Northeast Georgia's 9th District Congressman Andrew Clyde spoke on WDUN's The Martha Zoller show Tuesday morning where he said he is continuing to follow the Lake Lanier and Buford Dam renaming situation as the process develops.
Clyde's comments follow the announcement Friday afternoon that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers would be putting renaming efforts for the two landmarks on hold until further notice. Clyde said the announcement came after speaking with a local Corps commander.
"I had the opportunity on Friday afternoon ... to call the Army Corps of Engineers and speak to the local commander," Clyde said. "I asked him to send up the chain what I had taken from my district and what my position was, and that was that this is a terrible idea ... and he told me that he took it up the chain of command, and literally less than an hour later we got that information that there was a pause on this renaming."
While the renaming process remained on pause as of the last report, Clyde said he will continue to monitor the situation.
"I followed up again on Monday ... and said, 'Alright, you've paused it. Is this a permanent pause? Is this a temporary pause?' and the commander said, 'Well, I'm still waiting to hear from higher headquarters.' And so I reemphasized to him my position and the position of the community," Clyde said.
This process began after a report from the federal Naming Commission surfaced earlier in March, which suggested the possibility of renaming Lake Lanier and Buford Dam over connections to the Confederate States of America and the Civil War. Lake Lanier is named after the poet Sidney Lanier, who also served in the Confederate States Army as a private.
"One of the comments that I got back the community was, 'Well, okay, so he was in the Confederate army. So were the vast majority of our grandfathers,'" Clyde said. "That's a fact of history. You know this guy was an amazing poet, he wrote the song of the Chattahoochee, which was an amazing, amazing piece of work. And for that they want to rename and cause the community millions upon millions upon millions of dollars."
You can listen to the full interview with Clyde from WDUN's The Martha Zoller Show at the above Soundcloud player.
