The Alahama-Coosa River System 173 



prior to the Corps of Engineers' "308 report" of 1934.^ This report 

 presented a general long-range plan of development intended to 

 reflect possibilities of the stream principally for navigation, but 

 also for flood control and, incidentally, for power.- The plan as 

 proposed in the 1934 report contemplated five low-lift dams with 

 locks on the Alabama River; one dam on the Coosa River at 

 Wetumpka, below the already existing dams of the Alabama Power 

 Company; locks in the three Alabama Power Company dams above 

 Wetumpka; and four dams upstream from the Power Company's 

 installations — at Fort William Shoals, Embry Bend, Patlay, and 

 Leesburg. The plan also recognized the need for either storage 

 reservoirs to regulate flow or auxiliary thermal power to firm up 

 the hydroelectric generation. This original multiple purpose plan 

 of development contemplated less than 30,000 kilowatts of primary 

 power in the entire Coosa River.^ 



Partly because of the incidental nature of the power development 

 and the negative findings with respect to economic feasibility of 

 the navigation and flood control features at the time of the 308 

 report, the Committee on Rivers and Harbors of the House of 

 Representatives instructed* the Corps of Engineers to undertake 

 several subsequent reviews of the plan of development. The re- 

 sponse was an interim report, dated October 1941,^ in which six 

 power dams on the Coosa were discussed, along with storage proj- 

 ects on the tributaries. This report recommended congressional 

 authorization for the comprehensive development of the Alabama- 

 Coosa river system. In keeping with this recommendation, approval 

 of at least one power and navigation dam on the Coosa was sought. 

 Such approval for the construction of navigation and power dams 

 on the lower river system was obtained four years later by the 

 Rivers and Harbors Act of March 2, 1945. The language of the 

 authorizing legislation, in Public Law 14, reads as follows: 



Initial and ultimate development of the Alabama-Coosa River 



^ "Alabama-Coosa Branch of Mobile River System," House Document No. 66, 

 74th Congress, 1st Session. 



^ Ibid., p. 112. See also Office of the Chief of Engineers, Department of the 

 Army, Alabama-Coosa River Basin: Report to the President's Water Resources 

 Policy Commission, 1950, pp. 1-7. 



' House Document No. 66, op. cit., pp. 113-18. 



^ Dated April 1 and 28, 1936, and January 18, 1939. 



" House Document No. 414, 77th Congress, 1st Session. 



