Теннесси-Томбигби су жолы: АҚШ-тың жасалма су арнасы

Artificial waterway in the southeastern United States

The Tennessee–Tombigbee Waterway (popularly known as the Tenn Tom) is a 234 mile (377 km) artificial U. S. waterway built in the 20th century from the Tennessee River to the junction of the Black Warrior Tombigbee River system near Demopolis, Alabama. The Tennessee–Tombigbee Waterway links commercial navigation from the nation's midsection to the Gulf of Mexico. The major features of the waterway are 234 mile (377 km) of navigation channels, a 175 feet (53 m) cut between the watersheds of the Tombigbee and Tennessee rivers, and ten locks and dams. The locks are , the same dimension as those on the Mississippi above Lock and Dam 26 at Alton, Illinois. Under construction for 12 years by the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Tennessee–Tombigbee Waterway was completed in December 1984 at a total cost of nearly $2 billion. The Tenn Tom encompasses 17 public ports and terminals, of land, and another managed by state conservation agencies for wildlife habitat preservation and recreational use. They issued a negative report, emphasizing that prohibitive cost estimates kept the project from economic feasibility. Also, in the early 1960s it was proposed that the canal could be created by use of atomic blasts. As part of his "Southern Strategy" for election, Republican President Richard Nixon committed to the project. He included $1 million in the Corps of Engineers' 1971 budget to start construction of the Tenn Tom. Funding shortages and legal challenges delayed construction until December 1972, but Nixon's efforts initiated official Tenn Tom waterway construction.

The $2 billion in required funding for the Tenn Tom waterway was repeatedly attacked by elected representatives and political organizations. Opponents asserted that the estimated economic benefits of the waterway by the Corps of Engineers were unsupportable based on projected traffic volume. By 1977, the Tenn Tom was one of many such Corps of Engineers projects that had been initiated in the belief that they would directly or indirectly return to the Treasury their cost(s) of construction. Immediately after his election in 1976, Democratic President Jimmy Carter announced a plan to slash Tenn Tom federal funding, as part of broader reductions in federal spending. Carter, and the economic advisors recruited to his administration, objected to the "waste" of taxpayer dollars on "pork barrel projects". Railroad companies, which served as a major transport alternative to river traffic and stood to potentially lose the most value from construction of the waterway, asserted that its construction violated the National Environmental Policy Act. The Tenn Tom also provides access to over 34 million acres (13,759,324 km2) of commercial forests and approximately two thirds of all recoverable coal reserves in the nation. Industries that use these natural resources have found the waterway to be their most cost efficient mode of transportation.