Lake Strom Thurmond
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| Lake Strom Thurmond | |
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| Location | Abbeville County, South Carolina, McCormick County, SC & Columbia County, GA |
| Coordinates | |
| Lake type | reservoir |
| Primary inflows | Savannah River |
| Primary outflows | Savannah River |
| Basin countries | United States |
| Surface area | 71,100 acres (288 km²) |
| Surface elevation | 330 ft (100 m) |
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 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers near the confluence of the "Little River" and the Savannah River. At 71,000 acres (287 km²), it is the 2nd largest artificial lake east of the Mississippi River. (Second behind the Kentucky Lake on the Tennessee River.) The dam is located upstream from Augusta, Georgia.
The 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, it's legally 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 (385.4 km) above the mouth of the Savannah River. The lake extends 39.4 miles (63.4 km) up the Savannah River, 29 miles (47 km) up the Little River in Georgia, and 6.5 miles (10.5 km) up the Broad River in Georgia, and 17 miles (27 km) 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 1,200 miles (1,900 km). 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 (190 km) long. Congress authorized Thurmond Lake in 1944 and construction began in 1946. The project was completed in 1954 at a cost of $79 million.
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[edit] 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”
[edit] Renaming A Lake
Until 1988, the lake 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 and local Georgia residents were quite angry the next year when they discovered that the lake had been renamed after a politician from another state.[citation needed] 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. Following the name change by the Federal government, on April 4, 1989 the State of Georgia legislature passed House Resolution No. 115 making "Clarks Hill" the official state name for both the dam and associated reservoir. [1]Accordingly, Georgia's map still refers to the lake as Clarks Hill[2].
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 man-made Lake Russell, the lake north of Clarke Hill along the Savannah River, was named after Richard B. Russell, Jr., Georgia's noted U.S. Senator and former governor, in the same 1987 bill. Many South Carolina residents[who?] had the general opinion of not caring what the lake was called.
[edit] 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 (696 m) 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 (12 m) wide by 35 feet (11 m) high, for the quick release of water from the lake.
[edit] Trivia
- 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.
- Construction of the Thurmond Project took place from 1946 – 1954
- Construction of the dam began in 1948 and it was completed in 1951.
- The power plant was completed in 1954; the first generator had gone on-line in November, 1952.
- 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.
- Thurmond Lake contains 71,100 acres (287 km²) of water and has 1,200 miles (1,900 km) of shoreline. 79,900 acres (323 km²) of public land surrounds the lake.
- 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).
- Thurmond Dam is built of more than 1,000,000 cubic yards (760,000 m³) of concrete and more than 3 million pounds of reinforcing steel.
- The depth of the lake behind the dam is approximately 180 feet (55 m).
- The top of the dam is 200 feet (61 m) above the Savannah River Bed.
- The power plant contains seven 55,000 horsepower (41,000 kW) turbines. The seven penstocks that carry the water that drives the turbines are 20 feet (6.1 m) in diameter.
- The dam’s 23 spillway gates are each 40 feet (12 m) wide and 35 feet (11 m) high.
- The average annual generation from the Thurmond Power plant is about 700 million kilowatt-hours.
- 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.
- Thurmond Lake is one of the largest inland bodies of water in the south.
- The project has prevented millions of dollars in flood damage along the Savannah River
- The average lake elevation is 330 ft (100 m) msl.
[edit] References
- ^ [1] Krinitzsky, Ellis L., Joseph B.Dunbar; Geological-Seismological Evaluation of Earthquake Hazards at J. Strom Thurmond Dam; US Army Corps of Engineers Waterways Experiment Station; Technical Report GL-93-18, August 1993.
- ^ [2] Georgia Department of Transportation; 2006 Official State Map
[edit] External links
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