Tellico Dam
| Tellico Dam | |
|---|---|
Tellico Dam
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| Location | Loudon County, Tennessee, United States |
| Coordinates | 35°46′40″N 84°15′35″W / 35.777778°N 84.259722°WCoordinates: 35°46′40″N 84°15′35″W / 35.777778°N 84.259722°W |
| Dam and spillways | |
| Impounds | Little Tennessee River |
| Height | 129 ft (39 m) |
| Length | 3,238 ft (987 m) |
| Reservoir | |
| Total capacity | 467,600 acre·ft (576,800 dam3) |
| Catchment area | 2,627 sq mi (6,800 km2) |
| Surface area | 14,200 acres (5,700 ha) |
Tellico Dam is a dam built by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) in Loudon County, Tennessee on the Little Tennessee River just above the main stem of the Tennessee River. It impounds the Tellico Reservoir.
Construction of the Tellico Dam was controversial and marks a turning point in American attitudes toward dam construction. Until the 1960s and 1970s, few questioned the value of building a dam; indeed, dams were considered to represent progress and technological prowess. During the twentieth century, the United States built thousands of dams. By the 1950s, most of the best potential dam sites in the United States had been utilized and it became increasingly difficult to justify new dams, but government agencies such as TVA, the Bureau of Reclamation, and the Army Corps of Engineers continued to construct new dams. In the 1970s, the era of dam-building ended. The Tellico Dam case illustrates the United States' changing attitudes toward dams and the environment.
Construction of the dam was delayed when a small endangered fish called the snail darter was discovered on the Little Tennessee River. Dam opponents brought a lawsuit under the Endangered Species Act. The case, Tennessee Valley Authority v. Hill, 437 U.S. 153 (1978), made it to the Supreme Court of the United States. In Hill, the Supreme Court affirmed, by a 6-3 vote, an injunction issued by a lower court to stop construction of the dam. Citing explicit wording of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) ensuring habitat for listed species is not disrupted, the Court said "it is clear that the TVA's proposed operation of the dam will have precisely the opposite effect, namely the eradication of an endangered species." In the ensuing controversy over the snail darter, the Endangered Species Committee (also known as the "God Squad") was convened to issue a waiver for ESA protection of the snail darter. In a unanimous decision, the Committee refused an exemption of the Tellico Dam project. Charles Schulze, the chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers, later cited economic assessments that despite the Tellico Dam being 95% complete, "if one takes just the cost of finishing it against the benefits and does it properly, it doesn't pay, which says something about the original design."
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