Big Dam Backlash Rising in the Sun Belt - Southern Water, Southern Power - page 81

Chapter 5: Big Dam Backlash Rising in the Sun
Belt
When Governor Sonny Perdue (b. 1946) prayed for rain on the state capitol's steps during
Georgia's deepening drought on November 13, 2007, it was not the first time politics, reli-
gion, and water scarcity merged in the Peach State. In the 1950s, drought gripped Georgia
for a third time in less than thirty years, and Georgians decided to “Pray for Rain” during the
driest year in Georgia history since 1925. 1 In a display of sympathy and well-choreographed
publicity, Governor Herman Talmadge (1913-2002) personally led a Sunday service desig-
nated as a “day of prayer for rain,” according to one newspaper. As the multiyear national
drought climaxed in October 1954, the drought hit Georgia's farmers and small communities
hardest. Atlanta officials restricted city departments' water use, and they developed a plan
for rationing municipal water supplies that did not have to be implemented. 2 Fayetteville,
a small town about twenty-five miles south of downtown Atlanta in the upper Flint River
basin, was not so lucky. The Fayette County seat of 1,200 had to cancel school for the
county's 700 students because the town had no water; it was one of at least seven Georgia
communities whose municipal water supplies had vanished. 3 Urban municipal water cus-
tomers were not the only individuals to feel the effects of drought. The state's increasingly
diversified truck farmers—including those in the Augusta and Savannah River region—also
suffered as their fruit and vegetable crops withered on the vine. Richmond County dairy,
cattle, and poultry farmers in the “death throes” became eligible for federal financial assist-
ance. 4 Overall, the state's agricultural economy took a $100 million hit from a so-called nat-
ural disaster that Atlanta Journal editors characterized as not making “as much noise as fires
and floods” or moving “as fast.” But the drought's consequences were, in their opinion, “just
as deadly.” 5
Georgians—and other southeastern residents—once again encountered a serious water
supply crisis, signaling that water insecurity continued to challenge the American South's
potential. The 1954 drought, not unlike droughts in 1925 and 1941, compromised urban wa-
ter supplies and industrial operations, as well as agricultural livelihoods. But the 1954 event
was different: It sparked “widespread interest … to find not just a temporary or expedient”
solution, according to one observer. Many people, including those who served on the hast-
ily formed Georgia Water Use and Conservation Committee, agreed on the need to “devel-
op a long time policy that will be flexible in character and that will deal equitably and ef-