Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
The wild and scenic river process presented Georgia Power with an extraordinary oppor-
tunity to extract itself from the Chattooga watershed. The situation provided the company
with a chance to swap its Chattooga land with Forest Service property adjacent to the com-
pany's Tugaloo Lake and the inundated Tugaloo River. This combined land purchase and
exchange signified that the Chattooga land held little value for the company; indeed, it may
have actually represented a liability from the perspective of management and state tax pay-
land holdings in a recreational and leisure waterscape owned primarily by Georgia Power.
The cooperative relationship between Georgia Power and the Forest Service served very
narrow recreational ends, on one hand. The swap also protected a unique river and provided
additional ecological and community benefits as envisioned by the Craighead brothers.
However, this network of private businesses, public officials, and environmental stake-
holders included few full-time Rabun County (Ga.) and Oconee County (S.C.) residents.
Both counties were in the midst of striking economic shifts, and these Sun Belt transforma-
tions only intensified after 1970. Rabun County experienced a nominal population increase
of just over 900 people between 1960 and 1970, when it had a total population of about
8,300 people. The 370-square-mile county's shift from agricultural and forestry employ-
ment was more significant; the county lost more than 175 positions and witnessed a cor-
responding increase of nearly 500 manufacturing positions, primarily in the “textiles and
five times more populous Oconee County (over 40,000 residents) grew much more slowly.
But Oconee (650 square miles) gained more than 2,000 manufacturing positions while los-
ing over 1,000 agriculture-related jobs. In these Sun Belt demographic shifts, the Chattooga
River was an excellent retreat for a large body of nonagricultural employees in two states
who lived within sixty miles of the river and may have already enjoyed this recreation des-
tination. Rabun and Oconee County residents found themselves increasingly tied to time
clocks that not only kept track of hours worked but also limited their recreational time in
easily accessible southern Appalachian recreation commons like the lightly managed Chat-
tooga River corridor.
Rabun and Oconee residents participated in discussions pertaining to the Chattooga's
federal designation to varying degrees. The “locals” who had long visited the river to fish
or socialize or for other community uses had been described by wild and scenic river ad-
vocates as nonparticipants in the many private or public discussions about the river's fu-
ture. One nonparticipant, John Ridley, grew up on the Chattooga's South Carolina bank,
just upriver from the Highway 28 bridge; he attended Clemson University in 1961, where
he received a horticulture degree. According to him, South Carolina and Georgia locals
was limited communication between folks who lived along the river and those who lived in