Welcome to Watts Bar Lake Association
Watts Bar Lake in Tennessee
At 42,000 acres, Watts Bar Lake - "King of the Southern Lakes", is one of the south’s largest lakes and offers visitors great fishing, boating and recreation. The lake is 72 miles long and boasts 722 miles of shore line!
*Public Notice
TVA Funding Statement:
TVA no longer receives any appropriations to help with management of aquatic plants. This has led us to taking a more valley wide approach to management, and focusing our efforts only on public access areas (parks, boat ramps, etc.) to best meet the needs of our stakeholders. There is one exception to this currently: We continue to do residential and commercial shoreline management on Guntersville with the understanding that we will be slowly stepping down as the primary funding source in the next few years. This model is how we will handle stakeholder groups on other reservoirs from here on out. For example, should Watts Bar put together a stakeholder group and agree on management, the stakeholder group would need to have identified supplementary funding and obtained that funding before a similar plan would take place
Special Note: We are in the third and final year of fully funding the Guntersville program along residential and commercial shoreline. Next year, we fully anticipate to reduce funding by 1/3 and will continue that reduction through 2019. We will continue to fully fund
management efforts along developed, public shoreline.
Hi Volunteers!
We are excited to bring you the first edition of TVA Crew Log, a newsletter that brings together all of the volunteer efforts across the Tennessee Valley and spotlight activities, explore our public lands, and connects you to opportunities to learn, serve, and protect.
Commitment to service and environmental stewardship are fundamental values at TVA. We do a lot of work to enhance and preserve the cultural and natural resources and increase the recreational opportunities throughout the region. One of the most important things we can do to ensure the legacy and success of our efforts is to share what we know and expand our ability to connect with people and hopefully inspire others to make a difference in the world around them. In order to bring as many opportunities for preservation and recreation on TVA managed lands, we work with partners and volunteers who offer up their time, skills, and expertise to help us protect public land and waters.
Please keep an eye out for upcoming events and feature stories on our website, www.tva.com/volunteer.
Thank you for your hard work!
Suzanne Fisher
Senior Program Manager, Land Use
Natural Resources
Tennessee Valley Authority
400 W. Summit Hill Dr.
Knoxville, TN 37902
Invasive Species
The Exotic Zebra Mussel
by Amy J. Benson
The word "exotic" conjures up thoughts of faraway places where strange animals inhabit sun-drenched islands. But in the biological sciences realm, this word has come to be associated with unwelcome visitors to our shores. Over the past 500 years, more than 4,500 foreign species, including many harmful plants, vertebrates, invertebrates, and pathogens, have established populations in the United States.
Water & Fish Advisories
When streams or lakes are found to have significantly elevated bacteria levels or when fish tissue contaminant levels exceed risk-based criteria, it is the responsibility of the Department of Environment and Conservation to post warning signs so that the public will be aware of the threat to public health.
Consistent with EPA guidance, any stream or reservoir in Tennessee with an advisory is assessed as not meeting the recreational designated use. Clearly, if fishermen cannot safely eat the fish they catch, the waterbody is not supporting its goal to be fishable. Likewise, streams and lakes with high levels of bacteria are not suitable for recreational activities such as swimming or wading.
