Swampman,
I was not around when TVA started, but I do know a little about its history.
Every week I drive past the 1937 flood marker in Paducah KY, and then I drive 2 more miles through town to get to downtown. TVA dammed the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers while the Corps of Engineers dammed the Ohio River. Now Paducah does not have the devastating floods of the pre-TVA years. The same is true for Chattanooga, Nashville, and hundreds of other smaller Tennessee cities.
Every day I turn my lights on because TVA is generating electricity to power the electrical grid in Tennessee, Western Kentucky, Northern Mississippi, Northern Alabama, Northern Georgia, Western North Carolina, and Western Virginia. That same electrical grid powers the business and factories in those areas. I was born after electricity came to this area, so I do not know what it was like before electricity, but I have numerous relatives that do. From what I understand, the "good old days" were pretty tough. Pump water by hand from a shallow, iron water well, cut fire wood all summer and fall to keep semi-warm during the winter, haul the barn manure to garden and pray enough rain fell to grow a large garden, pray the crops produced enough and the prices were high enough to pay the taxes and purchase a few necessities; pretty much it was subsistence living. Today we heat with electricity or gas, pump water with electricity from deep, clear water wells, we still garden and farm, but all have jobs in the factories and business in the area. If the rains don't fall right, we just go to Wal-Mart and buy what we need.
We all want to stay in our comfort zone, but sometimes for the greater good we have to move on. Much of the business and industry that we now derive our livings from is in the TVA Region because of TVA and the ample, inexpensive power it produces. Those families that lost homes and farms were compensated, some better than others, but they were compensated. How families feel about TVA is somewhat a function of how they approached the idea of moving and how well they managed the monies they received. Some families bought farms and houses with their money, while others paid debts, and others still bought cars and consumer goods.
TVA has been good for Tennessee Valley Watershed and the USA. Much of the fertilizer that was and is used to keep our Grain Belt producing at high levels was developed by and the base product manufactured by the Nation Fertilizer Research Center in Northern Alabama. The Fertilizer Research Center is there because of TVA its inexpensive power.
Your world and my world would not exist as we know it with out TVA.
