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Clinch River

April 08, 2024

For the nuclear reactor proposed in the 1970s, see Clinch River Breeder Reactor Project.

The Clinch River is a river that flows southwest for more than 300 miles (480 km) through the Great Appalachian Valley in the U.S. states of Virginia and Tennessee, gathering various tributaries, including the Powell River, before joining the Tennessee River in Kingston, Tennessee.

Clinch River
The Clinch River at Speers Ferry in Scott County, Virginia
Map of the Clinch River
Location
CountryUnited States
StateVirginia, Tennessee
Physical characteristics
SourceBuckhorn Mountain near Tazewell, Virginia
 • coordinates37°08′29″N 81°27′41″W / 37.14139°N 81.46139°W / 37.14139; -81.46139[1]
 • elevation2,760 ft (840 m)[1]
MouthTennessee River at Kingston, Tennessee
 • coordinates
35°51′48″N 84°31′54″W / 35.86333°N 84.53167°W / 35.86333; -84.53167[1]
 • elevation
741 ft (226 m)[1]
Length337 mi (542 km)[2]
Basin size4,413 sq mi (11,430 km2)[3]
Discharge 
 • locationGrissom Island near Tazewell, Tennessee, 159.8 miles (257.2 km) above the mouth(mean for water years 1918-1983)[4]
 • average2,100 cu ft/s (59 m3/s)(mean for water years 1918-1983)[4]
 • minimum108 cu ft/s (3.1 m3/s)
September 1925[4]
 • maximum98,100 cu ft/s (2,780 m3/s)
April 1977[4]
Basin features
Tributaries 
 • leftLittle River, Beaver Creek
 • rightGuest River, North Fork Clinch River, Powell River, Coal Creek, Poplar Creek, Emory River

Course edit

The Clinch River is dammed twice: by Norris Dam, the first dam built by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA); and by the Melton Hill Dam, the only TVA dam with a navigation lock that is not located on the main channel of the Tennessee River.

An important tributary of the Clinch River is the Powell River. The Clinch and Powell drainage basins are separated by Powell Mountain. Tributaries entering the Clinch River below Norris Dam but above Melton Hill Dam include Coal Creek, Hinds Creek, Bull Run Creek, and Beaver Creek. Poplar Creek enters the river below the Melton Hill Dam.

History edit

A peninsula located at the mouth of the Clinch River, later called Southwest Point, was important to generations of Native Americans. In the early colonial period, it was the site of a frontier fort. This structure has recently been reconstructed.

The Cherokee and European settlers signed a treaty at Southwest Point to allow the capital of Tennessee to be moved there. The Tennessee General Assembly fulfilled this requirement technically by meeting in Kingston for one day and then voting to move the capital city elsewhere. It later was moved to Nashville.

Clinch was the name of an 18th-century explorer of the area.[5] Former variations of the name included "Clinch's River", "Clench River", "Clinches River" and "Fiume Clinchs".[1] Folk etymology, however, provides a more colorful account: the river received its name after a pioneer fell into it, and shouted "Clinch me! Clinch me!", supposedly meaning "clench me" or "grab me".[6]

An older name for the river, which appears on some early maps, was the "Pelisipi River", with such variant spellings as "Pelisippi" and "Pellissippi", and the variant form "Fiume Pelissipi".[1] The Mitchell Map (1755–1757) labels a tributary of the "Pelisipi River" as "Clinch's River". The word "Pellissippi" was long said to have been the Cherokee language name for the river and was purported to mean "winding waters".[7]

Research completed in 2017 concluded that the Miami-Illinois name Mosopeleacipi ("river of the Mosopelea" tribe) was first applied to what later European settlers called the Ohio River. Shortened in the Shawnee language to pelewa thiipi, spelewathiipi or peleewa thiipiiki, the name evolved through other variant forms such as "Polesipi", "Peleson", "Pele Sipi" and "Pere Sipi". It was eventually stabilized to the "Pelisipi/Pelisippi/Pellissippi" form. These names were variously applied back and forth between the Ohio and Clinch rivers.[8][9] The name Pellissippi has been used in proper names throughout East Tennessee, for example in Pellissippi Parkway and Pellissippi State Community College.

