Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
nineteenth-century fishermen protested antebellum dams in the 1850s, and anglers attemp-
ted to save migratory fish runs in the 1880s at the Augusta Canal diversion dam. Progress-
ive preservationists unsuccessfully fought the Atlanta-based Georgia Power Company's
New South-era Tallulah Falls project in northeast Georgia in the 1910s. These events
mirrored grassroots preservation and federal conservation moments observed in other parts
of the nation. President Jimmy Carter's attempt to apply a Georgia solution to the nation's
water problems likewise failed. But in the Sun Belt period, states' rights, antipollution,
conservation, and environmental activists became unaffiliated countryside associates ded-
icated to shaping the Savannah River valley's Piedmont. Southeastern water problems had
evolved beyond conserving water for energy production, channeling water for navigation,
controlling floodwaters, and storing water to bust droughts. Sun Belt countryside conserva-
tionists, environmentalists, and conservative critics represented streams of a big dam back-
lash that recast the contours of national water and power politics. That was no small feat.
By 1970, the nation's water problem encompassed the old problem of water quantity, a
lingering water quality problem, and a new demand. At that moment, Sun Belt commercial
boosters—influenced by New South capitalists and New Deal liberals—were torn as some
valleys were flooded to build lakes for water-ski boats and others were saved to balance
working reservoirs with recreational, scenic, and wild rivers.
