Defeating the Dalton Dam

How a Tiny Fish called the Conasauga logperch defeated an enormous wall of concrete

By James Riley

In 1968, the United States Army Corps of Engineers proposed the construction of a multi-purpose reservoir on the Conasauga River in Whitfield and Murray Counties, Georgia. The project would have resulted in a seventy-five-foot tall dam south of the city of Dalton, Georgia. Furthermore, the dam would have created a large lake in the area. The Corps of Engineers believed Northwest Georgia would experience many benefits from the project. For example, the Corps of Engineers believed it would have reduced flood damage, provided better methods for water sanitation, created better access to a water supply, enhanced the areas local wildlife populations, and provided access to water-based recreational activities.[i] All of these things combined were meant to develop and enrich the public and economy of Northwest Georgia. The proposal seemed like an excellent idea to residents and business leaders in Dalton. However, as time moved on, the project encountered many impediments. The biggest hurdle that the project encountered was that it posed a severe threat to the survival of one of the Conasauga River’s endemic fish, the Conasauga Logperch. Despite the economic promises, the Corps of Engineers canceled the Dalton dam in 1985, thereby implying that the protection of an endangered species outweighed the advantages of a civil engineering project.[ii]

            The plan for the reservoir was ambitious. In their proposal to construct the multi-use reservoir, the Corps of Engineers estimated the cost of the project to be nearly $1.95 million. However, the Corps of Engineers expected the final result of the damming project to generate more than $2 billion into the regional and national economies.[iii] The Corps of Engineers believed the project would generate money in many ways. One important way that a dam in Dalton could be valuable as a means of preventing flood damage in Northwest Georgia. According to the Corps of Engineers, damming the Conasauga River would “control a 624-square-mile drainage area in the headwaters of the Alabama-Coosa River Basin.”[iv] Controlling the floods prevalent in the Alabama-Coosa basin would have enormous economic benefits to a five-county region in Northwest Georgia. For example, a 1971 report on the impact of a proposed multi-use reservoir in Dalton stated that a dam on the Conasauga River could control floods as far away as in Rome, Georgia, by preventing overflow from the Oostanuala River. [v]

            In addition to flood prevention, tourism and recreation were expected to accompany the reservoir after its completion in northwest Georgia. The 1961 proposal from the Army Corps of Engineers suggested that recreation in the forms of fishing and water sports would be generated by the reservoir’s use as an artificial lake.[vi] Furthermore, people from other parts of Georgia would have the opportunity to come to the Dalton area to spend time at a lake, thus generating tourism dollars for the local economy. Over the following decade, as the Corps of Engineers evaluated the project, citizens of Dalton began to promote the idea of a lake in their community. It seemed that enthusiasm had started to develop over the prospect of the Dalton Municipal Reservoir.

  In 1980, Burton J. Bell wrote an article in the Dalton-based magazine Conasauga: North Georgia’s Magazine titled “Water Supply for the Future.” In his article, Bell discussed how many communities throughout the state of Georgia had greatly benefitted from damming their rivers during the 1940s. Bell promoted the idea that as populations grew, damming rivers was one of the best options for ensuring stable access to a water supply and protection from flooding. Bell cited Whitefield County’s industrial growth during the 1950s as a particular reason to dam the Conasauga River because the heavy rains in higher elevated Gordon County were “producing flood problems in the valleys west of the mountains,” and a dam could be a good solution to the flood problem.[vii] Therefore, it is clear that Dalton citizens like Bell had begun to adopt the idea that damming the Conasauga River could solve northwest Georgia’s flood problem.

Bell also cited the 1978 construction of Carters Dam south of Chatsworth in Murray County as an example of how useful the Dalton Dam could be. Carters Dam resulted in Carters Lake, where, according to Bell, “water-related activities continue throughout the year.”[viii] Through his example, Bell conveyed the message to Dalton citizens that they could have close access to the lake-based recreation. Furthermore, a new lake in Dalton could potentially stimulate the local economy by attracting tourism. Bell also suggested that the tourism and recreation created by the Dalton Lake would cover the costs of maintaining the area and produce recreation-oriented jobs for Dalton locals.[ix]

            Tourism, flood prevention, and reliable access to water were excellent reasons to advocate for the Dalton Dam. However, these were not the only reasons the project was desired. Another important reason for the construction of a multi-use reservoir on the Conasauga River was to provide the growing textile industry with a water supply. Bell’s article from 1980 is full of suggestions about how economically beneficial the Dalton Dam would be.[x] Furthermore, the initial proposal in 1969 from the Corps of Engineers lists industrial use of water created from the reservoir as a means of providing economic growth in Dalton.[xi] More evidence that commercial interests were pushing for the construction of the Dalton Dam can be found in Bell’s article, which contained only one advertisement, Shaw Industries.[xii] Therefore, it is possible that Bell’s article, which touted the dam as a project that would ensure economic growth, could have been connected to the interests of industrial developers in Northwest Georgia.