Power industry edit

A power plant is located along the Clinch River at Carbo in Russell County, Virginia. It was completed in 1957 and is owned by Appalachian Power, a part of American Electric Power. The plant was converted from burning coal to natural gas in 2016.[10] The Virginia City Hybrid Energy Center, another coal-fired power plant that began operations in 2012, is a few miles away outside St. Paul in Wise County, Virginia. It is owned by Dominion Virginia Power.[11]

Ecology edit

The Clinch River above Clinton, Tennessee (tailwaters of Norris Dam) is stocked with rainbow trout and brown trout by the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency.

Before being dammed, the Clinch River was a major producer of freshwater mussels and pearls. The rivers of the southern Appalachians are still notable for their unusually rich mussel biodiversity. The mussels were an important food source for Native Americans. Scots-Irish and later British settlers used mussels as bait 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 River were considered the economic heart of the pearl industry, and 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 in the mid-20th century. The first major Tennessee River dam was Wilson Dam, built at a site known as Muscle Shoals, Alabama. The name may have referred to the freshwater mussels of the region (the shoals could also be named for the exertion necessary to move river traffic across them). Norris Dam and Norris Lake on the Clinch River flooded one of the other areas of mussel near Young's Island.[12]

Pollution of the river from mining in the region has caused great concern among environmentalists because several rare species inhabit the river. Some mussels were reintroduced to the Cleveland, Virginia, area from outside the state in the early 2000s. Pollution of the 20th century had destroyed much of the historic mussels species.

In 2008, a large release of fly ash from the TVA's Kingston Fossil Plant deposited 2.6 million pounds of fly ash in the lower section of the river below the confluence of the Emory River.[13] Although at first the TVA began cleaning the ash out of the river, in 2009 the EPA took over; they finished removing coal ash in 2010.[14] The release of coal ash in rivers has been shown to result in increased sedimentation and the exposure of trace elements to aquatic organisms.[15]

A study done several months after the spill revealed that the river had increased amounts of trace metals such as mercury and arsenic, which are dangerous throughout the food chain.[16] A study done a year after the spill showed that there was a possibility of food web accumulation of methylmercury, but this had not yet been shown.[17]

Recreation edit

There are several state and local parks along the Clinch River in both Tennessee and Virginia. including:

