Bartletts Ferry Project

The Bartletts Ferry project (FERC Project 485) is located at river mile 178 on the "middle" stretch of the Chattahoochee River in Chambers and Lee counties, Alabama, and Harris County, Georgia, about 14 miles upstream of the city of Columbus, Georgia. Bartletts Ferry impounds Lake Harding, which is located about 20 miles downstream of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (COE) West Point Dam.

The project works include a 22-bay labyrinth emergency spillway that was constructed in a low area of land approximately 2,000 feet southwest off the right end of the main dam. The main dam consists of a small right embankment dam on the Alabama shoreline of the river, a concrete gravity intake structure connected to the original 4-unit powerhouse by penstocks, a 19-bay radial gate-controlled principal spillway, a left main embankment dam, an intake canal to the newer 2-unit powerhouse intake, and a newer 2-unit powerhouse intake with the powerhouse itself on the Georgia shoreline.

Bartletts Ferry is immediately upstream of Georgia Power’s Middle Chattahoochee Project, which is comprised of the smaller Goat Rock, Oliver, and North Highlands projects. The Middle Chattahoochee project (FERC Project 2177) was issued a new FERC license in January 2005.

The current Bartletts Ferry license, FERC Project Number 485, expires December 14, 2014. Georgia Power will be utilizing the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's Integrated Licensing Process (ILP) to relicense this project.

The Bartletts Ferry Project has a maximum generating capacity of 197.9 megawatts. Georgia Power currently operates the project in a modified run-of-river mode primarily to generate peak power and support downstream flow requirements of the Middle Chattahoochee Project. The project’s reservoir, Lake Harding, has 5,850 acres of surface area at full pond and 156 miles of shoreline.