1st TVA Campground (Pickwick Landing)

Location: Pickwick Landing Dam Campground (TVA); Pickwick, Tennessee (this post if from morning of day 3 of 4)

A main part of this trip, besides going to the FROG rally, was to explore the Tennessee River Valley. This stop is the first campground on the river. The campground is located just downstream of the Pickwick Dam and about 150 feet from the banks of the river. If the TVA would cut some of the weeds growing in the stone rip-rap, I would be able to see the river through my back window. It is still a nice campground under some tall pine trees.

I think I got the best of the campsites. My back window is looking at the river about 150 feet away.

These are the weeds that obstruct part of my view from the campsite. Since the management of the campground has been contracted out to a private company, I don't put must hope in the weeds being managed by herbicides. 

The Pickwick Landing Dam, built between 1934 and 1938, is a hydro-electric dam and produces 247 megawatts of power with 6 turbines. It has 2 navigation locks that are 600 and 1000 feet long. They can easily handle the typical 2x4 barge tow. The dam is 113 feet high and about 1 1/2 miles wide. It creates a 43,100 acre lake with 490 miles of shoreline. Whew, I condensed the dam information into as few words as possible, in hopes to prevent boring, glassy eyed reading. It interest me which is why I'm visiting the valley. 

The powerhouse. There are 6 turbines and 3 windows per turbine. To oversimplify things, the dam makes the water deeper on the upstream side and when water flows downward through an opening it spins a turbine that creates electricity. A lot of the time, the release of water for electricity is enough to keep the water from getting to deep on the upstream side so floodgates aren't opened regularly. Currently, they have only been using 3 of the 6 turbines. 

This is view showing the powerhouse on the left and the floodgates on the right. The locks are farther to the right behind that concrete wall.

One of the old turbines.

Freedom jumped in the picture. She wanted a copy sent to Liberty to let her know what she was missing. I don't know how to do that, so it won't be done (don't let Freedom know that though).

A set of 8 barges heading up river to the Pickwick locks. There is a web page names "marine traffic" that will show you where the boats are located and where they are going. It covers the entire world.

The lead barge nearing the lock gates which should be opened by now.

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) was created by Congress and approved by FDR in 1933. It's purpose was to create a federal agency to make the Tennessee River navigable, control flooding, help in reforestation of area and provide the basis for industry and agriculture. To accomplish its mandate, it built 46 dams along the main river and its tributaries. Of the 46 dams, 29 are hydro-electric. For navigation, there are 9 main locks operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The TVA serves 10 million people in 7 states with a work force of about 10,000 people. By the way, they also have 3 nuclear power plants and are on the cutting edge in new developments concerning nuclear power and solar power. 

I believe the TVA has been a very successful program since it was created. Apparently, and hopefully, there are enough checks and balance within the agency to prevent political interference, remembering the Board of Director are political appointees of the President. The whole program could be considered a step in the socialist direction. This was the main criticism of FDR's New Deal and a few of his programs were ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. It is hard to imagine the large amount of work and improvements done by the TVA being accomplished by any other way than through a public agency. It could have been done by private companies but the extreme financial risk would have made it more expensive in the long run. One piece of great news is the TVA is self-funded and do NOT receive any federal appropriations.

It's a very pretty area around this part of Tennessee and north Mississippi. I'm a little behind on posting since I've already explored parts of the area. Oh well, maybe I do a two-post day and make a post this evening. 

Ya'll take care of each other. Maybe, I'll Cya down the road.