The
Clinch River rises in
Southwest VirginiaSouthwest Virginia, often abbreviated as SWVA, is a mountainous region of Virginia in the westernmost part of the commonwealth. Southwest Virginia has been defined alternatively as all Virginia counties on the Appalachian Plateau, all Virginia counties west of the Eastern Continental Divide, or...
near
TazewellTazewell is a town in Tazewell County, Virginia, USA. The population was 4,206 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Bluefield, WV-VA micropolitan area, which has a population of 107,578. It is the county seat of Tazewell County....
,
VirginiaThe Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
and flows southwest through the
Great Appalachian ValleyThe Great Valley, also called the Great Appalachian Valley or Great Valley Region, is one of the major landform features of eastern North America. It is a gigantic trough — a chain of valley lowlands — and the central feature of the Appalachian Mountain system...
, gathering various
tributariesA tributary or affluent is a stream or river that flows into a main stem river or a lake. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean...
including the
Powell RiverThe Powell River in the United States rises in southwest Virginia and flows into East Tennessee.The river rises in rural Wise County, Virginia near the Laurel Grove community northwest of Norton and flows for several miles before the confluence with Roaring Fork in the Kent Junction community...
before joining the
Tennessee RiverThe Tennessee River is the largest tributary of the Ohio River. It is approximately 652 miles long and is located in the southeastern United States in the Tennessee Valley. The river was once popularly known as the Cherokee River, among other names...
in
East TennesseeEast Tennessee is a name given to approximately the eastern third of the U.S. state of Tennessee, one of the three Grand Divisions of Tennessee defined in state law. East Tennessee consists of 33 counties, 30 located within the Eastern Time Zone and three counties in the Central Time Zone, namely...
.
Course
The Clinch River is dammed twice: by
Norris DamNorris Dam is a hydroelectric and flood control structure located on the Clinch River in Anderson County and Campbell County, Tennessee, USA. Its construction in the mid-1930s was the first major project for the Tennessee Valley Authority, which had been created in 1933 to bring economic...
, the first
damA dam is a barrier that impounds water or underground streams. Dams generally serve the primary purpose of retaining water, while other structures such as floodgates or levees are used to manage or prevent water flow into specific land regions. Hydropower and pumped-storage hydroelectricity are...
built by the
Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA)The Tennessee Valley Authority is a federally owned corporation in the United States created by congressional charter in May 1933 to provide navigation, flood control, electricity generation, fertilizer manufacturing, and economic development in the Tennessee Valley, a region particularly affected...
; and by
Melton Hill DamMelton Hill Dam is a hydroelectric dam on the Clinch River just south of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA. The dam is operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority, which built the dam in the early 1960s to extend the Tennessee Valley's continuous navigation channel up the Clinch as far as Clinton and to...
, the only TVA dam with a lock not located on the main channel of the Tennessee River. It empties into the Tennessee River at
Kingston, TennesseeKingston is a city in and the county seat of Roane County, Tennessee, United States, and is adjacent to Watts Bar Lake. Kingston, with a population of 5,264 at the 2000 United States census, is included in the Harriman, Tennessee Micropolitan Statistical Area....
.
An important tributary of the Clinch River is the Powell River. The Clinch and Powell River drainage basins are separated by
Powell MountainPowell Mountain is a mountain ridge of the Ridge-and-valley Appalachians of the Appalachian Mountains. It is a long and narrow ridge, running northeast to southwest, from about Norton, Virginia to near Tazewell, Tennessee...
. Tributaries entering the Clinch River below
Norris DamNorris Dam is a hydroelectric and flood control structure located on the Clinch River in Anderson County and Campbell County, Tennessee, USA. Its construction in the mid-1930s was the first major project for the Tennessee Valley Authority, which had been created in 1933 to bring economic...
but above
Melton Hill DamMelton Hill Dam is a hydroelectric dam on the Clinch River just south of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA. The dam is operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority, which built the dam in the early 1960s to extend the Tennessee Valley's continuous navigation channel up the Clinch as far as Clinton and to...
include Coal Creek, Bull Run Creek, and
Beaver CreekBeaver Creek is a tributary of the Clinch River in Knox County in East Tennessee. It drains a watershed area of between Copper Ridge and Black Oak Ridge. It flows from northeast to southwest from the Gibbs High School area, through the Halls, Powell, Karns, Solway, and Hardin Valley communities,...
