Tennessee River | Lake Trash

04/01/2008

molly

Tennessee River

The Tennessee River is the largest tributary of the Ohio River. It is approximately 652 miles (1049 km) long and is located in the southeastern United States in the Tennessee Valley. The river was once popularly known as the Cherokee River, among other names.

The Tennessee River is formed at the confluence of the Holston and French Broad Rivers on the east side of Knoxville, Tennessee. From Knoxville, it flows southwest through East Tennessee toward Chattanooga before crossing into Alabama. It loops through northern Alabama and eventually forms a small part of the state's border with Mississippi, before returning to Tennessee. At this point, it defines the boundary between Tennessee's other two regions—Middle and West Tennessee. The Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway, a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers project providing navigation on the Tombigbee River and a link to the Port of Mobile, enters Tennessee near the Tennessee-Alabama-Mississippi boundary.

This waterway reduces the navigation distance from Tennessee, north Alabama, and northern Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico by hundreds of miles. The final part of the Tennessee's run is in Kentucky, where it separates the Jackson Purchase from the rest of the state. It then flows into the Ohio River at Paducah, Kentucky. It is one of a very few rivers in the United States which leave a state and then re-enter it; the Cumberland River is another such river. The river has been dammed numerous times, primarily by Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) projects. The placement of TVA's Kentucky Dam on the Tennessee River and the Corps' Barkley Dam on the Cumberland River directly led to the creation of Land Between the Lakes. A navigation canal located at Grand Rivers, Kentucky links Kentucky Lake and Lake Barkley.

The canal allows for a shorter trip for river traffic going from the Tennessee to most of the Ohio River, and for traffic going down the Cumberland River toward the Mississippi. Officially the Tennessee River begins at mile post 652, where the French Broad River meets the Holston River. According to Tennessee Valley Authority historians,[citation needed] until 1933 the river that flowed past Knoxville was designated the Holston River, and the Tennessee River was considered to begin at the confluence of the Holston and the Little Tennessee River at Lenoir City 51 miles downstream and 601 miles upstream from the Ohio River at Paducah, Kentucky.

The nomenclature was changed in 1933 due to a Congressional mandate that the Tennessee Valley Authority headquarters be located on the banks of the Tennessee River. Because the TVA headquarters were to be located in downtown Knoxville, the confluence of the Holston and French Broad Rivers was designated to be the beginning of the Tennessee River, placing the beginning of the river upstream from Knoxville. At various points since the early 19th century, Georgia has disputed its northern border with Tennessee, thereby denying Georgia its historical riparian and navigation rights to the waters of the Tennessee River.

In 1796, when Tennessee was admitted to the Union, the border was originally defined by United States Congress as located on the 35th parallel, thereby ensuring that at least a portion of the river would be located within Georgia. As a result of an erroneously conducted survey in 1818 (ratified by the Tennessee legislature but not Georgia), however, the actual border line was set on the ground approximately one mile south, thus placing the disputed portion of the river entirely in Tennessee. Georgia made several unsuccessful attempts to correct the erroneous survey line in the 19th and 20th centuries.

In 2008, as a result of a serious drought and resulting water shortage, however, the Georgia General Assembly passed a resolution directing the governor to pursue its claim in the United States Supreme Court. [3] [4]Many Tennessee lawmakers have dismissed the Georgia claims and are mounting a legislative challenge to keep the border where it is.