Duck River (Tennessee)
Catchment area of the Duck River and Buffalo River
" Blue Hole Falls " waterfall of the Duck River near Manchester (Tennessee )
Template: Infobox River / Obsolete
The Duck River with a total length of more than 370 km the longest river that runs entirely in the U.S. state of Tennessee, and provides for the irrigation of a considerable part of Middle Tennessee, the central part of the state.
The source of Duck is located in the hills close to the so-called " bar ", an area in Middle Tennessee, which was already found deforested by the early European settlers. It flows through the city of Manchester, the county seat ( county seat ) of Coffee County, and is then fed into a scenic situation in the " Old Stone Fort State Park " by one of its main tributaries, the Little Duck River.
Other major cities are on the Duck River Shelbyville, Columbia and Centerville. Above Shelbyville flow from Normandy Dam is jammed, which was built in the 1970s by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA ). The dam, however, was not built as previous projects of the TVA in Middle Tennessee for power generation, but served only for flood control and as a recreation area. It is named after the nearby hamlet of Normandy. The reservoir covers an area of over 20 square kilometers of former arable land. Further downstream dikes and sluices are used to protect Shelby Villes against flooding of the Duck. A city in the heart of the Tennessee Electric Power Company ( TEPCO ), built dam still bears witness to the beginnings of the electricity supply to the area before the TVA was established.
Further downstream, in Maury County, crosses the Duck the Yanahli Wildlife Preserve, which was established on an originally intended for another TVA Reservoir area. The construction of the planned there Columbia Dam was set, however, when it was discovered that this section of the Duck is an endangered Süßwassermuschelart occurs, and studies have shown that the cost of the project exceeded its benefits far. After a long-running legal dispute between the already largely completed dam was demolished. The loss of the project amounted to nearly $ 80 million in public money. Below this unfinished dam is another former TEPCO Dam, similar to that in Shelbyville. Efforts to resume at this dam power generation, were, despite support from private funds have not been successful (as of 2005). Columbia, with nearly 40,000 inhabitants, by far the largest city on the Duck River is regularly subject to flooding times of flooding, which particularly the poorer neighborhoods are exposed inside the city.
Between Columbia and Centerville the Duck flows through the Western Highlands, where it is fed by the Piney River and other tributaries. The city of Centerville is substantially higher than the shores of Duck, where formerly lay cornfields. With the increasing development center Villes to the outskirts of Nashville, these fields have been replaced by football pitches. Behind the Centerville area around the Duck is more rural. In the southern Humphreys County, the Duck associated with its largest tributary of the Buffalo River before it empties itself, only a few kilometers further into the Tennessee River. The estuary is part of the nature reserve Tennessee National Wildlife Refuge.