TVA's Blue Ridge Dam

Blue Ridge Dam is located just outside the city limits of Blue Ridge, GA, on the Toccoa River. (The Toccoa becomes the Ocoee River at the TN state line.) Specs are given as 174 feet high and 1,553 feet long, with a power capacity of 13 megawatts (the web page now says 22 megawatts). Construction is a combination of earth and rock fill, with a concrete gated spillway, as well as an overflow uncontrolled concrete spillway.

Here is a shot of the power house and switchyard. There is also a structure where the water is apparently injected with air before allowing to proceed downstream. This dam was constructed by the Toccoa Power Company, a subsidiary of the Tennessee Electric Power Company, spanning the years 1925-1930. TVA purchased this dam in 1939.

This is the uncontrolled spillway. The lake was below winter pool while construction and repairs were being conducted on the intake structure and the rest of the dam. Unfortunately, this also closed a road that prevented us from getting good shots of the downstream side of the spillways, and the road over the top was closed to vehicular traffic... except for school buses. This was a good idea because the buses would have had to detour to a busy Highway US 76 (GA 515) which would have been a safety hazard.

The channel into the uncontrolled spillway. One source gave the normal "full pool" as 1690 feet. A USGS document states that the "top of gates" pool as 1691 feet, and normal minimum pool as 1590 feet. The lake is entirely within Fannin County, GA.

This is the lake side of the gated spillway, which is controlled with five tainter gates measuring 15 feet high by 22 feet wide.

This is the bypass channel that both spillways empty into.

And the intake to the powerhouse. Apparently this structure had some problems that resulted in the lake having to undergo a severe drawdown every five years for inspection. Apparently they decided to fix it this time, so that now the lake will (hopefuly) not have to be drawn down below normal winter pool.