Federal officials have temporarily halted plans to rename Georgia’s famous haunted reservoir Lake Lanier and the Buford Dam, two landmarks named after Confederate soldiers.
MORE: The Haunting Of Lake Lanier And The Black City Buried Underneath
After pushback from Republican representatives, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced Friday they would be pausing any renaming efforts pending further guidance from the Department of the Army.
“The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is pausing any actions related to project renaming pending further guidance from the Department of the Army,” Gene Pawlik, acting chief of public affairs for the Corps, said in a statement.
According to the Gainesville Times, the Army Corps of Engineers announced their plans for the name changes just hours before the pause announcement and even set up a website to gather public sentiment. Their plan was following the 2021 federal law called the Naming Commission, which oversees efforts to change the names of military bases and monuments that celebrate confederate soldiers. Now, it looks like those plans will stall for a bit.
Georgia Republican, U.S. Rep. Andrew Clyde, who is in opposition to the pause, called the Corps of Engineers’ decision “a tremendous victory” and that “renamings would have attempted to rewrite history, impose massive burdensome costs on our community and create unnecessary mass confusion.”
Other officials around the state also oppose the name change.
Clyde Morris, a board member of the advocacy group Lake Lanier Association brushed off the significance of the lake and the dam’s names, telling the Gainesville Times, “We think the connection between the Confederacy and the namesakes (of the lake and dam) are really too remote to justify changing the names of the lake and the dam.”
Gainesville Mayor Sam Couvillon also raised concerns about logistics.
“I feel like asking for the name of Lake Lanier to change is not practical…
Read the full article here