See also edit

References edit

  1. ^ a b c d e f U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Clinch River
  2. ^ This figure was obtained by adding the length of the Tennessee section of the river, indicated on the USGS topo map Looneys Gap (1:24,000) as just over 202 miles, to the length of the Virginia section, indicated as 135 miles at this Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries website 2015-03-23 at the Wayback Machine.
  3. ^ U.S. Geological Survey, "Introduction to the Upper Tennessee River Basin," 11 January 2013. Accessed: 5 June 2015.
  4. ^ a b c d United States Geological Survey, Water Resources Data Tennessee: Water Year 1983, Water Data Report TN-83-1, p. 131. Gaging station 03528000.
  5. ^ Collins, Lewis (1877). History of Kentucky. Library Reprints, Incorporated. p. 416. ISBN 9780722249208.
  6. ^ Haywood, John (1891). The Civil and Political History of the State of Tennessee from Its Earliest Settlement Up to the Year 1796: Including the Boundaries of the State. W.H. Haywood. p. 45.
  7. ^ . Pellissippi State Community College. Archived from the original on November 3, 2013. Retrieved July 24, 2013. Note: Linguists doubt the Cherokee origin of "Pellissippi", as there is no "P" sound in the Cherokee syllabary (D. Ray Smith. "View of the Bear Creek Valley". Retrieved July 24, 2013.).
  8. ^ . Pellissippi State News. Pellissippi State Community College. June 7, 2017. Archived from the original on July 26, 2018. Retrieved July 26, 2018.
  9. ^ "Shawnees Webpage". Shawnee's Reservation. 1997. Archived from the original on June 30, 2013. Retrieved April 26, 2013.
  10. ^ Gibson, Allie Robinson (April 8, 2014). "Clinch River Power Plant units being converted to natural gas". Bristol Herald Courier. Retrieved June 11, 2018.
  11. ^ . Dominion Energy. Archived from the original on June 12, 2018. Retrieved June 11, 2018.
  12. ^ Davis, Donald Edward. "Where There Are Mountains", An Environmental History of the Southern Appalachians. University of Georgia Press: 2005.
  13. ^ Sturgis, Sue (25 May 2010). "Disaster in east Tennessee". grist.
  14. ^ Lavelle, Marianne (2016-04-20). "Q&A: Six years after historic Deepwater Horizon spill, documentary examines the science". Science. doi:10.1126/science.aaf9945. ISSN 0036-8075.
  15. ^ Rowe, Christopher; Hopkins, William; Congdon, Justin (14 March 2002). "Ecological Implications of Aquatic Disposal of Coal Combustion Residues in the United States". Environmental Monitoring and Assessment. 80 (3): 207–276. doi:10.1023/A:1021127120575. PMID 12503897. S2CID 33550745.
  16. ^ Ruhl, Laura; Vengosh, Avner; Dwyer, Gary S.; Hsu-Kim, Heileen; Deonarine, Amrika; Bergin, Mike; Kravchenko, Julia (2009-08-15). "Survey of the Potential Environmental and Health Impacts in the Immediate Aftermath of the Coal Ash Spill in Kingston, Tennessee". Environmental Science & Technology. 43 (16): 6326–6333. Bibcode:2009EnST...43.6326R. doi:10.1021/es900714p. hdl:10161/6943. ISSN 0013-936X. PMID 19746733.
  17. ^ Deonarine, Amrika; Bartov, Gideon; Johnson, Thomas M.; Ruhl, Laura; Vengosh, Avner; Hsu-Kim, Heileen (2013-01-10). "Environmental Impacts of the Tennessee Valley Authority Kingston Coal Ash Spill. 2. Effect of Coal Ash on Methylmercury in Historically Contaminated River Sediments". Environmental Science & Technology. 47 (4): 2100–2108. Bibcode:2013EnST...47.2100D. doi:10.1021/es303639d. ISSN 0013-936X. PMID 23249246. S2CID 37528363.

External links edit

 
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Clinch River.

