Clinch River is a river that flows southwest for more than through the Great Appalachian Valley in the U.S. states of Virginia and Tennessee, gathering various tributaries, including the Powell River, before joining the Tennessee River in Ki ...

(up to Melton Hill Dam) and the lower of the Emory River.Tennessee Valley Authority
Watts Bar Reservoir
Retrieved: 10 January 2009. The cities of Kingston, Spring City, Harriman, Loudon, Rockwood, and Lenoir City all have waterfronts on Watts Bar Lake. Watts Bar provides of shoreline and over of water surface. Watts Bar Dam is high and stretches across the Tennessee River. Watts Bar has a storage capacity of , a flood-storage capacity of , and generates 175

megawatt 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 ...

s of

electricity Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as describ ...

. The dam's navigational lock is , and raises and lowers vessels from Watts Bar Lake to Chickamauga Lake and vice versa.

Background and construction

Watt Island's potential as a dam site had been recognized since the early 1870s, when the

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers , colors = , anniversaries = 16 June (Organization Day) , battles = , battles_label = Wars , website = , commander1 = ...

built a dike at the tip of the island to improve flow in the main river channel. The Corps carried out dredging work at the island between 1911 and 1913 that deepened the main channel, and recommended the site (originally known as the "White Creek site" after a stream that joins the Tennessee a few miles upriver) for a dam in 1930. In 1936, the Tennessee Valley Authority assumed direction of the site as part of its unified strategy to build (and acquire) a series of dams along the Tennessee River to improve navigation and flood control, and aide in the region's economic development. TVA was given authorization to build a dam at Watt Island on March 16, 1939, and construction on Watts Bar Dam began on July 1, 1939. The construction of Watts Bar Dam and its accompanying reservoir required the purchase of of land and flowage rights, of which were forested and had to be cleared. 832 families, 17 cemeteries, and of roads were relocated. An earthen dike was built to protect downtown Kingston from the reservoir's backwaters, and minor adjustments were necessary to the riverfronts of Spring City, Harriman,

Wheat Wheat is a grass widely cultivated for its seed, a cereal grain that is a worldwide staple food. The many species of wheat together make up the genus ''Triticum'' ; the most widely grown is common wheat (''T. aestivum''). The archaeologi ...

, and Loudon. The community of Rhea Springs, located along the Piney River a few miles upstream from the river's mouth, was completely inundated. Earl M

The dam's original design called for the installation of three generators, but with the outbreak of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

in 1941, energy demand in the region skyrocketed, and the design was modified to include a fourth and fifth generator. The dam was completed and the gates closed on January 1, 1942. The first generator went online February 11 of that year, followed by the second generator on April 6 and the third on July 23. The fourth generator went online March 12, 1944 and the fifth followed on April 24, 1944. The Army Corps of Engineers designed the dam's lock, which went into operation on February 16, 1942. Watts Bar Lake was one of the water bodies affected by a massive release of fly ash in 2008 from the

Kingston Fossil Plant coal fly ash slurry spill The Kingston Fossil Plant coal fly ash slurry spill was an environmental and industrial disaster that occurred on Monday December 22, 2008, when a dike ruptured at a coal ash pond at the Tennessee Valley Authority's Kingston Fossil Plant in ...

References

External links

TVA: Watts Bar Reservoir
{{Tennessee Valley Authority Facilities Dams on the Tennessee River Dams in Tennessee Bridges over the Tennessee River Hydroelectric power plants in Tennessee Tennessee Valley Authority dams Buildings and structures in Meigs County, Tennessee Buildings and structures in Rhea County, Tennessee Dams completed in 1942 Energy infrastructure completed in 1942 Energy infrastructure completed in 1944 Road bridges in Tennessee 1942 establishments in Tennessee

Location

Capacity

Background and construction

See also

References

External links