History of the Hiwassee

 

 


Hiwassee River / Apalachia Tailwater
The History of the Apalachia Tailwater
(Much of this info is from TVA and TWRA literature.)
River: Tailwater: Fishery:

The River:

 

 

 

 



The headwaters of the Hiwassee River start in the Blue Ridge Mountains in NE Georgia. The river flows north into North Carolina, and then bears west into Tennessee. The major impoundments upstream of Apalachia Dam are, in order, Hiwassee Lake, Nottelly Lake (on a tributary), and Chatuge Lake. Apalachia Lake backs up about 10 river miles to the foot of Hiwassee Dam, and stays at pretty much a constant level of 1277 feet above sea level. Hiwassee Lake varies from a summer level around 1521 to a winter pool level of around 1484.

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The Tailwater:
The dam and powerhouse were built 1941-1943 to provide power for Oak Ridge in support of the war effort, at a cost of about 24 million dollars. The dam is at river mile 66 (the river is about 140 miles long), and is about 12 river miles upstream from the powerhouse. The area receives an average of about 57 inches of rainfall each year. About half of this flows down the river. The drainage area is about 1000 square miles, and the dam backs up 57,800 acre feet of water at a pool elevation of 1280 feet. Unlike most TVA lakes, the pool elevation stays the same all year long (1274-1279). The lake is not big, and the powerhouse is remotely operated . In general, whatever runs out of Hiwassee runs on through Apalachia. Maximum discharge on both turbines is about 2850 cfs. This is big water, and in places the river bed is 200 yards wide. Capacity is over 100 megawatts, and will be more when the 2nd turbine is replaced in 2005. One was replaced in 2004. Apalachia produces the cheapest power of any TVA facility, and they like to run it. Minimum required average flow is 200 cfs.
The biggest known flood at the dam site was estimated at 82,000 cfs in 1898. The biggest recorded flow at the dam was about 39,000 cfs in 1973. I have been told that this flood got into the basement at Webb's Grocery. The spillways will handle 156,000 cfs. The dam is 150 feet high, and about 1300 feet long.

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The Fishery:
Apalachia is the major tailwater in Tennessee that is usually stocked all 12 months of the year. Rainbow and brown trout are stocked, about 40,000 browns, some of them juveniles in March, and some fingerlings in November, and in the neighborhood of 84,000 rainbows spread over every month of the year. There are holdovers, with browns generally doing better than rainbows. The Hiwassee is noted for a great variety of insect life, with some good hatches. My understanding is that stocking started in the mid fifties, but old timers tell me there was a trout fishery before stocking started. Some of the tributaries were stocked long before then, and fish would migrate down to the river, and some managed to survive. During the '70's, brook trout were stocked, and the state record came from the Hiwassee, but they are not stocked now.

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