At 480' high, it is the tallest dam east of the Rocky Mountains. [video @ 0:28] It can produce 293mw with three turbines. [0:40]
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| TVA In a year with normal rainfall, the water level in Fontana Reservoir varies about 56 feet from summer to winter to provide seasonal flood storage. Fontana has a flood-storage capacity of 514,000 acre-feet. |
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| The Appalachian Storyteller posted Fontana Dam “The Tallest Dam in the Eastern United States. Standing taller than many skyscrapers at 480ft [146m] tall with 3 million cubic yards of concrete. It was built during 1942-1944 to help fuel America’s WWII effort. Many of the 5000 men who built this dam were WWI veterans and paid no mind to the signs posted all over the construction site, admonishing the men to “Work here, or Fight over there”. The men made the best of the work camp located in the remote wilderness hours from any town. They had a barber shop, basketball court, softball field, post office, library, grocery store, dentist office, hospital, movie theater, and a soda pop stand. Heck they even had weekly dances where musicians from the mountains would play the fiddle and the banjo all night long. Most of the 228,000 kilowatts of power produced by this dam was consumed at the Alcoa, Tennessee Aluminum plant which was churning out metal for US Military aircraft. After the dam was built, the small city they built was largely deserted, leaving only 50 or so families behind to tend to the dam” Jason Bruce Marshall: I read that Carters Dam is the largest east of the Mississippi River. John Crabtree: Jason Bruce Marshall Carter's Dam in North Georgia is the tallest Earthen dam East of the Mississippi. Fontana is concrete. Keith Herndon: Jason Bruce Marshall Carters lake in Georgia is the deepest lake east of the Mississippi at nearly 500 ft deep. I fish both lakes Fontana and Carters,both are beautiful lakes. |
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| Ed Stachurski commented on the post by The Appalachian Storyteller Visited last summer. Very impressive happened to be there the day water came out of the tubes. Awesome ! |
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| Corinna Marie Vandergriff commented on the post by The Appalachian Storyteller I was there last summer. It is an impressive sight. |
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| Gary Flynn, Feb 2020 |
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| Tom Kees posted, flipped to correct his image At 480 ft., Fontana Dam is the tallest concrete dam east of the Rocky Mountains. The dam impounds the Little Tennessee River forming Fontana Lake and produces hydroelectric power. Reservoir size is approximately 11,700 acres. There is a shoreline of about 240 miles. Ted Gregory shared |
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| Patrick Rosenbalm commented on Tom's post Fontana at night under a starry sky. |
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| Brandon Carpenter commented on Tom's post Not sure why you flipped the photo but this is actually what it looks like. |
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| A 5:08 virtual tour video and some history |
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| TVA posted |
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| TVA posted |
TVA posted five images with the comment:
Eighty years ago this week, Japan's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor led to the United States officially entering WWII on Dec. 11. We began a program of construction to supply the desperately needed power for wartime industries. By 1942 we had 12 hydro facilities and one steam plant underway.
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TVA posted five photos with the comment: "January 1, 1942 was a busy day in western North Carolina as work began on Fontana Dam. 3 years later on January 20, 1945, the first power was generated at the highest dam east of the Mississippi River.
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TVA posted five photos with the comment:
An engineering marvel in the middle of the mountains, Fontana Dam is the highest dam east of the Rockies, reaching a height of 485 feet! Sitting on the Little Tennessee River in western North Carolina, Fontana has three generating units that produce 304 megawatts – enough to power 176K homes! Fontana Dam played a crucial role in supporting wartime energy needs, including the Manhattan Project and aluminum production in East Tennessee. 🇺🇸Take a virtual tour 👉http://tva.me/e46g50Wy0Cc
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"In a Chattanooga Times article dated December 19, 1941, Fontana is described as the “greatest construction project ever undertaken in the United States.” With a projected 2.8 million cubic yards of concrete, Fontana would be the fourth largest all-concrete dam in the country and TVA’s largest at the time — “larger than the Panama Canal or Boulder Dam” was TVA’s description of the project. Construction began on January 1, 1942, and less than three years after project authorization, Fontana was completed. Its crews consistently broke records; the most famous was setting a national record of placing 11,419 cubic yards of concrete in 24 hours (a volume equivalent to more than 2.3 million gallons of milk)." One of the war industries it was built to supply was an Alcoa smelter that was about 30 miles to the West. [tva-power-to-win] I assume this was the alcoa plant. The aluminum plant was a cover for the true purpose of supporting the Oak Ridge nuclear bomb project. [3:35] If I remember correctly, Oak Ridge enriched uranium using a lot of centrifuges.
A 7:50 video of 2013 spillway action including the initial flow After a while, I cheated and used the slider bar to go to 3:51. Near the end there are some overview shots of the discharge.
