Taken and Delivered - Southern Water, Southern Power - page 122

Chapter 7: Taken and Delivered
The Chattooga River
Water is a prime factor in most outdoor recreation activities…. Recreation on the water
is increasing .
— Outdoor Recreation for America (1962)
After nearly fifty fires burned across northeast Georgia's mountains on a single weekend
in 1976, National Forest Service supervisor Patrick Thomas tried to make sense of the 800
smoldering acres of Rabun County's public land. With more forest burned in the first two
months of 1976 than in the previous two years combined, Thomas linked the recent “fire
style protest” to the 1974 creation of the Chattooga Wild and Scenic River. Thomas also
empathized with the group of local mountain residents allegedly responsible for the fires,
noting, “I would think it was a hardship, someone taking away access to a place I'd always
been able to take pleasure in.” Thomas did not explicitly identify the “someone” who be-
nefited from the Chattooga River's new identity, but his comment communicated that the
process was not entirely equitable or welcomed by those living in the Savannah River val-
ley's extreme upper reaches. 1 The fires did make clear how federal implementation of the
Wild and Scenic Rivers Act of 1968—a new watershed management strategy—stirred com-
munity protest and class conflict in the southern Appalachian mountains. This episode illus-
trates how one solution for the Sun Belt's evolving water problems signaled a change for old
corporate and federal powers, empowered new grassroots environmental organizations, and
invited “Retro Frontiersmen” to spark fire on the land in response.
The Chattooga River—James Dickey's famous Deliverance river—brings the Southeast's
nearly century-long water and energy history full-circle. The Chattooga is unlike virtually
all other southern Appalachian rivers within a fifty-mile radius: It escaped the lumber cribs,
concrete, spillways, turbines, generators, transmission lines, and reservoirs' drowning wa-
ters found in nearby watersheds such as the Tallulah-Tugaloo. New South executives and
New Deal regional planners had also identified the river as a waterpower and hydroelec-
tric energy source for decades. Anglers, day-trippers, and canoeists had regarded the Chat-
tooga River as a unique and endangered river for decades, complete with swimming holes,
breathtaking scenery, superior trout fishing, and white-knuckle rapids. This history was im-
mediately relevant after Congress enacted the National Wild and Scenic Rivers Act (1968)
and directed the U.S. Forest Service to evaluate rivers worthy of protection across the coun-