Historic Hydro-Engineering Report: Flint River Project (FERC #1218), Dougherty County, Georgia

This report documents and evaluates the dam, powerhouse, and related facilities and equipment at the Flint River Hydroelectric Project (Flint River Project) in Dougherty and Lee Counties, Georgia, near the City of Albany. The project is owned and operated by the Georgia Power Company and is licensed as Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Project #1218. The project is situated on the Flint River, approximately 92 miles southeast of Columbus and 113 miles southwest of Macon (Figure 1.1). The main dam, powerhouse, and spillway are at River Mile 104 on the Flint River (GPC 1995). The Flint River Plant was constructed by the Georgia Alabama Power Company from 1920 to 1922. The project also includes a diversion dam, an abandoned powerhouse, and a spillway, located on Muckafoonee Creek, approximately 3, 000 feet northwest of the main dam. The abandoned powerhouse and associated structures were constructed by Albany Power & Manufacturing Company in 1906, and were used for power generation until 1938. At that time, the powerhouse equipment was removed and the building was razed. As part of the relicensing effort for the Flint River Project, its physical components must be surveyed and analyzed in accordance with Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, as amended through 1992 (NHPA 1992). As described in 36 CFR Part 800: Protection of Historic and Cultural Properties (ACHP 1986), Section 106 requires all federal agencies to consider the impact of their actions on properties that are listed on or eligible for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places. In this case, the proposed undertaking is the renewal of a license by the FERC, and the party that must assume responsibility for the identification and evaluation of historic resources is the relicensing applicant, the Georgia Power Company. In compliance with the provisions of both Section 106 and New Vision: The Preservation Plan For Georgia's Heritage (Historic Preservation Division [HPD] 1995), this document treats historic resources using the "historic context" approach. As explained in the Secretary of the Interior's Standards and Guidelines for Archeology and Historic Preservation, "major decisions about identifying, evaluating, registering, and treating historic properties are most reliably made in the context of other related properties [an] historic context is an organizational format that groups information about related historic properties." (NPS 1983). This approach identifies significant areas of American history, architecture, archaeology, engineering, or culture, then evaluates individual resources as to how well they serve as representative examples of larger patterns. Hydroelectric dams and powerhouses lend themselves to treatment within the context of engineering history and development, a theme that is not well-represented in existing surveys of historic resources in Georgia (HPD 1995:4).