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Show paper mills, rayon plants, chemical plants, and mining operations. More than a score of com- munities have begun pollution abatement, including the four largest cities, Knoxville, Chattanooga, Asheville, and Bristol. Although the long-term increase in pollution has not yet been reversed, there is evidence that the trend may change in the future. An exception is the pollution of under- ground waters, which has received little attention. National Defense Pre-1933 Facilities The Tennessee Valley is, in many respects, well equipped to strengthen the national defenses. It has been so used in the past. Wilson Dam and the other Muscle Shoals prop- erties were constructed or acquired under the National Defense Act of 1916.22 The facilities included chiefly two processing plants, known as Nitrate Plants No. 1 and No. 2, the Wilson Dam and hydroelectric power plant, and the auxiliary Shef- field steam plant. Construction of the dam was begun in 1918, but the project was not completed in time to affect the progress of the war. After the war the construction program was less urgently pressed, so the first generating unit was not in operation until 1925. In the First World War, the need for food and raw materials greatly accelerated the drain upon the soil. The facilities already under way at Muscle Shoals afforded an opportunity for new and im- proved methods of manufacturing nitrate fertilizers. Except for the electricity generated and sold to the Alabama Power Co., these national defense properties stood virtually idle from 1926 to 1933. The chief problem in those years was the appropri- ate use of the national defense facilities and the distribution of the incidental power at Wilson Dam. The War Department23 in 1919, after careful investigation, recommended peacetime production of nitrates for fertilizers and war explosives as a means of maintaining the properties and a trained personnel im readiness for defense needs. The basic concept of the legislation authorizing development of Muscle Shoals was that constant research was necessary to prevent obsolescence. B Act of Jmine 3, 1916, § 124, 39 Stat. 166, 215. ** Now the Department of the Army. This legislation provided for the creation of a Federal corporation to administer and operate the Muscle Shoals properties. It set the pattern for all future Muscle Shoals legislation in authorizing the maintenance and operation of the properties to furnish explosives, either for actual war or peace- time operation, and to carry on research in war production. Government operation of the power plant for defense purposes was considered to pre- clude leasing the surplus capacity for private oper- ation. Eventually these facts brought about a resolu- tion of the basic problem which allowed the Ten- nessee Valley Authority to manage the properties, preserving their national defense attributes. In section 1 of the TVA Act, provision was made for maintaining and operating the properties in the vicinity of Muscle Shoals "in the interest of the national defense and for agricultural and industrial development."24 Basically, the act contemplated use of the properties for fertilizer production in peacetime, and the partial or complete conversion to munition production in wartime. In the early years of the TVA, in the course of various court tests, the War Department outlined the importance of the facilities for national defense. Nitrate Plant No. 2, with the aid of electric power furnished by Wilson Dam and the Sheffield steam plant, could produce ammonium nitrate: the Army counted upon that plant for supply in the event of war. The properties also could be altered, if desir- able, to produce specific war materials of which there were shortages in the First World War, such as white phosphorus, refractories, calcium carbide, ferroalloys, and abrasives. Facilities in the Second World War By the beginning of World War II Norris, Wheeler, Pickwick, Guntersville, Chickamauga, and Hiwassee Dams had been added to the system. TVA also had acquired certain other hydroelectric and steam generating plants. It withheld from sale to outside agencies enough power to meet the full wartime requirements of Nitrate Plant No. 2. Dur- ing 1940 and 1941 the construction program was accelerated. To meet additional power require- ments, and especially for aluminum production, the Authority was authorized to carry out an emergency program. The agency had under construction at this time hydroelectric plants at Kentucky, Watts 44 Act of May 18,1933, § 1,48 Stat. 58,16 U. S. C. 831. 732 |
