New Deal Big Dam Consensus - Southern Water, Southern Power - page 46

sissippi River Headwaters navigation project. Congress approved construction of six dams
in Minnesota—three in the headwaters and three more on tributaries between 1880 and
1912—that only marginally regulated the river and navigation for St. Paul, 200 miles
downstream. 17 Another example of multiple, single-purpose dams was Arthur E. Mor-
gan's flood control project in Ohio. Morgan, who would later become one of the future
TVA's founding directors and lead engineer, designed five single-purpose flood control
dams and basins in the Miami River valley to protect Dayton and surrounding communit-
ies. The Miami Conservancy District program gained national attention when completed
in 1918 because the institution was financed without federal funding. 18 Finally, there were
multiple-dam developments such as Georgia Power Company's Tallulah-Tugaloo project
and Duke Power Company's activity on the Catawba River. 19 As single-purpose hydroelec-
tric dams, these dams did not provide navigational or flood control benefits; in flood condi-
tions, excess water poured over the dams' crests, rolled down spillways, and flowed down-
stream, the consequences of which could include Augusta's Great Flood in 1929. In this
example, Georgia Power's corporate goal—using specific technology to store water and
generate electricity in the hinterlands for urban centers like Atlanta—could never provide
public services such as flood control or improve navigation in the lower Savannah River
valley.
Talented engineers had initiated more serious experiments with the United States' first
modern, multiple-purpose dams in Arizona, Georgia, and Tennessee. The Salt River Valley
Water Users' Association, in conjunction with the Bureau of Reclamation, completed the
Salt River and Roosevelt Dam project between 1909 and 1911, which was the bureau's first
multiple-purpose reclamation (irrigation) and power project. 20 By 1914, single projects in
the Tennessee (Hales Bar), Savannah (Stevens Creek), and Mississippi (Keokuk) river val-
leys combined run-of-river dams, hydroelectric generation, and navigation locks. 21
Early-twentieth-century civil engineers in the public and private sectors clearly under-
stood how to build multiple-dam projects to manage specific risks or generate specific be-
nefits, but they did not necessarily have the capacity to construct multiple dams to serve
multiple purposes. The capital required for multiple multipurpose dams was simply bey-
ond the reach of private investors, and the federal government remained noncommittal to
public-private power projects due to the construction and environmental challenges en-
countered at Hales Bar (see Chapter 2). The post-World War I Muscle Shoals political con-
troversy also made the Corps wary of public power projects. And as long as rail transport
remained a viable and cost-effective means of moving freight long distances at low cost,
waterborne navigation investment could only justify itself in major corridors like the Mis-
sissippi River.
Given these national examples and realities, private and public sector engineers had yet
to combine multiple dams with multiple purposes anywhere in the United States before