April 08, 2024
clinch, river, nuclear, reactor, proposed, 1970s, breeder, reactor, project, river, that, flows, southwest, more, than, miles, through, great, appalachian, valley, states, virginia, tennessee, gathering, various, tributaries, including, powell, river, before, . For the nuclear reactor proposed in the 1970s see Clinch River Breeder Reactor Project The Clinch River is a river that flows southwest for more than 300 miles 480 km through the Great Appalachian Valley in the U S states of Virginia and Tennessee gathering various tributaries including the Powell River before joining the Tennessee River in Kingston Tennessee Clinch RiverThe Clinch River at Speers Ferry in Scott County VirginiaMap of the Clinch RiverLocationCountryUnited StatesStateVirginia TennesseePhysical characteristicsSourceBuckhorn Mountain near Tazewell Virginia coordinates37 08 29 N 81 27 41 W 37 14139 N 81 46139 W 37 14139 81 46139 1 elevation2 760 ft 840 m 1 MouthTennessee River at Kingston Tennessee coordinates35 51 48 N 84 31 54 W 35 86333 N 84 53167 W 35 86333 84 53167 1 elevation741 ft 226 m 1 Length337 mi 542 km 2 Basin size4 413 sq mi 11 430 km2 3 Discharge locationGrissom Island near Tazewell Tennessee 159 8 miles 257 2 km above the mouth mean for water years 1918 1983 4 average2 100 cu ft s 59 m3 s mean for water years 1918 1983 4 minimum108 cu ft s 3 1 m3 s September 1925 4 maximum98 100 cu ft s 2 780 m3 s April 1977 4 Basin featuresTributaries leftLittle River Beaver Creek rightGuest River North Fork Clinch River Powell River Coal Creek Poplar Creek Emory River Contents 1 Course 2 History 3 Power industry 4 Ecology 5 Recreation 6 See also 7 References 8 External linksCourse editThe Clinch River is dammed twice by Norris Dam the first dam built by the Tennessee Valley Authority TVA and by the Melton Hill Dam the only TVA dam with a navigation lock that is not located on the main channel of the Tennessee River An important tributary of the Clinch River is the Powell River The Clinch and Powell drainage basins are separated by Powell Mountain Tributaries entering the Clinch River below Norris Dam but above Melton Hill Dam include Coal Creek Hinds Creek Bull Run Creek and Beaver Creek Poplar Creek enters the river below the Melton Hill Dam History editA peninsula located at the mouth of the Clinch River later called Southwest Point was important to generations of Native Americans In the early colonial period it was the site of a frontier fort This structure has recently been reconstructed The Cherokee and European settlers signed a treaty at Southwest Point to allow the capital of Tennessee to be moved there The Tennessee General Assembly fulfilled this requirement technically by meeting in Kingston for one day and then voting to move the capital city elsewhere It later was moved to Nashville Clinch was the name of an 18th century explorer of the area 5 Former variations of the name included Clinch s River Clench River Clinches River and Fiume Clinchs 1 Folk etymology however provides a more colorful account the river received its name after a pioneer fell into it and shouted Clinch me Clinch me supposedly meaning clench me or grab me 6 An older name for the river which appears on some early maps was the Pelisipi River with such variant spellings as Pelisippi and Pellissippi and the variant form Fiume Pelissipi 1 The Mitchell Map 1755 1757 labels a tributary of the Pelisipi River as Clinch s River The word Pellissippi was long said to have been the Cherokee language name for the river and was purported to mean winding waters 7 Research completed in 2017 concluded that the Miami Illinois name Mosopeleacipi river of the Mosopelea tribe was first applied to what later European settlers called the Ohio River Shortened in the Shawnee language to pelewa thiipi spelewathiipi or peleewa thiipiiki the name evolved through other variant forms such as Polesipi Peleson Pele Sipi and Pere Sipi It was eventually stabilized to the Pelisipi Pelisippi Pellissippi form These names were variously applied back and forth between the Ohio and Clinch rivers 8 9 The name Pellissippi has been used in proper names throughout East Tennessee for example in Pellissippi Parkway and Pellissippi State Community College Power industry editA power plant is located along the Clinch River at Carbo in Russell County Virginia It was completed in 1957 and is owned by Appalachian Power a part of American Electric Power The plant was converted from burning coal to natural gas in 2016 10 The Virginia City Hybrid Energy Center another coal fired power plant that began operations in 2012 is a few miles away outside St Paul in Wise County Virginia It is owned by Dominion Virginia Power 11 Ecology editThe Clinch River above Clinton Tennessee tailwaters of Norris Dam is stocked with rainbow trout and brown trout by the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency Before being dammed the Clinch River was a major producer of freshwater mussels and pearls The rivers of the southern Appalachians are still notable for their unusually rich mussel biodiversity The mussels were an important food source for Native Americans Scots Irish and later British settlers used mussels as bait 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 River were considered the economic heart of the pearl industry and 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 in the mid 20th century The first major Tennessee River dam was