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Show Conservation Service all operate in their respective fields, making technical, financial, or other contri- butions to proper land use in the basin. A memo- randum of understanding entered into by the United States Department of Agriculture, TVA, and the land-grant colleges of the seven valley States provides for coordination of their agricultural and watershed development activities in the valley. The formation of soil conservation districts has proceeded at a slower rate there than for much of the remainder of the Nation. However, some soil conservation districts have been formed in the val- ley sections of Alabama, Kentucky, Georgia, and recently, North Carolina and Tennessee. (See ch. 5, problem A-3.) Some lands within the valley are managed directly by Federal agencies other than TVA. They include the national forests, mainly in the Great Smokies and along the Blue Ridge; the 459,000- acre Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and numerous national monuments under National Park Service administration; the Cherokee Indian Reservation, supervised by the Bureau of Indian Affairs; the Wheeler, Tennessee, and Kentucky Woodlands National Wildlife Refuges and some lesser refuges managed by the Fish and Wildlife Service. TVA has retained substantial acreages of land along its reservoirs which are subject to periodic flooding or which were purchased to avoid incurring greater costs for severance of highway relocation. A considerable portion of lands so acquired have been resold at public auction or transferred to other public agencies. TVA manages those which it is necessary to retain for program purposes in such a manner as to secure maximum advantages of their use for forestry experiments, recreation, and similar purposes. Of these, the national forests constitute the only group whose management includes watershed pro- tection. TVA has also transferred lands to the Forest Service for addition to the national forest. Under the Weeks Act of 1911 and other legislation, 1,895,000 acres of land have been acquired in head- water areas to provide favorable conditions of water flow. In purchasing lands for national forest pur- poses, primary attention has been given to sub- marginal farm lands or denuded or burned over land which was a major cause of undesirable stream flow or sedimentation. Trees have been established on denuded lands, an intensive fire control program launched, and management practices applied that have markedly changed the appearance of the land- scape and of the waters as well. The lands adminis- tered by the National Park Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service may be considered to afford ade- quate watershed management incidental to other purposes. States and counties hold some 215,000 acres of land in the area, including parks and recreation areas. Some lands also are managed by the Atomic Energy Commission (Oak Ridge), the Department of the Air Force, and the Department of the Army. By far the largest part of the watershed area, some 23 million acres, is in private ownership. This includes both forest and agricultural lands. Tennessee Valley Authority-Interagency Program It is within the statutory authority of the Tennes- see Valley Authority to carry out general programs for agricultural development in the Tennessee Basin. The three major phases of the Authority's activities in this field are: use of fertilizer to enable more extensive growing of cover crops; engineering measures to control erosion; and reforestation and other forest improvement practices. The first of these is conducted in connection with the TVA program of developing new and improved fertilizers and fertilizer manufacturing processes.25 The Authority works through and with farmers, farm organizations, and other agricultural institu- tions and agencies, including the land-grant colleges, in conducting research and demonstrations on the use of new forms of fertilizer and fertilizer practices, principally through experiment station research and practical farm test demonstrations. This work emphasizes use of fertilizer to make possible the growing of cover crops. The second has also been used to prevent soil erosion in the interest of navigation and flood control. Measures for erosion control are the same as those employed to increase productivity of the land. In addition to maintenance of plant cover on agricultural lands, terracing, strip cropping, con- tour tillage, and proper land and crop management are stressed in the test demonstrations. The third measure is aimed at reforesting all suit- able lands in the Tennessee drainage basin and pro- tecting and improving the forest resources by other means. 88 Tennessee Valley Authority Act of May 18, 1933, 5,48 Stat. 58, 61, as amended, 16 U. S. C. 831d. 735 |
