The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has paused a plan to possibly rename North Georgia’s Lake Lanier and Buford Dam after lawmakers and locals objected to it. The corps said it was following a 2021 federal law that governs renaming military bases christened for confederates.
In a press release Friday, the corps said it had been directed to provide potential name changes and asked the public for suggestions through a page on its website. The Gainesville Times reports that “within hours” of announcing the plan, the corps backtracked.
“The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is pausing any actions related to project renaming pending further guidance from the Department of the Army,” USACE Chief of Public Affairs Gene Pawlik told Now Habersham in an email on Monday.
Congressman Andrew Clyde of Athens told reporters he contacted the Corps of Engineers Friday to voice his opposition to the plan. He called the pause “a tremendous victory” and said, “renamings would have attempted to rewrite history, impose massive burdensome costs on our community, and create unnecessary mass confusion.”
Name origins
Lake Lanier is a reservoir that covers almost 58 square miles and impounds the Chattahoochee River. It is one of the nation’s most popular Corps-owned lakes, hosting millions of visitors each year. It was named for poet Sidney Lanier when it was built after World War II. Lanier served as a private in the Confederate army and later wrote a poem about the river called “Song of the Chattahoochee.”
Buford Dam is named for the nearby town of Buford, which takes its name from Lt. Col. Algernon Sidney Buford. He served in the Virginia militia during the Civil War. The Georgia town is named after him because he became president of a railroad that helped create the town after the war.
Buford Dam and Lake Lanier are among four DoD properties operated by the Corps of Engineers named for Confederate soldiers. The others are Stonewall Jackson Lake and Dam in Weston, West Virginia, and Port Allen Lock in Port Allen, Louisiana.
Naming Commission
In 2021, the William M. (Mac) Thornberry National Defense Authorization Act created a commission to rename DoD assets that commemorate the Confederate States of America and those who served voluntarily as confederate soldiers.
The Naming Commission has already changed the names of Georgia’s Fort Gordon and Fort Benning. Fort Gordon is being renamed Fort Eisenhower for the late General and President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Fort Benning is becoming Fort Moore in honor of Army Lt. Gen. Hal Moore and his wife, Julia Compton Moore.
U.S. Rep. Austin Scott served on the Naming Commission. The south Georgia Republican told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution the commission never intended for Lake Lanier to be renamed.
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