Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
mention of the downward economic spiral. Instead, the company pressed on with con-
struction activities at Furman Shoals. 41 Despite the emerging depression, the company an-
nounced plans to spend $16 million on new projects in 1930 “to keep constantly in step
with the progress of the state,” according to Snap Shots writers. 42 Almost a full year would
pass before the Georgia Power Company abandoned the Furman Shoals project on the
Oconee River on November 30, 1930, because the company could no longer ignore the
global Great Depression. 43 The economies of the world and the state not only stalled Ge-
orgia Power's plans for Furman Shoals but also had repercussions for the company's other
projects in the Savannah River valley.
Lester Moody saw an opportunity to balance New South capitalism and New Deal liber-
alism at Clarks Hill. When Georgia Power executives placed Blue Ridge and Piedmont pro-
jects on hold during the Great Depression, the door opened slightly for another party—the
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers—to take part in shaping the South's hydraulic waterscape.
Furthermore, Georgia Power officers had “surrendered” their Clarks Hill FPC license in
1932 “because of unfavorable economic conditions and consequent lack of demand for
power.” 44 At this moment of economic insecurity the Great Depression provided a wedge
for the Corps to move into the valley, and people like Augusta's chamber of commerce
secretary took advantage of FDR's interest in public works projects that could move the
nation's economy forward by any means possible. Private utilities worked to block Clarks
Hill at the same time that they battled FDR's TVA.
FDR, eager to see New Deal programs benefit southerners, wasted no time reevaluating
the Savannah River's 308 Report and Clarks Hill. The president requested that a special
Savannah River board reassess Clarks Hill's fate in mid-August 1935. The special board's
members offered a number of recommendations to move the project forward, including
an option that would benefit FDR and Georgia Power. 45 The former wanted a project that
would provide unemployment relief, and the latter still owned thousands of acres of land
on the proposed Clarks Hill site.
Georgia Power president Preston Stanley Arkwright Sr. (1871-1946) walked a fine line
as a powerful stakeholder who worked at the junction of energy and water in the Americ-
an South. Arkwright, a long-serving Georgia Power executive (1902-45), did not publicly
reject a federally financed Clarks Hill project, and he eventually backpedaled on his com-
pany's initial claim that no utility would purchase the federal project's electricity. He as-
serted that the Georgia Power Company would at least be ready to buy all the electricity,
since the company served the vast majority of Georgia's electrified consumers. When the
Savannah River Special Board held a 1936 public hearing, Arkwright—perhaps disingenu-
ously—claimed the Georgia Power Company primarily served rural customers: “It is a rur-
al company. It is a rural state. It is substantially a rural supply company.” 46 Georgia was
predominantly rural, and the company did indeed serve rural customers; but in the 1930s
Search WWH ::




Custom Search