He shook his head at the human insanity the dam represented: people fighting to keep it from being built to save a tiny fish; sacred Indian land being submerged; land grabs by those in the know. And it generated no power. Not directly. Water from the Little Tennessee River was blocked by the dam, which had been built just above where the river had originally joined the Tennessee River. To get to the Tennessee, water flowed through a canal from Tellico Reservoir to Loudoun Lake and then went through the turbines of the Loudoun Dam, adding 23 megawatts of power. Thus opening the gates of Tellico would reduce the water flow to Loudoun, thus reducing the power outage, which was barely enough at overpeak for what Burns needed. Not acceptable. Of course, the gates of Tellico Dam were opened only once a year for maintenance, but it was a loose end. And one thing Burns had learned as a Nightstalker was to make sure there were no loose ends.