Wilson Dam built at a site known as Muscle Shoals Alabama The name may have referred to the freshwater mussels of the region the shoals could also be named for the exertion necessary to move river traffic across them Norris Dam and Norris Lake on the Clinch River flooded one of the other areas of mussel near Young s Island 12 Pollution of the river from mining in the region has caused great concern among environmentalists because several rare species inhabit the river Some mussels were reintroduced to the Cleveland Virginia area from outside the state in the early 2000s Pollution of the 20th century had destroyed much of the historic mussels species In 2008 a large release of fly ash from the TVA s Kingston Fossil Plant deposited 2 6 million pounds of fly ash in the lower section of the river below the confluence of the Emory River 13 Although at first the TVA began cleaning the ash out of the river in 2009 the EPA took over they finished removing coal ash in 2010 14 The release of coal ash in rivers has been shown to result in increased sedimentation and the exposure of trace elements to aquatic organisms 15 A study done several months after the spill revealed that the river had increased amounts of trace metals such as mercury and arsenic which are dangerous throughout the food chain 16 A study done a year after the spill showed that there was a possibility of food web accumulation of methylmercury but this had not yet been shown 17 Recreation editThere are several state and local parks along the Clinch River in both Tennessee and Virginia including Big Ridge State Park Norris Dam State Park Chuck Swan State Forest Clinch River State ParkSee also editList of rivers of Tennessee List of rivers of VirginiaReferences edit a b c d e f U S Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System Clinch River This figure was obtained by adding the length of the Tennessee section of the river indicated on the USGS topo map Looneys Gap 1 24 000 as just over 202 miles to the length of the Virginia section indicated as 135 miles at this Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries website Archived 2015 03 23 at the Wayback Machine U S Geological Survey Introduction to the Upper Tennessee River Basin 11 January 2013 Accessed 5 June 2015 a b c d United States Geological Survey Water Resources Data Tennessee Water Year 1983 Water Data Report TN 83 1 p 131 Gaging station 03528000 Collins Lewis 1877 History of Kentucky Library Reprints Incorporated p 416 ISBN 9780722249208 Haywood John 1891 The Civil and Political History of the State of Tennessee from Its Earliest Settlement Up to the Year 1796 Including the Boundaries of the State W H Haywood p 45 The Pellissippi State Story 1974 1998 Pellissippi State Community College Archived from the original on November 3 2013 Retrieved July 24 2013 Note Linguists doubt the Cherokee origin of Pellissippi as there is no P sound in the Cherokee syllabary D Ray Smith View of the Bear Creek Valley Retrieved July 24 2013 The Winding River Home Pellissippi State researches the meaning of Pellissippi Pellissippi State News Pellissippi State Community College June 7 2017 Archived from the original on July 26 2018 Retrieved July 26 2018 Shawnees Webpage Shawnee s Reservation 1997 Archived from the original on June 30 2013 Retrieved April 26 2013 Gibson Allie Robinson April 8 2014 Clinch River Power Plant units being converted to natural gas Bristol Herald Courier Retrieved June 11 2018 Virginia City Hybrid Energy Center Dominion Energy Archived from the original on June 12 2018 Retrieved June 11 2018 Davis Donald Edward Where There Are Mountains An Environmental History of the Southern Appalachians University of Georgia Press 2005 Sturgis Sue 25 May 2010 Disaster in east Tennessee grist Lavelle Marianne 2016 04 20 Q amp A Six years after historic Deepwater Horizon spill documentary examines the science Science doi 10 1126 science aaf9945 ISSN 0036 8075 Rowe Christopher Hopkins William Congdon Justin 14 March 2002 Ecological Implications of Aquatic Disposal of Coal Combustion Residues in the United States Environmental Monitoring and Assessment 80 3 207 276 doi 10 1023 A 1021127120575 PMID 12503897 S2CID 33550745 Ruhl Laura Vengosh Avner Dwyer Gary S Hsu Kim Heileen Deonarine Amrika Bergin Mike Kravchenko Julia 2009 08 15 Survey of the Potential Environmental and Health Impacts in the Immediate Aftermath of the Coal Ash Spill in Kingston Tennessee Environmental Science amp Technology 43 16 6326 6333 Bibcode 2009EnST 43 6326R doi 10 1021 es900714p hdl 10161 6943 ISSN 0013 936X PMID 19746733 Deonarine Amrika Bartov Gideon Johnson Thomas M Ruhl Laura Vengosh Avner Hsu Kim Heileen 2013 01 10 Environmental Impacts of the Tennessee Valley Authority Kingston Coal Ash Spill 2 Effect of Coal Ash on Methylmercury in Historically Contaminated River Sediments Environmental Science amp Technology 47 4 2100 2108 Bibcode 2013EnST 47 2100D doi 10 1021 es303639d ISSN 0013 936X PMID 23249246 S2CID 37528363 External links edit nbsp Wikimedia Commons has media related to Clinch River Columbia Gazetteer of North America U S Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System Clinch River Pellissippi Blueway Clinch River New International Encyclopedia 1905 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Clinch River amp oldid 1213398901, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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