This page contains documents from the Darter and the Dam collection, telling the story of the controversy over the construction of the Tellico Dam on the Little Tennessee River. These materials document the administrative, judicial, and legislative processes that led to the construction of the dam, despite concerns about its impact on the local environment, the endangered snail darter, and significant Cherokee religious and historic site in the area.

Snail Darter Documents

From a Boston College law professor, we hear the extraordinary story of one small fish and a huge environmental-legal battle. 30 years ago lawyers, activists and local citizens managed to halt construction of a federal dam project in Tennessee. They used the brand new Endangered Species Act to make the case that the dam would destroy the habitat of a tiny, three-inch fish, the Snail Darter.
Their case went all the way to the Supreme Court — and they won. But their victory didn’t last. Many cast it as environmentalism run amok, leftist extremism that values a tiny fish over jobs, development and progress. Congress took notice and passed a law that allowed the dam project to go forward.
Zygmunt Plater was the lawyer, who along with his students, fought and won the Supreme Court case. Today, he’s a professor of law and director of the Land & Environmental Law Program at Boston College. And his new book, The Snail Darter and The Dam, tells the story of how pork barrel politics killed a river.

The Snail Darter and the Dam

This radio program features an interview with Zygmunt J.B. Plater discussing the role the possibility of extinction played in the TVA v. Hill case. The following description of the program appeared on the web page introducing the program:
Some 20,000 species across the globe are at high risk of extinction, experts say – many here in the United States – and some of our natural fauna have already disappeared. So in this Earth Day episode, the American History Guys explore how Americans have grappled with the idea of extinction over time, and what the loss of native species has meant for our ecosystems and everyday lives.
When did we first realize that species could go extinct? To what extent did earlier extinctions shape the emergence of today’s environmentalism? And how have ideas about biological extinction factored into American thinking about human cultures? These are just some of the questions the American History Guys and their guests explore in this episode, with stories on our obsession with dinosaurs, the bird that helped birth the conservation movement, the unlikely fish that galvanized a new generation of environmental activists, and much more.

The Departed: Extinction in America

Listen to Zygmunt Plater discuss a very tense phone call he had about the snail darter – with the President of the United States.
This is an excerpt from the BackStory episode “The Departed: Americans and Extinction.”

BackStory Web Extra: Snail Darters, Pork, and Presidents

Text of the amendment offered by Congressman John Duncan, Sr. to the 1980 Water Appropriations Bill, which authorized the completion of the Tellico Dam and Reservoir project despite the Supreme Court's finding that the project was in violation of the Endangered Species Act.
Manuscript section from The Snail Darter and the Dam: How Pork-Barrel Politics Endangered a Fish and Killed a River. Represents a portion of the original manuscript edited out when the text was condensed for publication.

Chapter 11: The First Defeat of the Override Attempt—in the Senate Committee on Envt&Public Works

Chapter 11: The Duncan-Baker Rider Amendmenton the 1980 Water Projects Appropriations Bill

Notes compiled in preparation for Zygmunt Plater's testimony before the "God Committee" - the Endangered Species Committee of the U.S. Department of the Interior - on January 23, 1979.
Manuscript section from The Snail Darter and the Dam: How Pork-Barrel Politics Endangered a Fish and Killed a River. Represents a portion of the original manuscript edited out when the text was condensed for publication.

Chapter 10: Our Citizen Briefing Points to the God Committee Staff

This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences. A notorious story about a small endangered fish that traveled far through the corridors of American government; also a parable about citizen action, a parable perhaps even more useful because it’s true. Deemed “The Most Extreme Environmental Case Ever”, Zygmunt Plater and a team students in Tennessee used the endangered little “snail darter” fish to help several hundred family farmers and fishermen block a pork-barrel dam that was going to destroy far more—in economic and ecological term—than it ever could produce. A double takeaway: “Good Ecology equals Good Economics” and “The governance of society is too important to leave it up to those who govern us.”

Things I learned from a very small fish (TEDxBeaconStreet presentation)

Annotated timeline of TVA v. Hill and related events, created by Zygmunt B. Plater in Microsoft Excel. Derivative files are available in PDF and CSV formats.

Annotated Timeline of TVA v. Hill and Related Events

Professor Zygmunt J.B. Plater was the keynote speaker at the Animal Law Review's Third Annual Symposium, entitled "The Endangered Species Act at 40," held at Lewis & Clark Law School on October 4, 2013

Lessons Learned From & Since TVA v. Hill at the 2013 Animal Law Review Symposium

Video of the November 15, 2009 reunion of the resisters of the Tennessee Valley Authority's Tellico Dam and Reservoir Project. Speakers include Zygmunt Plater and Jean Ritchie. This section of video includes a list of participants in the movement against the Tellico Project who were not able to attend the reunion.

Snail Darter Documents

Items in this collection

The Snail Darter and the Dam

The Departed: Extinction in America

BackStory Web Extra: Snail Darters, Pork, and Presidents

Chapter 11: The First Defeat of the Override Attempt—in the Senate Committee on Envt&Public Works

Chapter 11: The Duncan-Baker Rider Amendmenton the 1980 Water Projects Appropriations Bill

Chapter 10: Our Citizen Briefing Points to the God Committee Staff

Things I learned from a very small fish (TEDxBeaconStreet presentation)

Annotated Timeline of TVA v. Hill and Related Events

Lessons Learned From & Since TVA v. Hill at the 2013 Animal Law Review Symposium

Tellico Dam Resisters' Reunion Video 1

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Items in this collection

The Snail Darter and the Dam