Public land divestiture : the Tennessee Valley Authority Land Review and Disposal Program

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) was created in May 1933 as an instrument of social and economic planning in the Tennessee Valley. From the beginning TVA leadership realized that land acquisition would be central to the attainment of many of its key goals. It immediately embarked on an ambitious program to acquire land to build rural villages, to reforest eroded hillsides, and to control the development of land around its reservoirs. In 1944, however, TVA reversed course and began a massive land disposal program which dominated land policy from 1944 to 1960. The disposals had a strong effect on the use of land in the region and on TVA's ability to carry out its responsibilities. This is a study of the Land Review and Disposal Program. It is both a case study of a particular event in the evolution of TVA policy and an object lesson for future land disposal programs.

The first aim of the study is to document and analyze the Land Review and Disposal Program as an important phase of TVA land policy. The study traces the development of early regional planning and land policies and uncovers the reasons for reversal of land acquisition practices. It examines the implementation and results of the Land Review and Disposal Program and evaluates TVA's performance in accomplishing the goals set for it. The second aim of the study is to use the Land Review and Disposal Program as a source of lessons for general applicability to similar programs. The goals of the TVA program and the way in which land was conveyed, on a tract-by-tract basis for specific purposes, are similar to the most likely scenario for future public land disposals.

The study concludes that the overriding goal of the Land Review and Disposal Program was to bring TVA's land policy into conformity with the conservative political economy of the region. In this, the agency was successful because it disposed of 215,000 acres or over 57% of its available land. It was not, however, as successful in accomplishing other program goals--stimulating regional economic development, rationalizing TVA's land ownership patterns, and supporting state and local government.