Fish Tales and the Conservation State

Abstract

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] For millennia southern marshes, swamps, oxbows, Carolina Bays, steep creeks, mountain bogs, ponds and reservoirs have provided gifts and lessons to their peoples (and of course critters). Among gifts that wetlands and rivers have given over and over to southern culture are transportation, power, protection, recreation, and clean water to drink, cook with, and bathe in. I grew up rock-hopping along Potomac River, camping on Chesapeake Bay, and ducking waves off Delmarva before I lived on edge of Gulf of Mexico, was enthralled by crystal springs of north Florida, and fell in love with western North Carolina's cold mountain streams. Each experience on water taught me something new about risks, consequences, and rewards. When I found Savannah River and its tributaries as a graduate student, I learned these things all over again as I contemplated this river's history. And like my personal investment in southern waters, these stories and their lessons cannot be disconnected from politics of conservation. SHAD: SCARCE ... AS HEN'S TEETH In early nineteenth century, migratory fish reportedly swam over 380 miles from Atlantic Ocean to mountains of northeast Georgia near Tallulah Falls to spawn. Well into 1830s Savannah River valley dwellers--Native Americans, European colonists, and African slaves--all scrambled to capitalize on seasonal runs. They gathered to eat or to collect fish so others might eat. Then everything began to change during market revolution. (1) The early national period's grist and textile mills were powered by water. And to harness this power, mill builders turned to small diversion dams or large projects such as Augusta Canal. These structures, however, rendered seasonal fish migration and harvests nearly impossible. Canals in Augusta, Georgia, and Columbia, South Carolina--like canals in New England described by Henry David Thoreau--successfully provided agricultural and industrial constituencies with transportation arteries and energy sources. The designers and investors had to build dams across Savannah and Congaree rivers to fill canals to provide energy to factories and to move boats. While Augusta Canal's first diversion did not stretch across entire river, subsequent additions to structure in 1840s eventually linked Georgia and South Carolina banks with a single by 1857. Until end of nineteenth century, Augusta Canal's diversion would be the only dam on Savannah River. (2) And decision to erect Augusta Canal's diversion dam, like dams throughout American South and beyond, created a new river environment. Engineers built Augusta Canal and canal head gates--where canal takes on water from main stem of Savannah River--in heart of region's fall line where river tumbles from Piedmont onto upper Coastal Plain. At this site water flowed through series of waterfalls, shoals, and cataracts where naturalist Mark Catesby harvested sturgeon in eighteenth century. After was completed, a pond extending about 1 1/2 or 2 miles, with an average width of 1,500 feet, interspersed with islands and rocks buried those shoals and Catesby's fishing spot under Savannah River's pooling water. (3) Water only flowed over diversion when canal could not carry all of river's water (e.g., during a flood). The river's first major bank-to-bank also created river's first artificial reservoir to conserve water for purpose of generating energy. By time Civil War commenced, Augusta's canal was providing water power to numerous cotton mills and factories. The choice to build canal had major consequences for river's migratory fish and those dependent on fish. The Savannah's free flowing water, fed by mountain streams and springs rising as far away as Whitesides Mountain (N. …