            There is a significant gap in the time frame between the Dalton Dam’s proposal in 1969 and its eventual defeat in 1985. During the 1960s and 1970s, many citizens of the United States had become more concerned with the environmental issues that emerged as a result of the massive developmental projects that occurred after World War II. One such area was the impact on critical habitats posed by engineering projects like dams. Critical habitats are unique environments that certain species are specially adapted to survive in.[xiii] Therefore, many environmentally minded people were putting pressure on the federal government to enact laws that would protect these critical habitats and the species whose survival depended on the well-being of these ecosystems. Eventually, due to the narrow streams and low-lying marshy pools found along the Conasauga River that fish like the Conasauga Logperch required to spawn, this habitat would be considered critical.[xiv]

 In 1973, the Senate passed the Endangered Species Act.[xv] This act put some restraint on many proposed civil projects. One such project was the Dalton Dam. In their 1971 report, the Army’s Corps of Engineers had determined that a reservoir in the Conasauga Valley would promote the well-being of local fish and waterfowl.[xvi] However, it was becoming more apparent how many species adapted to specific environmental conditions and massive civil engineering projects, like dams, threatened the survival of those species.[xvii] Therefore, the United States Fish and Wildlife Services needed to spend some time in the Conasauga Valley, further researching the detriment posed by the Dalton Dam to the native flora and fauna of the area. What they found would prove to be a substantial impediment to the Dalton Multi-Use Reservoir.

            Years after the passing of the Endangered Species Act, the United States Fish and Wildlife Services Endangered Species Program produced a bulletin stating that they had begun status reviews for the proposals of three endangered fish in Northwest Georgia in 1983.[xviii] These three fish were the Amber Darter, the Trispot Darter, and the Reticulate Logperch, which would later be renamed the Conasauga Logperch. The purpose of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service’s review was to determine if these three species should be added to the list of endangered animals and if they could survive in different habitats. This evaluation was especially crucial for the Amber Darter and the Conasauga Logperch because the two species were only found in a twenty-miles-long stretch in Murray and Whitfield Counties, Georgia.[xix]

            According to the Fish and Wildlife Service’s bulletin, this stretch of the Conasauga River was also crucial to the Amber Darter’s survival. However, less focus was placed on the Amber Darter because a single specimen had been found in the Etowah River in Cherokee County, Georgia. What this specimen suggested to the Fish and Wildlife Service is that it could survive in waterways other than its twenty-mile stretch in the Conasauga River. Therefore, prior to the 1983 status review, the Fish and Wildlife Service had been testing if the Trispot Darter and Amber Darter could live in places other than the Conasauga River, which would allow the Corps of Engineers to continue with their damming project. They did not perform this with the Conasauga Logperch because of its limited distribution.

The Fish and Wildlife Service determined that all three fish were highly susceptible to changes to their habitats. Much of this susceptibility derived from the discovery that the three fish species in question required specific conditions to spawn. These conditions could not allow any type of flooding or chemical introduction into the water system of the Conasauga River. Therefore, the Fish and Wildlife Service concluded that “water development projects now being considered for the upper Conasauga River could threaten the survival of the remaining populations if construction plans do not take into account the habitat requirements of these species.”[xx]

            According to the Fish and Wildlife Service’s findings in 1983, it was apparent that none of the imperiled three fish species would survive if the construction of the Dalton Dam went along. This threat was especially real for the Conasauga Logperch because it was so sensitive to environmental changes and had such a small population that it would likely be doomed if the Corps of Engineers went through Conasauga River damming project.[xxi]  Due to the desire of local Dalton businesses and the Corps of Engineers’ desire to move forward with the damming project and the Conasauga Logperch’s vulnerability, Dr. Bruce Thompson, a conservationist who worked for the Fish and Wildlife Service during the 1980s, began researching the fish in November of 1983. In 1984 the fish’s name was officially changed from the Reticulate Logperch to the Conasauga Logperch, presumably because Dr. Thompson’s research proved how dependent on the specific conditions of the Conasauga River the fish was.[xxii]

