Tennessee Valley Authority

US government corporation founded in 1933 to develop the Tennessee River basin (an area of some 104,000 sq km/40,000 sq mi) by building hydroelectric power stations, producing and distributing fertilizers, and similar activities. The TVA was associated with President F D Roosevelt's New Deal, promoting economic growth by government investment.

Regional planning was initiated on a scale never previously attempted. The TVA's two major functions were to control destructive flooding on the lower Mississippi River, which had long plagued the valley, and to provide employment in a 7-state area hard hit by the depression. A large government-built nitrate plant, the Muscle Shoals works at the Wilson Dam, had already been built during World War I.

There are now 50 dams incorporated into a massive river-control system. Navigation has been improved and hydroelectricity, generated at 29 of the dams, provides power for a wide area. The setting up of a federal government enterprise in competition with private power companies was originally opposed, but sales of electricity have enabled the Tennessee Valley Authority to repay the capital sums originally invested by the government. Industry has been attracted to the area, and demand for electricity has necessitated the construction of 11 thermal power stations, and two nuclear-powered plants. Today about half of the TVA's electrical output is devoted to defence installations surrounding the generating facilities.

The TVA has also undertaken reforestation projects, agricultural research, and malaria control. Problems such as soil erosion and deforestation had stemmed from the poor farming methods of early settlers, and affected parts of Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, Tennessee, Virginia, Georgia, and North Carolina, making the Tennessee Valley one of the most depressed areas of the USA in the 1930s.

Tourism has been encouraged by the laying out of national parks and creation of visitor facilities; cultural and educational activities have also been promoted.