Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
the state, however, the Trotters Shoals water and energy project got a green light from
Governor Jimmy Carter's office up until his last day.
U.S. President Jimmy Carter (1977-81) thought differently and executed his own ver-
sion of a big dam backlash. He announced his famous “hit list” in 1977 after less than
six months in office and threatened to eliminate any water project in the country that was
fiscally irresponsible, based on faulty cost-benefit accounting, an engineering folly, or det-
rimental to the environment. Among the more than thirty nationally targeted pork bar-
rel projects—previously promoted by chambers of commerce, local steering committees,
the Corps, the Bureau of Reclamation, and legions of elected Republicans and Demo-
crats—was the Trotters Shoals development the former peanut farmer had supported as Ge-
and reservoir project—already scrutinized by liberal and conservative critics for more than
twenty years—under the microscope again. Previous opponents had tried to eliminate the
Corps' last major Savannah River valley project by championing free enterprise, defend-
ing potential industrial sites and new jobs, and raising the EIS shield. As such, President
Carter's newfound opposition to the Savannah River valley project represented only the
latest attempt to kill Trotters Shoals. His hit list, however, soon crumpled under the weight
of a congressional backlash by members of his own party and Republicans who hailed
mostly from the American West. Before the end of 1977, Carter compromised with the
Senate, and nearly all of the water projects—including Trotters Shoals—were fully funded.
Journalists, former aides, and scholars have repeatedly asserted that Governor Carter's
decision to reject the Corps' Flint River project in Georgia informed his decision to crit-
ically examine the economic feasibility and environmental consequences of the nation's
convince Congress to rein in spending even as the national deficit grew. As Guy Martin, the
former assistant interior secretary during the Carter administration intimated, Carter failed
because he pushed environmental issues more than economic issues. According to Martin,
“Most Congressmen” did not “really care about wild rivers,” and “the New Deal mentality
[was] entrenched up there—even the right-wingers” treated dam and reservoir projects as
entitlements. Governor Carter's rejection of a single water and energy project on the Flint
River was bold and formative, but President Carter could not easily apply the same logic on
servationist and part environmentalist—Jimmy Carter could not overcome Capitol Hill's
political and institutional momentum or implement revolutionary ways to think about wa-
ter and energy.
Savannah River valley residents had organized for centuries to criticize and oppose ele-
ments of Georgia's and South Carolina's hydraulic waterscape. Aside from the Flint River
case, southerners had a poor success rate when it came to beating dam proposals. Early-
