Written by: David L. Brown
This past December the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) provided a special release on the Ocoee to enable a raft trip for outfitters and others to run the river after the AO conference in Chattanooga. These releases represent an incredible transition for TVA. Because TVA is not subject to FERC licensing, TVA is not required by law to consider the nonpower benefits of its power projects. Historically, TVA has insisted on reimbursement for lost power to provide the releases that paddlers and rafters enjoy during the regular season.
Watch the December 2024 Ocoee Rafting Trip
TVA’s death grip on that position has loosened to some extent as this past December’s water release shows. The agency has become a partner with the State of Tennessee and paddlers in promoting recreation on the river. It has been a long transition that began way back in the 1970s when the historic Ocoee diversion project with its 4.5-mile wooden flume line was first shut down for a complete rebuild and whitewater paddlers flocked to the river for the first time.
Unlike western rivers, eastern rivers do not have snowpack to provide reliable flows into the summer months. As the whitewater industry gained a foothold in Appalachia 50 years ago, outfitters realized that the water stored behind dams for power and flood control offered one of the few options for the reliable flows that were necessary to enable advanced reservations for rafting and boating.
When I started as the first Executive Director of the Eastern Professional River Outfitters Association (EPRO) in 1982, I will never forget outfitters on the Lehigh River in Pennsylvania operating raft trips during snowstorms in the early spring. Their season was pretty much over in April. Now, they have water releases well into the summer thanks in part to the battle to save Ocoee and follow-up efforts on West Virginia’s Gauley River.
A major steppingstone in that transition began in 1984 when TVA signed a historic agreement with the State of Tennessee to provide 116 days of water releases on the Ocoee River for whitewater recreation. The Ocoee was the first federal power project in the nation to secure a contract for water releases to benefit downstream whitewater recreation. The battle to achieve that agreement also played a role in the broader effort to extend those benefits to other water projects.
While we were never quite able to get downstream recreation made a project purpose for the Ocoee project, we took that concept and applied it to Corps’ projects. In the Water Resources Development Act of 1988 with the help of Congressman Nick Rahall and his legislative director, Jim Zoia, we retroactively made downstream recreation a project purpose of eleven Corps of Engineers’ projects throughout the mid-Atlantic region.
Likewise, the drive to achieve nonpower benefits from FERC-licensed projects got its start in those early battles and was brought to fruition in the Electric Consumers Protection Act of 1986. (See testimony of David L. Brown, Relicensing of Hydroelectric Projects, Subcommittee on Energy Conservation and Power, May 17, 1984.)
These early campaigns were part of an undeniable movement that gained traction and delivered benefits to downstream recreation from Corps of Engineers’ and FERC-licensed projects throughout the nation. The coalition of outfitters and private boaters participating in these early battles made enormous contributions to the future of the outdoor recreation industry that is often lost as industry pioneers fade into history.
About the Author: David L. Brown was Executive Director of America Outdoors Association, the nation’s leading outfitter trade association, from shortly after its formation in 1991 until December 2017. He is also the author of two books, The Whitewater Wars, about the battles to save the Ocoee and Gauley Rivers and Welcome Home, A Story of Hope, Perseverance and Redemption from the Vietnam War.