Talk:Tellico Dam/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Bneu2013 (talk · contribs) 05:15, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

I will be reviewing this article section by section. Please note that I am busy at this time, and will mostly be active on the weekends. Will have comments soon. Bneu2013 (talk) 05:15, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

The requested revisions so far have been addressed. Thanks, --AppalachianCentrist (talk) 20:31, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

Update - I strongly apologize, but unfortunately something has come up to where I do not think I will be able to complete this review in a timely manner. I am much busier and therefore not able to be as active on Wikipedia as in the past. I have used the second opinion request, even though I'm not sure that this is the proper means of requesting that someone else take over this review. I apologize in advance. Bneu2013 (talk) 02:42, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

Background

• Three years following the following the establishment of the TVA - cut duplicate "following the". Add "In 1936," at the beginning of sentence.

• with the passing of the New Deal - needs to be more specific. Needs to mention that the TVA was one of the agencies created as part of the new deal. Consider opening this paragraph with a sentence about the purpose of of TVA, eg. "TVA was created in 1933 to provide electric power generation, flood control, and economic development to the Tennessee Valley region. Three years later, ..."

• began studies for sites for the placement of dams - reads kind of awkward. Consider minor rewording.

• Early planning suggested the construction of a dam along the Little Tennessee River around this time - cut "around this time" and consider changing "planning" to "plans" or elaborating, eg. "Planners quickly suggested that a dam be constructed on the Little Tennessee River."

• In 1959, TVA chairman Red Wagner approved work to move forward on the Tellico Project, - what kind of work? Also, "work to move forward" reads kind of awkward. Consider rewording.

• Condense "land development and recreational development" to "land and recreational development".

• Change "shed" to "watershed" and link.

• Change "promotion of the Little Tennessee Valley" to "project" or something synonymous.

• Is "City of Timberlake plan" a proper name? If so, "Plan" should be capitalized.

• Timberlake, the TVA's ambitious attempt at creating a city from scratch, aimed at providing a high-quality and self-sufficient city supporting an estimated population of 42,000, was chosen as a nationwide demonstration of land use initiatives and economic development for the poor rural area of the Little Tennessee Valley to transform it into a thriving economic urban center. - split sentence after "42,000,". Also, what was chosen? The location?

• Change "Timberlake planning" to "The project" or something synonymous, and cut "for the project" later in the sentence.

• Change "Congress" to "Congressional".

• As with previous dam projects the TVA executed, the Tellico Dam project required the acquisition of nearly 38,000 acres for its development. - reads like other dam projects required 38,000 acres. Reword to provide clarity and expand if necessary.

• For the remaining acreage, TVA dedicated 16,500 for land development for residential, recreational, and industrial development as part of the proposed Timberlake planned city project included in the Tellico project. - cut "for land development". ""included in the Tellico project" could also be cut or trimmed.

• Link "modernize" with modernization theory and cut link in succeeding sentence.

• Change "were the most positive in terms of reacting" to "reacted most positively", cut "with the Tellico project", and add comma after "TVA's plans".

• Documentation by historians suggested that most TVA personnel did not understand the complexity of the communities that they were intruding with the Tellico project, leading to more heated opposition. - was this documentation recorded at the time? Also, add "into" after "intruding".

• Public meetings commenced through-out the Little Tennessee Valley at civic spaces in Loudon, Blount, and Monroe counties to address concerns raised by citizens about the Tellico and Timberlake projects. - change "through-out" to "throughout" and unlink "Blount" and "Monroe". Also, when did these meetings take place?

• Initial revealing towards the developing the Tellico Project to the general public was documented as early as 1960 -change to something like "The Tellico Project was revealed to the public as early as 1960", and swap with previous sentence, assuming the public meetings took place afterwards. Also, is the exact date this project was made public known?

• Italicize book title and cut quotes, per MOS:ITALICS.

• Extensive local opposition to the Tellico project emerged as the result of a public forum at the Greenback High School in the town of Greenback, located on the proposed eastern shore of the Tellico reservoir. - cut "the" in front of high school name. Also, when did this forum take place. Consider providing some information about why this event turned the tide of public opinion.

• Since 1963 was this in 1963?

• small clusters of Little Tennessee Valley landowners and businesspeople formed a community group known as the Fort Loudoun Association opposing the Tellico project, but one month after the "disaster" meeting at Greenback High School, anti-Tellico individuals formed the larger opposition group, Association for the Preservation of the Little Tennessee River, showing that project opposition was not one that "would easily buckle and roll over before the mighty presence of the Tennessee Valley Authority" as stated in the 1986 historical publication "TVA and the Tellico Dam, 1936-1979 A Bureaucratic Crisis in Post-Industrial America". - Several issues here. First of all, excessive run-on sentence; needs to be split at least twice. Consider moving information about early opposition group in front of the sentence about the Greenback meeting and reword as needed. Usage of the word "disaster" is unnecessary and sounds a bit POV; consider cutting or rewording. Change "the" in front of "larger" to "a". Finally, in "TVA and the Tellico Dam, 1936-1979 A Bureaucratic Crisis in Post-Industrial America", should there be a colon after "1979"?

• Regarding the amount of families that would need to be removed for the Tellico Project, TVA officials had never documented an exact number of how many families were to be affected, even after the property acquisition process had started. - cut the first part of this sentence. Also, when did the property acquisition process start? Add this information in the article where it is needed.

