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LAKE LOTS BECOMING A PREMIUM |
"New TVA policy bans shoreline sales"
Article in Commercial Appeal - Dec. 1, 2006
The Tennessee Valley Authority on Thursday  adopted a land policy that bans the sale of protected shoreline along 11,000 miles of the Tennessee River system for residential and retail development.
"The overriding theme of the TVA land policy is the basic premise to preserve reservoir land remaining under TVA's control in public ownership," TVA director Susan Williams said.
The land policy, containing only limited exceptions for industrial projects and public recreation, was approved by the TVA Board of Directors on an 8-1 vote.
The plan affects some 293,000 acres the federal agency manages along the 652-mile Tennessee River system and its tributaries.
That's all that remains of some 1.3 million acres TVA acquired in the 1930s for its flood-control and hydroelectric system.
About 470,000 of those acres are now under water.
Much of the rest became state parks and federal preserves, and about 160,000 acres went to industrial and residential development, particularly in the 1940s and 1950s and again in the 1980s.
Conservationists praised the new policy, while critics worried it would hurt rural economies that could benefit from a gated residential community development.
"I want to thank you so much for this Christmas gift," Renee Hoyos, executive director of the Tennessee Clean Water Network, told the TVA directors. |
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