The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) plans to empty the majority of the mountaintop reservoir at its Raccoon Mountain Pumped Storage Plant on November 2nd (2009) to inspect the facility, including the 8,500- foot-long rock-filled dam, which is located at the top of the mountain. The current plan is to refill the reservoir by late November.
According to the October 10 Chattanooga Times Free Press (www.timesfreepress.com), the storage lake, which typically holds 700+ million gallons of water, is being inspected as part of TVA’s timely five-year cycle of preventive maintenance for the pumped storage facility.
During this process, a portion of the boat parking area at the base of the mountain will be closed to the public, enabling crews to store equipment necessary for the draining project; this area will be closed from early October through December.
Barbara Martocci, a spokesperson for the TVA, said power generation will be suspended during the maintenance work, and some of the water released from the upper reservoir may discolor water flowing into the Nickajack reservoir below the facility, “similar to what is experienced after a flood.”
Utilized like a giant energy storage battery, the TVA pumps water to the upper reservoir during periods of low energy demand, then allowing the water to flow back through giant generators within the mountain to produce power during peak demand periods.
From its beginning, TVA has held fast to its strategy of integrated solutions, even as the issues changed over the years. The Tennessee Valley Authority is a federally-owned corporation created by congressional charter in May 1933 to provide navigation, flood control, electricity generation, fertilizer manufacturing, and economic development in the Tennessee Valley (a region hit particularly hard by the Great Depression.) The TVA, envisioned by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, was to be not only a provider, but also a regional economic development agency that would leverage federal expertise and electricity to quickly modernize this region's economy and society.
The TVA's jurisdiction covers most of Tennessee, parts of Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky, as well as small slices of Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia. It is considered a “political entity,” with a territory the size of a major state (larger than Rhode Island and Delaware), with limited state powers (including eminent domain), but unlike a state, it has no citizenry or elected officials. It was the first large regional planning agency of the federal government, and remains the largest today.