|
 NORRIS DAM - Norris, TN Posted by:  vhasler
N 36° 13.296 W 084° 05.355
16S E 761637 N 4012456
Norris Dam was the first of the Tennessee Valley Authority dams to be constructed.
Waymark Code: WMA0V9
Location: Tennessee, United States
Date Posted: 10/27/2010
Views: 8
NORRIS DAM (guard at each end of road over dam will give
information) is of the concrete gravity storage type. Named for United States Senator George W. Norris of Nebraska, it was the first major construction job to be completed by the Tennessee Valley Authority, and began impounding the waters of Clinch River on March 4, 1936. Work had begun in 1933. The total cost, including
purchase of the reservoir area, was approximately $36,000,000.
Norris Dam is 1,860 feet long, 1,570 feet of its length being a solid concrete mass. The remaining 290 feet is an earth-fill dike with a reinforced concrete core wall. The dam is approximately 208 feet thick at the base and 265 feet high from the lowest point in the foundation to the roadway on its top.
Norris Dam has created a reservoir, Norris Lake, which, extending into numerous side coves, has a shore line of approximately 705 miles and is 50 square miles in area; it extends 72 miles up the Clinch River and 65 miles up the Powell. The lake has a storage capacity of 836 billion gallons. Its outline resembles a huge hand, the palm near the junction of the Powell and the Clinch, with fingers spreading out into narrow valleys between tree-covered hills.
The normal level of the lake is 1,020 feet above sea level; a flood could cause the water to rise to 1,052 feet. During dry seasons, when the river below the dam is too low for navigation and power purposes, the lake can be lowered to 955 feet. The level of the lake, or its spillway crest, is controlled by three drum-type gates, each 14 feet high and 100 feet long, through which 205,000 cubic feet of water can be discharged each second. Eight sluiceways, each controlled by vertically sliding gates, can release an additional 37,000 cubic feet a second. The spillway discharges into a concrete
hydraulic jump pool that extends 215 feet downstream from the toe of the dam. This concrete pool prevents the downward force of the water
from eroding the foundation of the dam.
Surrounding the lake are 117,000 acres of TVA-owned land, purchased primarily to prevent siltation of the reservoir. This land has been developed as a park and stocked with game.
----- TENNESSEE - A Guide to the State (third printing 1949)
The $36 million project in 1936 would now be $460 million based on straight inflation, but its impact would seem like a $5-6 billion in today's economy.
Book: Tennessee
Page Number(s) of Excerpt: 344-345
Year Originally Published: 1939
|
Visit Instructions:
To log a Visit, please supply an original image of the Waymark.
|