This post is part of a series running all month on freshwater mussels, highlighting their importance to the Northeast landscape and the concerted efforts underway to ensure their future in our waters.
The conflict between the demand for energy and the love of land
The 1960 film Wild River, starring Montgomery Clift and Lee Remick, dramatically depicts the controversy surrounding the construction of a series of federal dams to harness the mighty Tennessee River for electrical power generation in the 1930s. The story opens when a Tennessee Valley Authority field administrator is sent to make way for one of the dams, but the Garth family and others living along the river resist leaving their land, which is to be flooded. Slowly, the conflict unfolds.
Wild River pits the need for power generation and flood control against the preservation of land and culture. Construction of dams throughout the Tennessee River basin brought the region into the modern world but also displaced farm families and communities, altered aquatic habitats, and resulted in the loss of many native fish and mussels.
The conflict between the demand for energy and the love of land
Wild River pits the need for power generation and flood control against the preservation of land and culture. Construction of dams throughout the Tennessee River basin brought the region into the modern world but also displaced farm families and communities, altered aquatic habitats, and resulted in the loss of many native fish and mussels.
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| TVA's Norris Dam on the lower Clinch River in Tennessee. Completed in 1936, it was the first of many dams constructed by TVA to harness the power of the Tennessee River System. The free-flowing portion of the Clinch River above the dam is the nation's top hotspot for freshwater mussel diversity. |
