|
The dredging of the Savannah River has become one of the biggesteconomic and political footballs in the South, pitting Georgia and South Carolina interests against each other over how to deepen the river thatsplits the two states where the lowcountry meets the Atlantic stidal estuaries. At stake are not just bragging rights, but millions of dollars intrade that could raise the profile of the languid, Spanish-mossladen city that inspired the 1990s bestseller, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil . IN PICTURES: Civil War reenactors South Carolina politicians just this week put the brakes on a billthat would help the US Army Corps of Engineers argue in front of the South Carolina Supreme Court to dismiss a lawsuit brought by environmentalists to stop theproject. Lawmakers worry how the Savannah expansion will affect aplanned port expansion in Jasper, S.C., as well as Charleston Harbor s competitiveness as the Panama Canal begins allowing super-tankers through in 2014. South Carolina s $300 million bid to expand Charleston s port by 2020 is a major issue. The expansion is the biggeststrategic issue for South Carolina today, Jim Newsome, the chiefexecutive of the South Carolina Ports Authority, told McClatchynewspapers recently. Environmental concerns have dogged the dredging project, with mostof the costs going toward mitigation, including building sets ofmassive respirators on the river to combat what many expect to bedepleted oxygen levels in the water, which could affect, amongother species, endangered sturgeon. The CSS Georgia is now complicating the $653 billion projectfurther, as the project will have to become a fullscale, $42million underwater archeological dig before massive dredgers canbegin deepening the port. Built with money raised from a local women s club, the CSS Georgiabecame a testament to the South s industrial weakness compared tothe North its steam engines were too weak to push the prowthrough the river s current. Meanwhile, it was the approach of anicon of that industrial superiority General William Tecumseh Sherman that caused Confederates to quickly scuttle and sink the CSSGeorgia upon the Union Army s approach. By its ignominious end, the Georgia had become a floating cannonplatform on the river. It never fired a shot in battle. Broken into pieces on a bottom littered with cannonade, the Georgiaremains an important part of Southern history, even as it remainsclassified in Washington as a captured enemy boat. In 2000, salvagers rescued the CSS Hunley, a Confederate submarine,from where it sank in Charleston Harbor after successfully ramminga torpedo into the hull of a union supply ship, the Housatonic,sinking it. That boat yielded priceless treasures, includingpersonal items from the bodies that were found inside the iron,man-powered submersible. The Hunley was a rare example of where the antebellum Southmustered its resources to achieve a major technologicalbreakthrough. The Georgia, on the other hand, has very clearlybecome a symbol for why things went wrong for the Confederate navaleffort, Ken Johnston, executive director of the National CivilWar Naval Museum in Columbus, Ga. , tells the Associated Press. In a city that values its colonial and Confederate history, theGeorgia has also become yet another reminder that the past oftenrequires reckoning before progress can be made. IN PICTURES: Civil War reenactors. The e-commerce company in China offers quality products such as China Disposable Vaginal Speculum , Vacuum Blood Collection, and more. For more , please visit Infusion Bag today!
Related Articles -
China Disposable Vaginal Speculum, Vacuum Blood Collection,
|
