Clinch River
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The Clinch River is a river that flows southwest for more than through the Great Appalachian Valley in the U.S. states of
Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States between the East Coast of the United States ...
and
Tennessee Tennessee (, ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Kentucky to the north, Virginia to the northeast, North Carolina t ...
, gathering various
tributaries A tributary, or an ''affluent'', is a stream or river that flows into a larger stream ('' main stem'' or ''"parent"''), river, or a lake. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean. Tributaries, and the main stem river into which the ...
, including the Powell River, before joining the
Tennessee River The Tennessee River is a long river located in the Southern United States, southeastern United States in the Tennessee Valley. Flowing through the states of Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky, it begins at the confluence of Fren ...
in
Kingston, Tennessee Kingston is a city in and the county seat of Roane County, Tennessee, United States. This city is thirty-six miles southwest of Knoxville, Tennessee, Knoxville. It had a population of 5,934 at the 2010 United States Census, 2010 United States ce ...
.


Course

The Clinch River is dammed twice: by Norris Dam, the first dam built by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA); and by the Melton Hill Dam, the only TVA dam with a navigation lock that is not located on the main channel of the
Tennessee River The Tennessee River is a long river located in the Southern United States, southeastern United States in the Tennessee Valley. Flowing through the states of Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky, it begins at the confluence of Fren ...
. An important
tributary A tributary, or an ''affluent'', is a stream or river that flows into a larger stream (''main stem'' or ''"parent"''), river, or a lake. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean. Tributaries, and the main stem river into which they ...
of the Clinch River is the Powell River. The Clinch and Powell
drainage basins A drainage basin is an area of land in which all flowing surface water converges to a single point, such as a river mouth, or flows into another body of water, such as a lake or ocean. A basin is separated from adjacent basins by a perimeter, th ...
are separated by Powell Mountain. Tributaries entering the Clinch River below Norris Dam but above Melton Hill Dam include Coal Creek, Hinds Creek, Bull Run Creek, and Beaver Creek. Poplar Creek enters the river below the Melton Hill Dam.


History

A peninsula located at the mouth of the Clinch River, later called Southwest Point, was important to generations of Native Americans. In the early colonial period, it was the site of a frontier fort. This structure has recently been reconstructed. The
Cherokee The Cherokee (; , or ) people are one of the Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, they were concentrated in their homelands, in towns along river valleys of what is now southwestern ...
and European settlers signed a treaty at Southwest Point to allow the capital of Tennessee to be moved there. The Tennessee General Assembly fulfilled this requirement technically by meeting in Kingston for one day and then voting to move the
capital city A capital city, or just capital, is the municipality holding primary status in a country, state (polity), state, province, department (administrative division), department, or other administrative division, subnational division, usually as its ...
elsewhere. It later was moved to
Nashville Nashville, often known as Music City, is the capital and List of municipalities in Tennessee, most populous city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the county seat, seat of Davidson County, Tennessee, Davidson County in Middle Tennessee, locat ...
. Clinch was the name of an 18th-century explorer of the area. Former variations of the name included "Clinch's River", "Clench River", "Clinches River" and " Fiume Clinchs".
Folk etymology Folk etymology – also known as (generative) popular etymology, analogical reformation, (morphological) reanalysis and etymological reinterpretation – is a change in a word or phrase resulting from the replacement of an unfamiliar form by a mo ...
, however, provides a more colorful account: the river received its name after a pioneer fell into it, and shouted "Clinch me! Clinch me!", supposedly meaning "clench me" or "grab me". An older name for the river, which appears on some early maps, was the "Pelisipi River", with such variant spellings as "Pelisippi" and "Pellissippi", and the variant form "Fiume Pelissipi". The Mitchell Map (1755–1757) labels a tributary of the "Pelisipi River" as "Clinch's River". The word "Pellissippi" was long said to have been the Cherokee language name for the river and was purported to mean "winding waters". Research completed in 2017 concluded that the Miami-Illinois name ("river of the Mosopelea" tribe) was first applied to what later European settlers called the
Ohio River The Ohio River () is a river in the United States. It is located at the boundary of the Midwestern and Southern United States, flowing in a southwesterly direction from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to its river mouth, mouth on the Mississippi Riv ...
. Shortened in the Shawnee language to , or , the name evolved through other variant forms such as "Polesipi", "Peleson", "Pele Sipi" and "Pere Sipi". It was eventually stabilized to the "Pelisipi/Pelisippi/Pellissippi" form. These names were variously applied back and forth between the Ohio and Clinch rivers. The name Pellissippi has been used in
proper names A proper noun is a noun that identifies a single entity and is used to refer to that entity (''Africa''; ''Jupiter''; ''Sarah (given name), Sarah''; ''Walmart'') as distinguished from a common noun, which is a noun that refers to a Class (philoso ...
throughout East Tennessee, for example in Pellissippi Parkway and Pellissippi State Community College.


