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Show THE TENNESSEE RIVER SYSTEM FIGURE 5. recreation areas. These were designed as dem- onstrations which the States, counties, and mu- nicipalities might copy and multiply. The con- sequences of these demonstration parks and of TVA site-leasing policy are reflected in the cre- ation of State park agencies which give aid to county, municipal, and civic groups for establish- ing parks and camps along the lakes. By 1947 there were six State parks, 19 county and mu- nicipal parks,, and 20 group camps leased or transferred from TVA. The slack-water pools created by the main-stem dams have given a navigable waterway from the juncture of th_e Tennessee and the Ohio in west- ern Kentucky to Knoxville, 630 miles away. De- spite the decline from the war-induced water transport peak, the 1949 barge shipments of coal, petroleum products, coke, aluminum, fertilizer, iron and steel, grain, and automobiles, are three times the tonnage of 1933,12 which was largely sand and gravel. 34 The TVA has also increased the usefulness of the waterway by preparing and circulating special studies of particular commodities which might be more cheaply transported by water than alternative facilities under current rates. It has sought, as intervenor, to help valley shippers ob- tain from the Interstate Commerce Commission joint water-and-rail rates and water-and-truck rates for miscellaneous freight. If favorable rates for Midwest wheat and for Tennessee coal can be established, farmers of the Tennessee, thus supplied with wheat grown more cheaply than they can produce it, might then concentrate on livestock production, using their sloping land for grasses and pastures for which the mild winters in that region are peculiarly suited. This would accelerate erosion control. 12 Iron and steel traffic has risen from 9,000 to 53,000 tons in the last two years; petroleum and grain are up 50^000 tons each; but coal has fallen by 135;000 tons. |