            Through his research, Dr. Thompson discovered that the Conasauga Logperch only inhabited an eleven-mile stretch of the upper Conasauga River, as opposed to the previously presumed twenty-mile stretch that was home to the Amber Darter and Trispot Darter.[xxiii] Furthermore, Dr. Thompson noted that the Conasauga Logperch required specific riffle areas with gravel substrate found in its part of the Conasauga River to spawn. In these same areas, the Conasauga Logperch depended on the slow flow of the river to turn up stones where invertebrates to eat. The Conasauga Logperch’s up-turned nose and relatively small size made it clear that this method of feeding was most likely its only means of acquiring sustenance. These findings prompted Dr. Thompson to conclude that the Corps of Engineer’s damming project would “could have a severe impact on the three fishes.”[xxiv]  These findings prompted the United States Fish and Wildlife Service Endangered Species Program to consider designating the upper Conasauga River a critical habitat.[xxv]

            While research on the endemic aquatic species of the Conasauga River Valley was happening in the early 1980s, many citizens of Dalton began questioning the reservoir project. One such citizen was a writer for the local newspaper called the Dalton Daily Citizen named Earl J. Roberts. In the November 7, 1984 issue of the paper, Robert wrote an article titled “Our Water Supply in Georgia.” In his article, Roberts discussed many of the human-made lakes created from municipal reservoirs across Georgia. Roberts used a state-wide drought in 1980 to suggest that man-made reservoirs were unreliable by stating that “water in our man-made lakes was down to an appalling level.”[xxvi] Instead of relying solely on reservoirs created by dams, Robertson suggested that Georgia put efforts into developing an aqueducts system similar to the San Fernando Valley in California.[xxvii] Whether an aqueduct system was feasible or not is not clear. However, it is clear from Robert’s article that some of Dalton’s citizens were beginning to question if creating a dam in Dalton was the right move for the city.

            Two days after Roberts’ article was released, the Dalton Daily Citizen another article by their staff writer, Caran Wilbanks. This article was titled “Utilities ‘Breaking a Leg’ To Meet Project Deadline.” In this article, Wilbanks notified the public that the Environmental Protection Division of the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife had ordered Dalton Utilities to discontinue the release of wastewater into the Conasauga River by the summer of 1984.[xxviii] At the end of the article, Wilbanks relayed information from a public hearing between the general manager of Dalton Utilities, DeForrest Parrot, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Department. Wilbanks wrote that “it seemed likely that part of the Conasauga River proposed for the Dalton Dam project will be named to the critical habitat list, stopping the project.”[xxix] From the information that Wilbanks gathered, it was becoming evident that serious consideration for protecting the Conasauga River Valley was underway.

            According to an article in the Dalton Daily Citizen, by Moody Connell titled “Land Purchases Raise Questions,” by June of 1985, Dalton Utilities was seeking to purchase large amounts of land in Murray County. This endeavor gained particular notice by citizens of both Whitfield and Murray Counties because Dalton Utility was searching for between nine thousand and sixteen thousand acres of land. Many speculated about the land purchase being for a landfill. However, when County Commissioner Kirby Patterson was asked about it, Patterson replied that it was for sewage treatment formerly done on property along the Conasauga River. Connell took the story further and interviewed Dalton Utilities General Manager DeForrest Parrot about the project. Parrot informed Connell that the land purchases were, in fact, for sewage treatment and that Dalton Utilities had been given large amounts of federal funding to create cleaner sewage treatment facilities as a method of keeping local waterways clean.[xxx] Therefore, it appears that many in Dalton, guided and influenced by the federal government, were preparing for the Conasauga Valley to be declared a critical habitat soon. Furthermore, the federal funding of these changes in Whitfield and Murray Counties demonstrates that the federal government was willing to incentivize local governments to practice conservation measures.

            By the summer of 1985, the Dalton Dam project seemed to have hit several impediments but had still not yet been canceled. It appeared that many Dalton citizens were growing uneasy about the project. On July 20, 1985, the Dalton Daily Citizen ran a front-page story about a dam that had collapsed and killed two-hundred people in Val di Stava, Italy, the day before on July 19. Interestingly, the article pointed out that the Italian town had been erased by the collapse of retaining walls that held “two artificial lakes used to filter industrial waste.”[xxxi] Though the article did not explicitly mention Dalton, it described Val di Strata as being at the foot of mountains, thereby implying that towns near mountain dams were at risk of fates similar to the Italian village. Furthermore, the following story published in the Dalton Daily Citizen was “A History of Dam Disasters.” Every single disaster in this story mentioned a town built in a valley that had been destroyed by a collapsing dam; death tolls included.[xxxii] It is evident from these articles that many citizens in Dalton were beginning to evaluate the risks of living near a municipal reservoir if the damming project continued.