Power industry

A power plant is located along the Clinch River at Carbo in Russell County, Virginia. It was completed in 1957 and is owned by Appalachian Power, a part of American Electric Power. The coal-fired plant was converted to natural gas in 2016. The
Virginia City Hybrid Energy Center The Virginia City Hybrid Energy Center (VCHEC) is a power station located in St. Paul, Virginia, St. Paul, in Wise County, Virginia. It is operated by Dominion Energy, Dominion Virginia Power, Dominion Resources Inc.'s electric distribution compan ...
, another coal-fired power plant that began operations in 2012, is a few miles away outside St. Paul in Wise County, Virginia. It is owned by Dominion Virginia Power.


Ecology

The Clinch River above Clinton, Tennessee (tailwaters of Norris Dam) is stocked with
rainbow trout The rainbow trout (''Oncorhynchus mykiss'') is a species of trout native to cold-water tributary, tributaries of the Pacific Ocean in North America and Asia. The steelhead (sometimes called steelhead trout) is an Fish migration#Classification, ...
and brown trout by the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency. Before being dammed, the Clinch River was a major producer of freshwater
mussel Mussel () is the common name used for members of several families of bivalve molluscs, from saltwater and Freshwater bivalve, freshwater habitats. These groups have in common a shell whose outline is elongated and asymmetrical compared with other ...
s and pearls. The rivers of the southern Appalachians are still notable for their unusually rich mussel biodiversity. The mussels were an important food source for Native Americans. Scots-Irish and later British settlers used mussels as bait and hog feed. The freshwater pearl industry thrived throughout the southern Appalachians in the late 19th century and early 20th century. The Clinch River and the Emory River were considered the economic heart of the pearl industry, and Tennessee was one of the top six states in the United States for pearl production. The mussel-based industries began to decline in the early 20th century and were effectively eliminated by the dams built by the TVA in the mid-20th century. The first major Tennessee River dam was Wilson Dam, built at a site known as Muscle Shoals, Alabama. The name may have referred to the freshwater mussels of the region (the shoals could also be named for the exertion necessary to move river traffic across them). Norris Dam and Norris Lake on the Clinch River flooded one of the other areas of mussel near Young's Island.Davis, Donald Edward. ''"Where There Are Mountains", An Environmental History of the Southern Appalachians''. University of Georgia Press: 2005. Pollution of the river from mining in the region has caused great concern among environmentalists because several rare species inhabit the river. Some
mussel Mussel () is the common name used for members of several families of bivalve molluscs, from saltwater and Freshwater bivalve, freshwater habitats. These groups have in common a shell whose outline is elongated and asymmetrical compared with other ...
s were reintroduced to the Cleveland, Virginia, area from outside the state in the early 2000s. Pollution of the 20th century had destroyed much of the historic mussels species. In 2008, a dike rupture at a coal ash
pond A pond is a small, still, land-based body of water formed by pooling inside a depression (geology), depression, either naturally or artificiality, artificially. A pond is smaller than a lake and there are no official criteria distinguishing ...
led to a large release of
fly ash Coal combustion products (CCPs), also called coal combustion wastes (CCWs) or coal combustion residuals (CCRs), are byproducts of burning coal. They are categorized in four groups, each based on physical and chemical forms derived from coal combust ...
from the TVA's Kingston Fossil Plant depositing 2.6 million pounds of fly ash in the lower section of the river below the confluence of the Emory River. Although at first the TVA began cleaning the ash out of the river, in 2009 the EPA took over; they finished removing coal ash in 2010. The release of coal ash in rivers has been shown to result in increased sedimentation and the exposure of trace elements to aquatic organisms. A study done several months after the spill revealed that the river had increased amounts of trace metals such as mercury and arsenic, which are dangerous throughout the food chain. A study done a year after the spill showed that there was a possibility of food web accumulation of
methylmercury Methylmercury is an organometallic cation with the formula . It is the simplest organomercury compound. Methylmercury is extremely toxic, and its derivatives are the major source of organic mercury for humans. It is a bioaccumulative environment ...
, but this had not yet been shown.


Recreation

There are several state and local parks along the Clinch River in both Tennessee and Virginia, including: * Big Ridge State Park * Norris Dam State Park * Chuck Swan State Forest * Clinch River State Park


See also

* List of rivers of Tennessee * List of rivers of Virginia


References


External links


Columbia Gazetteer of North America
*
Pellissippi Blueway
* {{authority control Rivers of Tennessee Rivers of Virginia Tributaries of the Tennessee River Rivers of Anderson County, Tennessee Rivers of Tazewell County, Virginia Rivers of Russell County, Virginia Rivers of Wise County, Virginia Rivers of Hancock County, Tennessee Rivers of Claiborne County, Tennessee Rivers of Grainger County, Tennessee