Stewardship

 

Providing environmental leadership is fundamental to our vision and our commitment to create sustainable change. Here are just a few examples of how we uphold that commitment.

EarthCare
Georgia Power partners with 21st Century Leaders to equip rising high school seniors, juniors and sophomores with leadership development skills and environmental awareness. The week-long EarthCare program at Berry College in Rome offers students a hands-on opportunity to explore leadership challenges facing the environment while seeking to sustain and strengthen the environment for future generations.

Renew Our Rivers
The award-winning Renew Our Rivers program is a grassroots effort that brings volunteers together to remove debris and litter from rivers, lakes and other waterways. Since 2000, Georgia Power employees have removed more than 200,000 pounds of trash from the upper Coosa River system near Plant Hammond and other waterways in seven watersheds across the state. Throughout the four-state Southern Company service area, employees are nearing the 10 million pound mark in trash removed from pubic waterways. Read more.

Avian protection
Georgia Power proudly participates in the Avian Protection Program sanctioned by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The program helps keep migratory birds safe from electrical equipment, including transmission lines and distribution substations. In addition to taking steps to reduce mortality risk to avian species, the program encourages ways to enhance avian populations or habitats, such as developing safe nesting platforms. Georgia Power follows transmission standards that are avian safe, especially on smaller lines where conductors are closer together and insulator strings are shorter.

Hawk rescues
Storms often displace more than people, and the 2008 Mother's Day tornadoes in Macon were no exception. When Georgia Power employees discovered a tiny, fragile broad-wing hawk and its dead sibling, they flew into action. The baby hawk, named "Georgia," had a hole in its tiny chest, and flies had deposited eggs in it. Georgia Power employees sheltered the bird and eventually transported it to the HawkTalk raptor rehabilitation center in Carrollton. Today, Georgia is fully recovered and thriving!

Rock Hawk
Georgia Power recently took the first step to get the Rock Hawk Effigy and Trails, located near the Oconee-Sinclair field office, designated an "Important Bird Area."

Georgia Power met with representatives from the Audubon Society and Georgia Department of Natural Resources to discuss what it will take to get the historic land the important designation.

According to the Audubon Society, an Important Bird Area is a site that provides essential habitat to one or more species of Georgia's breeding and non-breeding birds. It is generally a discrete site that supports one or more high-priority species, large concentrations of birds, exceptional habitat, or has substantial research value.

 

Georgia Power has taken on the role of caretaker of 1,000 acres of land that encompasses the Rock Hawk effigy mound and hiking trails that surround it in Putnam County. The Rock Hawk effigy mound is a historic Native American monument estimated to be more than 2,000 years old. Archaeologists believe the bird-shaped effigy is one of only two such structures east of the Mississippi River. The other structure, Rock Eagle, is also located in Putnam County. Rock Eagle, which has national recognition, is the home of the Rock Eagle Youth Center. In order to start the process, Georgia Power and the Department of Natural Resources will need to count birds in the area. Georgia Power and the DNR will focus on the two lesser known birds, the Bachman's sparrow and Swainson's warbler.

The Bachman's sparrow is the only sparrow that is endemic to the United States. Medium in size, the Bachman's sparrow was once called the pine woods sparrow for its preference for pine woods habitat. According to eBird.org, an online site for general information about birds, the Swainson's warbler is one of the most secretive and least observed of all North American birds. It is a skulking bird of the southern canebrakes and rhododendron thickets.

Earth Day 2009
Georgia Power employees celebrated the 40th Earth Day through this year's theme, "40 for 40." The campaign was implemented to show the company's commitment to environmental stewardship and to commemorate the 40th Earth Day with 40 environmental service projects. During the campaign, more than 1,000 employees participated in at least 58 projects promoting environmental stewardship and energy efficiency. The projects ranged from plantings, including 1,500 trees in the Macon area, to educational endeavors, such as the creation of a bog garden for the Gwinnett Environmental and Heritage Center, to cleanups around the state. Take a look at Southern Company's stewardship activities.