            Five days before the Dalton Dam project was officially canceled Earl J. Roberts wrote another article for the Dalton Daily Citizen that explained why artificial lakes in Georgia were not something that the citizens of Dalton should desire. Roberts’ article was an argument against the recreational opportunities that advocates for the lake had promoted. In the article, Roberts discussed the conditions in artificial lakes that made them dangerous. Roberts referenced the threat posed to recreational boater and swimmers by trees that existed in filled reservoirs. Roberts specifically made an example of Lake Lanier, near Gainesville, Georgia, by stating that “swimming and scuba diving are probably the most hazardous activities of all.”[xxxiii]Roberts’ implication was that recreation in human-made lakes was unsafe because people could frequently become tangled in debris in the lake and drown.

            Fortunately, Earl J. Roberts fears of a Dalton citizen drowning in the Dalton Multi-Use Reservoir would never become true because on August 5, 1985, the U.S. Department of Interior’s Fish and Wildlife Agency declared the upper Conasauga River to be a critical habitat. Furthermore, the agency made a final ruling that stated that both the Amber Darter and Conasauga Logperch were endangered species.[xxxiv] As a result of the final ruling, the plans to construct the Dalton Dam were canceled. The Department of Fish and Wildlife Service’s ruling in the Federal Register made particular mention of Dr. Bruce Thompson’s descriptions about the vulnerability of the Conasauga Logperch as the main reason for their decision to declare the Conasauga Valley a critical habitat.[xxxv] Therefore, it is worth noticing that without Dr. Thompson’s work, the Conasauga Logperch, and likely the Amber Darter, would not exist today.

            In August of 1985, the Conasauga Logperch and Amber Darter had obtained protection officially. However, the Trispot Darter was excluded from the Fish and Wildlife Service’s ruling. Consideration for protecting the Trispot Darter under the Endangered Species Act continued until January of 1986.[xxxvi] Like the Conasauga Logperch, the Fish and Wildlife Service had believed that the Trispot Darter was restricted to a small area in the upper Conasauga River. The Department of Fish and Wildlife’s research, beginning with its initial proposal to protect the Trispot Darter in 1984, had yielded some valuable findings. The Georgia Department of Natural Resources had discovered two additional communities of Trispot Darters further downstream in the Conasauga River. Furthermore, and additional populations of Trispot Darters had been discovered in the Coahulla Creek. Therefore, the Fish and Wildlife Services found no reason to declare the Trispot Darter endangered or threatened.[xxxvii] The successive years of research in the area had helped people gather a greater understanding of the upper Conasauga and its animal populations than would have been possible without a desire to understand the endemic species to the area. The discovery of thriving communities of Trispot Darters in several locations is indicative of this sentiment.

            The cancelation of the project to dam the Conasauga River and create a municipal water supply for the City of Dalton and its industries seems far-fetched. Saving a critical species had not prevented similar water projects in the past. For example, Tennessee Valley Authority faced nearly challenges before the agency constructed the Tellico Dam in 1967. A species of fish similar to the Conasauga Logperch called the Snail Darter, faced severe impacts from the Tellico Dam’s construction. Unlike the Dalton Dam, the Tellico Dam’s potential outweighed the Snail Darter’s assured survival, and the project was completed.[xxxviii]

  The possibilities surrounding the prospect of the Dalton Dam seemed very promising, and, at first, many Dalton citizens, like Burton J. Bell, were on board with the idea, and even excited about it. However, many factors attributed to the proposed Dalton Dam’s eventual demise in 1985. For example, after the initial luster of an artificial lake in their community wore off, many Dalton citizens, like Earl J. Roberts, soured on the idea. Furthermore, several people were afraid that a dam would cost them their lives or homes, as the writer of the article about dams destroying cities did. The citizens of Dalton did not seem very concerned with the threats the dam posed to local ecology; instead, they feared the dam could potentially destroy their town. All factors included, the most significant attribution to the cancelation of the Dalton Dam was the Conasauga Logperch.