• Property owners looking to see how far in terms of acquisition the TVA would seize their land, many reported TVA personnel providing confusing "taking lines" as to how far the TVA would acquire, provoking more local opposition viewing it as overreaching. - A few issues. First, reword to something like "Many property owners looking to see what measures TVA would take to seize their land reported that TVA personnel provided "taking lines" ..." Does "as to how far the TVA would acquire" refer to the measures TVA took to acquire the properties, or property boundaries. If the former, cut this part. If this refers to property lines, reword to avoid confusion with the first part of this sentence. Elaborate on what "taking lines" were if the previous fix doesn't do this. Finally, split "provoking more local opposition viewing it as overreaching" into a separate sentence and reword into something like "Many viewed these actions as TVA overreaching beyond their authority, provoking more public opposition to the project."

• Unlike TVA's early hydroelectric projects, the documentation of family removal was based on poorly recorded efforts, as initial estimates suggested the removal of 600 families whereas the actual number was closer to 350 families. - add "with" after unlike, change "family removal" to something like "residents relocated". "Poorly recorded" also sounds off in this context. This clearly refers to families relocated, but reads like the efforts to record the number of displacements were poorly executed. Reword as needed. Finally, cut "families" at the end of the sentence.

Construction

• Portions of the dam constructed with earth fill were complete by August 1975 with pumping of water of the original rivershed - the second part of this sentence is confusing. Was the water pumped from the original river channel when the earth fill was complete? Reword to clarify.
• Link "sluice gates" to sluice.
• By the time of the forced closure of construction, work on the Tellico Project was nearly 90% complete, aside from final land clearing, recreational facility preparation, and a highway system that was almost finished until work was allowed to resume. - cut "until work was allowed to resume."
• The TVA would also invest another $3.6 million for two major road projects scheduled for initial work starting after the completion of the Tellico Project. - was the work scheduled to begin after the Tellico Dam project was complete?
• Officials with the Tennessee Department of Transportation expressed doubt of the completion of the Tellico Parkway (State Route 444), one of the major road projects. - change second "of" to "about".
• Labor costs for the project totaled $24.7 million, with most coming from the construction of the Tellico Dam. - more specific; does this mean actual construction of the physical dam structure?

Second opinion

This article covers an important period of the history of the Tennessee Valley Authority and its program of construction of dams on the Tennessee River. It is definitely worth the effort of getting this article to GA standard. I am willing to assist at a later stage with a review against all the GA criteria. However, the article does not currently achieve an adequate standard of prose, and is an immediate fail. There are numerous instances of incorrect tense and awkward sentence construction throughout the article. As one example, most sentences containing the word "would" need to be rewritten in the past tense. Basic proof-reading is also required to address missing words and duplicated wording. The WP:GAN process is not the best way of undertaking the extent of copy-editing that is needed. My recommendation is to seek assistance from the WP:WikiProject_Guild_of_Copy_Editors. The scope of work for the Guild specifically includes preparing articles for GA nomination. A request for assistance can be made here: WP:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors/Requests.

In addition to the copy-editing that is required, I recommend attention to the following points about content:

1. the location of the dam should be stated more clearly in the main body of the article, and not rely solely on the parameter in the Infobox. Other articles describe the location as the final impoundment of the Little Tennessee River, upstream from the confluence with the Tennessee River.
2. the original intentions for the Tellico Dam project apparently included the diversion of almost the entire flow of the Little Tennessee River through a canal from the Tellico Reservoir to the Tennessee River upstream of the Fort Loudon Dam, thereby increasing the electricity generation potential of the Fort Loudon hydro-electric station. This appears to be an important element of the original project definition and justification, and should be explained in the lead and in the section on planning.
3. the article needs to more clearly explain the link between the planned development of a new city, and the development of the dam. The reader may ask: "Why was the dam needed for a new city to be built ?"
4. "eminent domain" is terminology that is used in the United States, but it is not used in most other English-speaking countries, and may be unfamiliar to many readers. The processes of acquisition of land for this project are a key part of the story. It would be helpful to clearly explain that the TVA had access to legal powers of compulsory acquisition of private land, possibly citing the source of that legal authority. The terminology "eminent domain" could be introduced as part of that explanation.
5. the section currently titled "Completion and legacy" needs to be re-organised and provided with sub-headings to clearly separate several distinctly different topics within this content. The term "legacy" may not be optimum for the overall heading, since some of the content in this section covers relatively recent developments. Much of the content is about the residential and resort development that occurred following the completion of the dam. It may be best to create a new top level section titled "residential and resort development". As one example of possible re-structuring, it could be useful to have a sub-section: "Tellico Village", and use the Template:Main linking to the article of that name.
6. there is extensive duplication of content between this article and the separate article Tellico Reservoir. It is unclear that two separate articles are needed when the two topics are so inextricably linked (particularly in terms of their history and the environmental and property rights controversies). The article on the reservoir could potentially be blanked and turned into a redirect page.

Marshelec (talk) 20:25, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

@Marshelec

These issues have been addressed. Feel free to reanalyze.

Thanks, AppalachianCentrist (talk) 04:24, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

Hi, and Happy New Year from "down-under", where it is summer time :) I see you have made significant changes to address the points I made related to content coverage. Over the next 10 days or so I will work through the article and make proof-reading changes myself. I will make these changes in small groups, so that you can easily see and revert if you disagree with what I have done, and will try to be conscious of what may be standard North American English. Note that I will be disqualified from undertaking a further GA Review on this article, but hopefully another editor will step up when you submit it again. Marshelec (talk) 04:49, 1 January 2023 (UTC)