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Quite a few of the TVA dams I've seen leak. None leak BADLY, but about all have "Weeping" places where the water seeps out. You'd THINK they'd wanna fix that, but they don't. As most of them are approaching 70 years & older, the leaks are certainly unsightly.. The "Quick" construction they did back then made for some minor mistakes. We went to Fontana Dam, right over the border in North Carolina, it was sort of their "Showpiece" dam. The "Power House" was particularly impressive-Huge, Thirties-era machinery, kept in IMMACULATE shape. You could EAT off any of it, but they'd likely YELL at you for doing that. In '89, when I saw it, they were just putting on modern programmable logic controllers, which seemed rinky-dink & out of place in that 1939-style facility..I can't remember how many they had, but the "Generator Room", there were 5 or 6 HUGE generators lined up in a row.. There was ANOTHER dam, deep in the woods that had a HUGE culvert that a semi & trailer coulda fit in, the culvert went for something like 12 miles to ANOTHER dam. They started work on 'em on either end, & met up in the middle. Now, this was in a VERY remote area, thru mountains, rivers, valleys, that was STILL quite remote even in '89. They built this thing w/virtually NO modern equipment, & when they met, the 2 teams were only like 10-12" off...
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Benevolent Despot
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