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Show Bar, Fort Loudoun, Apalachia, Ocoee No. 3 and Cherokee Dams, and Watts Bar Steam Plant. The last two of these were added to meet the defense emergency, upon recommendation of the National Defense Advisory Commission. Within a year 12 dams were being built and new generating units were being added to downstream hydroelectric plants already completed. In addi- tion, a large steam-electric plant was completed and placed in operation. The energy produced went into aluminum, ferroalloys and chemicals; and it also was used for powder plants, army cantonments, and air training centers. Hundreds of manufac- turers engaged in producing war materials were also supplied with electric energy. In 1942 TVA was selling 6 billion kilowatt-hours of energy. More than 4 billion were used for war production. The Aluminum Co. of America needed to expand capacity to meet aircraft pro- duction needs, so deliveries to it were made far in excess of previous contractual obligations. War needs brought about the Fontana agreement al- ready described for integrating the power resources of the TVA and the Aluminum Co. The production of primary aluminum in the United States in 1938 was less than 150,000 tons. Capacity expansion began in 1941. The war de- mand quadrupled output as compared with 1937 and tripled it as compared with 1939. An impor- tant part of this expansion took place in the plants of east Tennessee and new plants at Muscle Shoals. Both of these called for the power from TVA plants. When TVA took over the idle Muscle Shoals nitrate plants in 1933, it was directed by Congress "to improve and cheapen the production of ferti- lizer." One great need of the soils in the valley was for phosphate fertilizer. Therefore TVA adapted facilities to produce concentrated super- phosphate fertilizer, making the necessary phos- phoric acid by the electric furnace process. Thus when World War II came, the electric furnaces were ready to produce phosphorus for tracer bul- lets, incendiaries, and other war uses as well as for fertilizers. With funds provided by the Army, TVA rehabilitated and built ammonium nitrate works. Some furnaces built during World War I for the cyanamid process were used to produce cal- cium carbide for synthetic rubber. In 1943 the valley system produced power at the rate of 10 billion kilowatt-hours annually; 7}/2 bil- lion of this output went into war production. In addition to supplying energy to aluminum, phos- phorus, nitrate, and calcium carbide plants, the system helped to meet the Nation's war needs for copper, airplanes, antiaircraft guns, rubber tires, ships' boilers, and many smaller items. As a major part of the Cumberland Valley was in the TVA power market area, the industry of middle Tennessee, centering around Nashville, also relied on TVA power in expanding for war pro- duction. At the time aluminum production was reaching its 1943 peak, a new defense demand for power was placed on the valley system. This was for the now famous Oak Ridge atomic fission plants. The capacity of TVA to supply electric power was the major factor in locating an atomic energy project in the valley. At the end of World War II, about three-fourths of the valley system's production of nearly 12 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity annually was provided to war industries. The Postwar Situation With the completion of Kentucky and Fontana Dams in the last year of the Second World War, the integrated system included 26 major dams. In 12 years the Authority had provided more than 2.5 million kilowatts of installed capacity, of which 2.2 million kilowatts is in federally owned hydro- electric and steam-electric plants. Keeping abreast of war industry demands, installed capacity had been increased 127 percent in 5 years. Yet within 10 months after the war ended and TVA had reconverted to peacetime schedules, the need for power to serve the regional economy sur- passed even the wartime peaks. Consequently the Authority has had to continue its program of con- struction. As the present international emergency has grown acute the need has come for still further expansion of capacity for producing power. Table 4 indicates the principal features of water control projects in the Tennessee Basin. Use of Marginal Lands The amount of sloping land and other conditions conducive to erosion make proper watershed man- agement vital to the long-term welfare of the area. Activities related to watershed management are carried on generally by the Federal agencies re- sponsible for such programs in the Nation as a whole. Also, the Tennessee Valley Authority has a program of improved watershed management. |