The Electric valley

Duration: 90

Year Published: 1983

Creator: James Agee Project

Format: 16mm

Color: Color & B&W

Sound: sound

Description: This documentary combines archival footage, government films and interviews with directors and workers to present a fifty-year history of the Tennessee Valley Authority or TVA, one of the most controversial Federal agenies ever created. Formed in 1933, the TVA was given the formidable task of taming the forces of nature in order to create cheap energy and so produce a long-lasting prosperity in the Depression-wracked Tennessee Valley. In the decades that followed, the authority became involved in political battles pitting the prerogatives of the public and private sectors and in debates concerning its ecological impact. With the displacement of farm families and damage to the environment due to coal and strip mining plus the construction of unsuccessful nuclear power plants, the TVA's future is uncertain.