            In many ways, the Conasauga Logperch was only part of the story of how the Dalton Dam was defeated. However, the fact remains that the difficulty of the Conasauga Logperch to adapt to environmental changes ultimately halted the project to construct the Dalton Multi-Use Reservoir. Overall, the Conasauga Logperch represents a triumph of the Endangered Species Act. It appears as though the Conasauga Logperch was given little if any attention prior to the passing of the act in 1973. It can never be truly known how many species went extinct prior to the passing of this act because of civil works projects, like the Dalton Dam. The Department of Fish and Wildlife Service’s conclusion that damming the Conasauga River would threaten the existence of an endemic species a critical step in the direction of environmental conservation.

[i]US Department of Army: Corps of Engineers, “Report for Development of Water Resources in Appalachia,” Office of Appalachian Studies. November 1969, Section 1: 111-8-1.

[ii]US Department of Interior: US Fish and Wildlife Services, “Endangered and Threatened Species: Amber and Conasauga Logperch,” Federal Registrar. August 5, 1985, Vol. 50, No. 150, P. 31597.

[iii] Corps of Engineers, “Report for Development of Water Resources in Appalachia,” 111-8-2.

[iv] US Department of the Army: Corps of Engineers. “Dalton Reservoir, Conasauga River, Georgia,” Environmental Statement. February 16, 1971, 1.

[v] Ibid., 2.

[vi] Corps of Engineers, “Report for Development of Water Resources in Appalachia,” 111-8-2.

[vii] Burton J. Bell, “Water Supply for the Future,” Conasauga: North Georgia’s Magazine 3, (1980): 26.

[viii] Ibid., 27.

[ix] Ibid., 28.

[x] Ibid., 26-28.

[xi] Corps of Engineers, “Report for Development of Water Resourced in Appalachia.” 111-8-6.

[xii] Bell, “Water Supply for the Future,” 28.

[xiii] Chadwick, “Silent Streams,” National Geographic. 2010. 116-23.

[xiv] US Department of Interior, “Status Review Begun for Three Fishes.” Endangered Species Technical Bulletin. January 1983, Vol. III, No. 12, P.11.

[xv] US Fish and Wildlife Services, “Endangered Species Act.” Ecological Services. 1973.

[xvi] Corps of Engineers, “Dalton Reservoir, Conasauga River, Georgia,” 2.

[xvii] Chadwick, “Silent Streams,” 116-23.

[xviii] US Department of Interior, “Status Review Begun for Three Fishes,” 11.

[xix] Ibid., 11.

[xx] Ibid., 11.

[xxi] Ibid., 11.

[xxii] US Department of Interior, “Four Fishes,” Endangered Species Technical Bulletin. January 1984. 10.

[xxiii] US Department of Interior, “Status Review Begun for Three Fishes,” 11.

[xxiv] US Department of Interior, “Four Fishes,” 10.

[xxv] Ibid., 10.

[xxvi] Earl J. Roberts, “Our Water Supply in Georgia,” Dalton Daily Citizen, November 7, 1984. Vol. 23 No. 187.

[xxvii] Ibid., 187.

[xxviii] Caran Wilbanks, “Utilities ‘Breaking a Leg’ To Meet Project Deadline,” Dalton Daily Citizen, November 9, 1984. Vol. 23 No. 189.

[xxix] Ibid., 189.

[xxx] Moody Connell, “Land Purchases Raise Questions,” Dalton Daily Citizen, June 10, 1985. Vol. 24 No.6.

[xxxi] “Village Reeling from Dam Disaster;” Dalton Daily Citizen, July 20, 1985, Vol. 24, No. 94.

[xxxii] “A History of Dam Disasters” Dalton Daily Citizen, July 20, 1985, Vol. 24, No. 94.

[xxxiii] Earl J. Roberts “Conditions Created by Lakes in North Georgia,” Dalton Daily Citizen, July 31, 1985, Vol. 24, No. 103.

[xxxiv] US Fish and Wildlife Services, “Endangered and Threatened Species: Amber Darter and Conasauga Logperch,” Federal Register, August 5, 1985, Vol. 50, No. 150, P. 31597.

[xxxv] Ibid., 315798.

[xxxvi] US Department of Interior, “Withdrawal of Proposed Rule to List Trispot Darter;” Endangered Species Technical Bulletin, January 1986, Vol. XI, No. 2, P. 7.

[xxxvii] Ibid., 7.

[xxxviii] Plater, Zygmunt J., “A Jeffersonian Challenge from Tennessee: The Notorious Case of the Endangered ‘Snail Darter’ Versus Tva’s Tellico Dam—And Where Was the Fourth Estate, the Press?” Tennessee Law Review 80 (2013): 1-42.