.
Poplar CreekPoplar Creek is a tributary of the Clinch River in Anderson and Roane counties in East Tennessee. Draining a watershed area of more than , it enters the Clinch near the former K-25 site, a short distance downstream from the confluence of East Fork Poplar Creek, its largest tributary....
enters below Melton Hill Dam.
History
A
peninsulaA peninsula is a piece of land that is bordered by water on three sides but connected to mainland. In many Germanic and Celtic languages and also in Baltic, Slavic and Hungarian, peninsulas are called "half-islands"....
located at the mouth of the Clinch River, called Southwest Point, was the site of an
early frontier fortFort Southwest Point was a federal frontier outpost at what is now Kingston, Tennessee, in the southeastern United States. Constructed in 1797 and garrisoned by federal soldiers until 1811, the fort served as a major point of interaction between the Cherokee and the United States government as...
which has been recently reconstructed. The site was important to
Native AmericansNative Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
. A
treatyA treaty is an express agreement under international law entered into by actors in international law, namely sovereign states and international organizations. A treaty may also be known as an agreement, protocol, covenant, convention or exchange of letters, among other terms...
between the
CherokeeThe Cherokee are a Native American people historically settled in the Southeastern United States . Linguistically, they are part of the Iroquoian language family...
and settlers was signed at Southwest Point, allowing the capital of Tennessee to be moved there. The
Tennessee General AssemblyThe Tennessee General Assembly is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Tennessee.-Constitutional structure:According to the Tennessee State Constitution of 1870, the General Assembly is a bicameral legislature and consists of a Senate of thirty-three members and a House of Representatives of...
technically fulfilled this requirement by meeting in Kingston for one day and voting to move the state capital elsewhere.
The river was once called "Clinch's River" and "Pelisipi River" (and variant spellings such as "Pelisippi" and "Pellissippi"). The name is said to mean "winding waters" in
CherokeeCherokee is an Iroquoian language spoken by the Cherokee people which uses a unique syllabary writing system. It is the only Southern Iroquoian language that remains spoken. Cherokee is a polysynthetic language.-North American etymology:...
(this claim is problematic; see Talk:Clinch River) and has been used in the area, such as
Pellissippi ParkwayThe Pellissippi Parkway is a highway in Knox and Blount counties in Tennessee. It extends from State Route 62 at Solway in Knox County to a terminus east of U.S. Route 129 in Blount County...
and
Pellissippi State Technical Community CollegePellissippi State Community College is one of 13 member community colleges operated by the Tennessee Board of Regents, located in Knoxville, Tennessee. In addition to the primary campus situated several miles west of downtown Knoxville, the school has three satellite campuses in the surrounding area...
.
A huge coal-fired power plant sits on the Clinch River at Carbo in
Russell County, VirginiaAs of the census of 2000, there were 30,308 people, 11,789 households, and 8,818 families residing in the county. The population density was 64 people per square mile . There were 13,191 housing units at an average density of 28 per square mile...
; it was built in 1957 and is owned by
Appalachian PowerAppalachian Power is a subsidiary of American Electric Power of Columbus, Ohio. It is based in Charleston, West Virginia and owns the rights to Appalachian Power Park in Charleston...
, a part of
American Electric PowerAmerican Electric Power is a major investor-owner electric utility in various parts of the United States. AEP ranks among the nation's largest generators of electricity, owning nearly 38,000 megawatts of generating capacity in the U.S...
. On June 25, 2008, permits were approved by the state Air Pollution Control Board for another coal-fired power plant, a few miles away outside
St. Paul, VirginiaSt. Paul is a town in Russell and Wise counties in the U.S. state of Virginia. The population was 1,000 people at the 2000 census.-Geography:St...
, by Dominion Virginia Power.
Pollution from mining in the region has caused great concern among environmentalists because several rare species inhabit the river. Some
musselThe common name mussel is used for members of several families of clams or bivalvia mollusca, from saltwater and freshwater habitats. These groups have in common a shell whose outline is elongated and asymmetrical compared with other edible clams, which are often more or less rounded or oval.The...
s have been reintroduced to the
Cleveland, VirginiaCleveland is a town in Russell County, Virginia, United States. The population was 148 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Cleveland is located at ....
