Federal development project in the Upper South. Constructing sixteen dams between 1933 and 1945, the Tennessee Valley Authority brought jobs and training, flood control and electricity to marginal rural areas in seven states. By the postwar period, TVA converted the extensive valley into a balanced industrial, military and agricultural core for the future Sunbelt. Since the 1960s, the agency has been criticized for its environmental record, including pollution and reliance on stripmined coal, and its disastrous interests in nuclear power in the 1970s and 1980s. These are signs, perhaps, that the region has outgrown its engine of change.