WELCOME TO KENTUCKY DAM
Kentucky Dam is a hydroelectric dam on the Tennessee River on the county line between Livingston County and Marshall County in the U.S. state of Kentucky. The dam is the lowermost of nine dams on the river owned and operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority, which built the dam in the late 1930s and early 1940s to improve navigation on the lower part of the river and reduce flooding on the lower Ohio and Mississippi rivers. The dam impounds the Kentucky Lake of 160,000 acres (65,000 ha), which is the largest of TVA's reservoirs and the largest artificial lake by area in the Eastern United States.
Kentucky Dam is located just over 22 miles (35 km) above the mouth of the Tennessee River, which empties into the Ohio River at Paducah, Kentucky. The dam is 206 feet (63 m) high, although over half the dam is submerged by water. At 8,422 feet (2,567 m) long, Kentucky Dam is the longest dam on the Tennessee River and the longest in the TVA system. The dam has a generating capacity of 223,100 kilowatts, and its 24-bay spillway has a total discharge of 1,050,000 cubic feet per second (30,000 m3/s). Kentucky Lake's 2,064 miles (3,322 km) of shoreline, 160,300 acres (64,900 ha) of water surface, and 4,008,000 acre feet (4,944 Gl) of flood storage are the most of any lake in the TVA system.
Kentucky Dam is serviced by a 600-by-110-foot (180 by 34 m) navigation lock, soon to be supplemented by a larger 1,200-by-110-foot (370 by 34 m) lock which will be better able to accommodate the long barge tows which navigate the river.[3] A large industrial complex of chemical plants has developed below the dam near Calvert City due to the convenient barge transportation and inexpensive TVA electricity. The locks' lift raises and lowers vessels up to 75 feet (23 m) between Kentucky Lake and the lower part of the river.