SANTEE GUIDE SERVICE

HISTORY OF SANTEE COOPER

Even before the American Revolution, South Carolinians dreamed of using their rivers for commerce between the Midlands and the Lowcountry. After the war, the General Assembly chartered a company "for the inland navigation between the Santee and Cooper rivers."

Under the leadership of Gov. William Moultrie, Revolutionary War heroes Gen. Francis Marion and Gen. Thomas Sumter, and other leaders such as John Rutledge and Henry Laurens, the 22-mile Santee Canal was constructed. It cost $750,000, a huge sum for that time.

The Santee Canal began operation in 1800. It linked the two rivers and enabled cargo-laden barges to travel from as far as 90 miles above Columbia, all the way to the port of Charleston However, nature and the Industrial Revolution stepped in. Drought periodically dried the canal and the railroads and steamships provided faster and cheaper shipping. By 1850, the charter for the canal was revoked.

The concept of connecting the Santee and Cooper rivers to help support commerce was reborn in the 1920s as a dream of T.C. Williams, a Columbia businessman and entrepreneur. He believed that a lowland hydroelectric project could provide that link. As owner of the Columbia Railway and Navigation Co., Williams was in the transportation business. He had the vision of carving out two huge lakes and building navigation locks that would provide a waterway for his steam-powered paddlewheel boats to and from Columbia to the port of Charleston. Williams surveyed the swamps and woodlands of the Lowcountry, developing plans for a massive hydro and navigation project. In 1926 he obtained the federal license to construct it. But his dream came to a crashing halt with the Great Depression.

Working to improve the quality of life...

However, Williams' dream was resurrected in 1933 by a group of resourceful legislators including a young man named Strom Thurmond. They obtained a promise from President Franklin D. Roosevelt for federally funding the project at a time when there were no funds available in the state's meager $6 million budget.

South Carolina legislators took note of the Great Depression "cures" being proposed in Washington under President Roosevelt's New Deal administration. They determined that the rural areas of the state, among the last in the nation without power, should share in the benefits of electrification.

A persistent U.S. Sen. James F. Byrnes convinced President Roosevelt to provide the funding for something that would help pull a South Carolina out of an economic calamity. Sen. Byrnes persuaded the president that lighting up and energizing the rural areas of the state, where 93 percent of the people were without electricity, could accomplish economic recovery. The means for doing that was to create the power-producing state utility that came to be known as Santee Cooper.

Electrifying the rural areas would improve the quality of life for those who lived there, Byrnes insisted. It would also provide the means to create jobs by allowing for the expansion of business and industry, which at the time were clustered primarily in the urban areas of the state. With passage of enabling legislation in 1934, the General Assembly created the South Carolina Public Service Authority. Its purpose was to construct and operate the Santee Cooper Hydroelectric and Navigation Project.

Private power companies fought the Santee Cooper idea all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Finally, in April 1939, their injunctions were overturned and work began. Santee Cooper was underway. Construction proceeded at a non-stop pace for 27 months.

Muscles, mules and machines were used to clear the swamps and woodlands, build the dams and dikes, and construct a powerhouse and navigation lock. It was the largest land-clearing project in U.S. history...

Establishing a malaria control program was the first job of all, a benefit for the entire state. Then came the clearing of the land--177,000 acres of swamp and timberland. More than 12,500 workers, taken off the relief rolls in every county of the state, were hired and campsites built. Due to land clearing for impoundment of the two lakes, entire communities had to be relocated.

It was vital to keep them intact. They were moved or rebuilt. Even cemeteries were moved. Families who lived side by side for generations were kept together. Many of them actually ended up with more land or newer homes than when the project started, not to mention 100 free chickens for every farm family!

Over 200 million board feet of timber were harvested during the clearing operation and sold in a manner that did not disrupt the economic structure of that industry. Beginning at Pinopolis, the 225-square mile reservoir was excavated and 42 miles of dams and dikes were constructed. This included the 26-mile earthen dike that reaches 78 feet above the coastal plain. The Pinopolis Dam included the hydro station and navigation lock, the highest single-lift lock in the world.

Sixty feet wide and 180 feet long, it still lifts boats 75 feet from the Tailrace Canal to the surface of Lake Moultrie. On the banks of the Tailrace Canal, adjacent to the hydro station, a switchyard was built---the hub of the transmission system for electricity generated by Santee Cooper. From this switchyard flowed electricity for distribution systems, electric cooperatives and major industrial users.

On the Santee River, an eight-mile-long earthen dam finally eliminated the periodic and life-threatening floods of the past. At the time, it was the longest earthen dam in the world. A 3,400-foot spillway was built to control floodwaters. Its 62 massive gates allowed spilling of excess water. In completing the largest earth-moving project in the nation's history, 42 million cubic yards of earth were moved and 3.1 million cubic yards of concrete were poured.

With no direct state investment in the project, South Carolina was the recipient of one of the wonders of the 20th century and resulted in one of its most valuable and ongoing resources. More importantly, the incalculable benefits of affordable power became available to virtually all South Carolinians.

Flow of Power Energized Rural South Carolina

Byrnes' prediction proved true. The $48.2 million project (55 percent federal loan, 45 percent federal grant) first generated electricity on Feb. 17, 1942. As transmission lines were built, power flowed to customers in Berkeley, Georgetown and Horry counties, and ultimately to electric cooperatives serving customers in all 46 counties. Power also flowed to major industries and businesses that decided to locate in areas that offered service by Santee Cooper or one of the electric cooperatives served by Santee Cooper. Those industries and businesses brought jobs, increased economic activity and stimulated growth in their respective communities.

A primary focus of Santee Cooper for more than half a century has been to help improve the quality of life for the people of South Carolina. It is a mandate written into the enabling legislation. Emphasizing economic growth, primarily through the creation of quality, higher-paying jobs, Santee Cooper has provided low-cost power and reliable service as one of its major benefits.