, area from outside the state the early 2000s after pollution in the 20th century wiped out much of the population.
In 2008 a
massive release of fly ash from TVA's Kingston Fossil PlantThe TVA Kingston Fossil Plant coal fly ash slurry spill occurred just before 1 a.m. on Monday December 22, 2008, when an ash dike ruptured at an solid waste containment area at the Tennessee Valley Authority's Kingston Fossil Plant in Roane County, Tennessee, USA. of coal fly ash slurry was...
deposited fly ash in the lower section of the river below the confluence of the
Emory RiverThe Emory River is a stream draining a portion of Tennessee's Cumberland Plateau.-Hydrography:The Emory River rises on the slopes of Frozen Head and Bird Mountain, prominent peaks in that part of the Cumberland Plateau in Morgan County, Tennessee. Frozen Head is the focus of a Tennessee state park...
.
Ecology
The Clinch River above
Clinton, TennesseeClinton is a city in Anderson County, Tennessee, United States. Its population was 9,409 at the United States Census, 2000. It is the county seat of Anderson County. Clinton is included in the "Knoxville, Tennessee Metropolitan Statistical Area".-Geography:...
(tailwaters of Norris Dam) is stocked with
rainbow troutThe rainbow trout is a species of salmonid native to tributaries of the Pacific Ocean in Asia and North America. The steelhead is a sea run rainbow trout usually returning to freshwater to spawn after 2 to 3 years at sea. In other words, rainbow trout and steelhead trout are the same species....
and
brown troutThe brown trout and the sea trout are fish of the same species....
by the
Tennessee Wildlife Resources AgencyThe Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency is an independent state agency of the state of Tennessee with the mission of managing the state's fish and wildlife and their habitats, as well as responsibility for all wildlife-related law enforcement activities...
.
Before being dammed, the Clinch River was a major producer of freshwater
musselThe common name mussel is used for members of several families of clams or bivalvia mollusca, from saltwater and freshwater habitats. These groups have in common a shell whose outline is elongated and asymmetrical compared with other edible clams, which are often more or less rounded or oval.The...
s and pearls. The rivers of the southern
AppalachiansThe Appalachian Mountains #Whether the stressed vowel is or ,#Whether the "ch" is pronounced as a fricative or an affricate , and#Whether the final vowel is the monophthong or the diphthong .), often called the Appalachians, are a system of mountains in eastern North America. The Appalachians...
are still notable for their unusually rich mussel biodiversity. The mussels were an important food source for Native Americans and were later used by settlers as
baitBait is any substance used to attract prey, e.g. in a mousetrap.-In Australia:Baiting in Australia refers to specific campaigns to control foxes, wild dogs and dingos by poisoning in areas where they are a problem...
and hog feed. The freshwater pearl industry thrived throughout the southern Appalachians in the late 19th century and early 20th century. The Clinch River and the
Emory RiverThe Emory River is a stream draining a portion of Tennessee's Cumberland Plateau.-Hydrography:The Emory River rises on the slopes of Frozen Head and Bird Mountain, prominent peaks in that part of the Cumberland Plateau in Morgan County, Tennessee. Frozen Head is the focus of a Tennessee state park...
were considered the economic heart of the pearl industry, and the state of Tennessee was one of the top six states in the United States for pearl production. The mussel-based industries began to decline in the early 20th century and were effectively eliminated by the dams built by the TVA. The first major Tennessee River dam was
Wilson DamWilson Dam is a dam spanning the Tennessee River between Lauderdale County and Colbert County in the U.S. state of Alabama. It impounds Wilson Lake. It is one of nine Tennessee Valley Authority dams on the Tennessee River...
, built at a site known as
Muscle ShoalsMuscle Shoals is a city in Colbert County, Alabama, United States. As of 2007, the United States Census Bureau estimated the population of the city to be 12,846. The city is included in The Shoals MSA. It is famous for its contributions to American popular music.-Geography:Muscle Shoals is located...
, referring to the freshwater mussels of the region. Norris Dam on the Clinch River flooded one of the other famous mussel areas near Young's Island.
External links