Countryside Conservatism and Conservation - Southern Water, Southern Power - page 109

such, Trotters Shoals remained a water-quantity project that would soon become entangled
with notoriously dirty pulp and paper mills.
In the late 1950s, South Carolina congressman William J. B. Dorn (D) launched an eco-
nomic development mission to sell the Savannah River valley to the pulp and paper in-
dustry. Dorn never tired in his quest to bring jobs to his upstate South Carolina district
and to increase tax revenues to benefit community businesses, schools, and roads. And he
never stopped reminding people that the pulp and paper industry had a future in the re-
gion because cotton farmers had “gone to pine trees and cattle.” 25 As early as 1956, Dorn
arranged a tour for executives from the Mead Corporation, based in Dayton, Ohio; Duke
Power; and South Carolina's economic development team, all in an attempt to hook Mead
and land a new industrial plant. 26 Mead had already purchased property in the valley, and
after the Dorn tour in 1956, the company announced plans to build a pulp and paper mill in
South Carolina at the confluence of the Rocky River and the Savannah River between the
Hartwell dam and the upper reaches of Clarks Hill reservoir. 27 Dorn was pleased with the
results of his industrial tour.
The Mead Corporation's plans to harvest valley timber and manufacture paper products
along the Savannah River also complimented Duke Power's plans for a steam plant at
nearby Middleton Shoals. Mead had purchased Savannah River valley property and timber
from Duke and was positioned to purchase Duke's electricity to energize the new mill. But
Mead executives also felt threatened like Duke, since the Corps' Trotters Shoals reservoir
was set to flood some company assets, including one of Mead's proposed mill sites. Duke's
and Mead's objective—to develop a coal plant and a mill along the last undammed section
of the Savannah River in the Piedmont—initially made Dorn's and other boosters' oppos-
ition to the Corps' Trotters Shoals water and energy scheme easier. However, this effort to
bring industry to this stretch of the Savannah River sparked more backlash.
Georgia politicians and boosters were dubious of Duke's and Mead's intentions. Georgia
Democrats were also incredibly successful and almost unmatched in landing federal dams.
Between 1950 and 1963, the Corps completed seven hydroelectric, flood, and navigation
projects along Georgia waterways. 28 This put the South Carolinians at a disadvantage, but
Dorn, a reluctant public power supporter, eventually brokered a compromise with Geor-
gia's Senator Russell and Congressman Phil Landrum (D). For Georgians, giving up on the
Corps' Trotters Shoals and supporting Duke's Middleton Shoals was a losing proposition,
since the latter project would really benefit only South Carolinians. As one astute South
Carolina attorney observed, “A large number of people have asked me why the people
of Georgia are so whole heartedly” in support of Trotters Shoals and opposed to Duke's
Middleton Shoals project. “The obvious answer is that Duke Power Company has no in-
fluence in the State of Georgia.” 29 Furthermore, Georgia Power Company and Georgia's
pulp and paper industry may have weighed in on this issue only in private, since the com-