Big Dam Backlash Rising in the Sun Belt - Southern Water, Southern Power - page 98

the legal instrument that fundamentally altered water management and legal access to water
in Clarks Hill, the planned Hartwell, and any future federal reservoir. Harrison wanted wa-
ter management turned over to a “local water authority so that the common law rights as to
water use can be restored to the people.” Harrison articulated how federal reservoirs, ringed
by the buffer or collar of public land, fundamentally changed Sun Belt riparian rights. Com-
munities and property owners lost access rights to water contained within federal reservoirs
when the Corps acquired the shoreline. As such, Harrison and others respectfully argued
that federal management of Clarks Hill's water supply discouraged industry from locat-
ing in McCormick County because industry would have no direct access to the water sup-
ply without congressional approval. Harrison labeled the Corps “a military branch” that
threatened to inflict “great damage to our country” by assuming “political power and eco-
nomic control over large areas of our economy.” 73 To many southern Democrats frustrated
by the New Deal's disruption of race relations and labor norms but interested in water and
energy projects, the Corps initially represented a better alternative to the TVA. By the late
1950s, however, even the Corps' reputation was slipping, and the engineers appeared as
intractable diplomats of federal domination.
Damage, of course, is relative. McCormick got the water it wanted from Clarks Hill, and
as of 2013 two dozen other communities, utilities, industries, and golf courses also even-
tually obtained water from the Corps' three major Savannah River valley reservoirs. 74 To
some people, the Corps dominated the valley when it built the Hartwell dam, a 2,451-foot-
long concrete and 10,000-foot-long earthen embankment structure. Behind the dam, a
reservoir covered 56,000 acres. Clemson College, once concerned about the prospect of
losing portions of the campus and stadium to rising reservoir waters, was protected behind
a series of earthen levees built by the Corps. Furthermore, the Corps compensated Clem-
son College $2.2 million for nearly 8,000 acres of land and structures buried by Hartwell's
water, which represented a sliver of the more than 27,000 acres the USDA had deeded to
Clemson for $1.00 in 1954 to help the school meet its land-grant mission. 75 But most prop-
erty owners did not get the same treatment. The land required for the reservoir area ne-
cessitated the removal of 560 urban and rural families, “or a total population of 2,800” in
a project area with a population of seventeen people per square mile. Not all landowners
were excited to make way for the dam and reservoir project that required them to sell their
property. 76 For example, one landowner was frustrated that he could not recoup the market
value for the property he needed to sell. He pleaded with Senator Thurmond, “I am told
the dam is to benefit this area, but why should I be pushed out of my home without be-
ing given full value, or enough to replace my home in the same general locality?” Harold
Timms clearly understood the real estate dynamics at work, or at a minimum how they
worked against him. Surrounding property values were destined to increase as more folks
like him competed for remaining property or “due to higher value placed on resort type