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KENTUCKY
LAKE
Kentucky Lake History Purchase & View MAPS
of Kentucky Lake
Kentucky Dam creates the largest manmade lake in the
eastern United States. It backs up the Tennessee River for 184 miles
and creates a lake that stretches south across the western tip of
Kentucky and nearly the entire width of Tennessee. At maximum normal
operating level, Kentucky Lake covers 160,300 acres.
More important than the project's size
are the jobs it performs. Kentucky Dam is the spigot that TVA
(Tennessee Valley Authority) uses to help control floods on the lower
Ohio and Mississippi rivers; it is the gateway to the Tennessee River
waterway and is a major generating plant in the TVA power system.
Construction
The huge job of building Kentucky Dam
took six years from the start of construction on July 1, 1938, until
the reservoir began filling on August 30, 1944. At the peak of
construction TVA had nearly 5,000 men at work building the dam and
preparing the reservoir area. The dam, which is more than a mile long
and rises 206 feet above its foundation, required 1,356,000 cubic
yards of concrete and 5,582,000 cubic yards of earth and rockfill. The
project cost about $118 million.
Flood Control
The Tennessee is the nation's fifth
largest river within the lower 48 states in terms of flow. Kentucky
Dam is just 22 miles upstream from Paducah, Kentucky where the
Tennessee River flows into the Ohio. Water from the 40,200 square mile
Tennessee Valley passes through the dam. This strategic location and
the vast flood storage capacity of Kentucky Lake make it possible for
Kentucky Dam to reduce or even temporarily shut off the flow of water
from the Tennessee to help lower flood crests on the Ohio and
Mississippi rivers. With the other dams in the TVA system, it helps
provide flood protection to 6 million acres of land in the lower Ohio
and Mississippi valleys and reduces the frequency of flooding on
another 4 million acres. In the 37 years since Kentucky Dam was
completed, this flood regulation has reduced damages in those areas by
millions of dollars.
Navigation
Projects to improve navigation
conditions on the lower Tennessee River began shortly after the Civil
War, but it was Kentucky Dam and lock which finally provided a
first-order channel for today's big inland towboats and barges.
Kentucky Lake is the first step in a stairway of navigable TVA lakes
that allow modern 9-foot draft vessels to travel the 650-mile-long
main river the year round. Since impoundment of Kentucky Lake in 1945,
completing this waterway and linking the Tennessee Valley with the 21
state inland waterway system, freight traffic on the Tennessee has
grown from 2 million tons a year to more than 31 million tons.
The lock, at the eastern end of the
dam, handles more than 2,000 loaded barges a month. This normally
requires lifts of about 55 feet between the river below the dam and
the lake behind it. A river tow bound upstream may carry steel from
the north, grain from the midwest, or petroleum products, chemicals,
or ores from the Gulf Coast. Down-bound tows carry a variety of
Tennessee Valley products to other regions, including nuclear reactor
vessels too large to travel overland.
Power Generation
The five turbine-generators in Kentucky
Dam powerhouse have a total capacity of 175,000 kilowatts. They
harness the river's flow to generate up to 1.3 billion kilowatt-hours
of electricity each year. Some of this water comes from the river's
headwaters and already has helped to spin turbines at a dozen other
TVA dams as it flows a thousand winding miles down the Tennessee
Valley.
Recreation
Kentucky Lake is a magnet for
vacationers and fishermen from a wide area of mid- America, with
recreation use amounting to some 17 million visits each year. Along
its nearly 2400 miles of cove-studded shoreline are many boat docks
and resorts, 4 state parks, the Tennessee National Wildlife refuge, 48
public access areas, 2 county parks, 5 municipal parks, 2 state
wildlife management areas, 10 group camps and clubs, 92 commercial
recreation areas, and 3 small wildlife areas.
Kentucky
Lake HistoryPurchase & View MAPS
of Kentucky Lake
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