Tennessee–Tombigbee Waterway: Tenn-Tom, New Waterway for America c1980 U S Army Corps Of Engineers

• Report rights infringement
• published: 15 Sep 2015
• views: 1057

more at http://quickfound.net The Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway is a a 234-mile waterway which joins two of the busiest navigation systems in the Southeast. Public domain film from the US National Archives, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and one-pass brightness-contrast-color correction & mild video noise reduction applied. The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennessee–Tombigbee_Waterway The Tennessee–Tombigbee Waterway (popularly known as the Tenn-Tom) is a 234-mile (377-kilometer) man-made waterway that extends from the Tennessee River to the junction of the Black Warrior-Tombigbee River system near Demopolis, Alabama, United States. The Tennessee–Tombigbee Waterway links commercial navigation from the nation’s midsection to the Gulf of Mexico. The major features of the waterway are 10 locks and dams, a 175-foot (53 m) deep cut between the Tombigbee River watershed and the Tennessee River watershed, and 234 miles (377 km) of navigation channels. The ten locks are 9 by 110 by 600 feet (2.7 m × 33.5 m × 182.9 m) the same dimension as the locks on the Mississippi. Under construction for twelve years by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Tennessee–Tombigbee Waterway was completed in December 1984 at a total cost of nearly $2 billion. The Tenn-Tom encompasses 17 public ports and terminals, 110,000 acres (450 km2) of land, and another 88,000 acres (360 km2) managed by state conservation agencies for wildlife habitat preservation and recreational use. Although supported by southern Congressmen, the Tenn-Tom Waterway was widely criticized at its creation as an example of exorbitant "pork barrel" spending. However, in succeeding years it has become an example of government investment in infrastructure yielding economic benefits over time... First proposed in the Colonial period, the idea for a commercial waterway link between the Tennessee and Tombigbee rivers did not receive serious attention until the advent of steamboat traffic in the early nineteenth century... As part of his "Southern Strategy" for reelection, President Nixon included $1 million in the Corps of Engineers' 1971 budget to start construction of the Tenn-Tom. Funding shortages and legal challenges delayed construction until December 1972, but President Nixon’s efforts nevertheless initiated official Tenn-Tom waterway construction. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began work on the project in 1972. During the construction process, land excavation reached about 175 feet (53 m) in depth. The Tenn-Tom is the largest earth-moving project in world history, requiring the excavation of nearly 310 million cubic yards of soil. (This is the equivalent of more than 100-million dump truck loads and more dirt than required in the Panama Canal.) The project was completed on December 12, 1984, nearly two years ahead of schedule... An article published in the Tuscaloosa News on January 9, 2005 to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the opening of the Canal noted that the canal carried just 7 million tons of cargo in 2004. The Mississippi, in contrast, carried 307 million tons of cargo in 2004. This is one quarter of the 28 million tons proponents of the canal had projected for the canal's first year. Proponents predicted the canal would carry 99 million tons by 2035...