Lake Strom Thurmond

Sunset over Lake Strom Thurmond

Lake Strom Thurmond , also known as Clarks Hill Lake in Georgia, is a reservoir at the border between Georgia and South Carolina in the Savannah River Basin. It was built between 1946 and 1954 by the Army Corps of Engineers at the confluence of the Little River and Savannah River. At 71,000 acres (287 km²), it is the 2nd largest artificial lake east of the Mississippi River.(The largest is the Kentucky Lake.) The dam is located near the city of Augusta, Georgia.

Thurmond Lake is one of the southeast's largest and most popular public recreation lakes. Built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers between 1946 and 1954 as part of a flood control, hydropower, and navigation project, authorized purposes now include recreation, water quality, water supply, and fish and wildlife management. Each year, millions of people utilize the many public parks, marinas, and campgrounds conveniently located around the lake to pursue a variety of outdoor recreational experiences -making Thurmond one of the 10 most visited Corps lakes in the nation.

Thurmond Lake is a man-made lake bordering Georgia and South Carolina on the Savannah, Broad, and Little Rivers. The lake is created by Thurmond Dam located on the Savannah River twenty-two miles above Augusta Georgia and 239.5 miles above the mouth of the Savannah River. The lake extends 39.4 miles up the Savannah River, 29 miles up the Little River, and 6.5 miles up the Broad River in Georgia, and 17 miles up the Little River in South Carolina, at normal pool elevation of 330 mean sea level, Thurmond Lake comprises nearly 71,100 acres (287 km²) of water with a shoreline of 1200 miles. The entire Thurmond “Project” contains 151,000 acres (611 km²) of land and water.

J. Strom Thurmond Lake and Dam is the first Corps of Engineers project to be built in the Savannah River Basin. Hartwell Lake and Dam the second project built in the basin was completed in1963, and a third project, Richard B. Russell Lake and Dam was completed in 1985. Together these three lakes form a chain of lakes that is 120 miles long. Congress authorized Thurmond Lake in 1944 and construction began in 1946. The project was completed in 1954 at a cost of $79 million.

History

Originally the project was to be called “Clarks Hill Dam”. The “s” at the end of “Clarks” was omitted due to a clerical error in the original Congressional Authorization, and the project became “Clark Hill Dam”. The authorization document outlined the plan of development for the basin with authorized purposes of power production, incidental flood control, and navigation. Later, recreation, water quality, water supply, and fish and wildlife management were added as authorized purposes. After that the dam was renamed “Clarks Hill Dam”.

The 1966 Flood Control Act authorized the building of Trotters Shoals Lake and Dam on the Savannah River between Clarks Hill Lake and Hartwell Lake. This lake was later renamed to commemorate a late senator from Georgia, Richard B. Russell who was very important in supporting the building of dams on the river. This created a movement to rename Clarks Hill Lake after J. Strom Thurmond, the longest serving senator in US history who was from Edgfield on the South Carolina side of the lake. This movement gained support due to the senators’ great popularity in the area, and in 1988 the project was congressionally renamed “J. Strom Thurmond Dam and Lake at Clarks Hill”

Renaming A Lake

Until 1988, it was called Clarks Hill Lake, after the nearby South Carolina town of Clarks Hill, and the Revolutionary War hero Elijah Clarke, whose burial place, on the grounds of Georgia's Elijah Clark State Park, is on the western shore of the lake. In 1987, however, Representative Butler Derrick of South Carolina introduced a bill before Congress to rename the lake after Strom Thurmond, the long-time Senator from South Carolina.

The bill passed through Congress with little fanfare or notice, and local Georgia residents were quite surprised the next year when they discovered that the lake had been renamed after a politician from another state. In response, a group of Georgia legislators, led by Representative Doug Barnard, Jr. (who was, ironically, the only Georgia co-sponsor of the original 1987 bill) introduced a bill to rename the lake as "Clarks Hill" once again. That bill, however, was unsuccessful, and the name remained unchanged. Georgia's map, however, still refers to the lake as Clarks' Hill.

To this day, many residents of Georgia, including most of those who live nearby, refer to the lake by its original name. Another noteworthy point is that lake Russell, the lake north of Clarke Hill, was named after Richard B. Russell, Jr., Georgia's noted U.S. Senator and former governor, in the same 1987 bill. South Carolina was quoted as saying, "we don't really care what you call the lake."

Design Notes

Thurmond Dam is a concrete-gravity structure flanked on both sides by embankments of compacted earth some 5,680 feet (over 1 mile), crossing the Savannah River. The concrete section is 2,282 feet long and rises 200' above the riverbed at its highest point. Highway 221 crosses over the top of the dam connecting Georgia and South Carolina. The spillway contains 23 large gates, each 40 feet wide by 35 feet high, for the quick release of water from the lake.

Trivia

1. The Thurmond “Project” was originally authorized for three purposes, hydropower, flood control, and navigation. Later, recreation, water quality, water supply, and fish and wildlife management were added.
2. Construction of the Thurmond Project took place from 1946 – 1954
3. Construction of the dam began in 1948 and was completed in 1951.
4. The power plant was completed in 1954; the first generator went on-line in November, 1952.
5. The Thurmond Power plant is a “peaking power plant” - this means that power is not constantly generated. Instead, power is generated at times when electricity is in the greatest demand.
6. Thurmond Lake contains 71,100 acres (287 km²) of water and has 1,200 miles of shoreline. 79,900 acres (323 km²) of public land surrounds the lake.
7. The lake is located in two states (Georgia and South Carolina) and 7 counties (Georgia – Columbia, Lincoln, McDuffie, Wilkes and Elbert Counties; South Carolina –McCormick, and Abbeville counties).
8. Thurmond Dam is built of more than 1,000,000 cubic yards of concrete and more than 3 million pounds of reinforcing steel.
9. The depth of the lake behind the dam is approximately 180 feet.
10. The top of the dam is 200 feet above the Savannah River Bed.
11. The power plant contains seven 55,000 horsepower turbines. The seven penstocks that carry the water that drives the turbines are 20 feet in diameter.
12. The dam’s 23 spillway gates are each 40 feet wide and 35 feet high.
13. The average yearly generation from the Thurmond Power plant is 700 million Kilowatt hours.
14. The three Corps managed lakes on the Savannah River - Hartwell, Richard B. Russell, and J. Strom Thurmond - are responsible for maintaining water supply and water quality needs of the Savannah River from below Thurmond Dam all the way to Savannah, Georgia and the Atlantic Ocean.
15. Thurmond Lake is one of the largest inland bodies of water in the south
16. The project has prevented millions of dollars in flood damage along the Savannah River
17. The average lake elevation is 330 ft. msl.

External link

• Great Lakes of Georgia: Clarks Hill