Take Me to the River: Wild and Scenic Way Down Yonder on the Chattahoochee

“Absolutely I love my job,” Chattahoochee River Conservancy Executive Director Henry Jackson says during a 15-minute interview on the front porch of the marina at Rotary Park. “Some days I’d rather be changing oil in an open pit in 90-degree weather but, yes, I love my job.”

Having just pulled the CRC’s boat out of the water following a 90-minute excursion—an educational and insightful experience due to his keen observations and scholarly knowledge of the Chattahoochee’s health, habitat and history—Jackson says the head of any non-profit organization such as his “has to do anything and everything.” His job duties including “accounting, boat mechanic, PR, photographer, scientist.” Having turned a passion for whitewater recreation into his current role almost two years ago, Jackson says all these efforts serve the CRC mission to “restore and protect the Chattahoochee River through education, advocacy and science.”

On the excursion, Jackson pointed out spots where the striped bass were biting that hot Friday morning last month, along with wildlife sightings (osprey, blue herons, white-tailed deer) and relics (massive crumbling docks, a sunken oil-tanker barge) of Columbus’ industrial past. He says to understand the state of the Chattahoochee today, one must venture south of downtown. The styrofoam cups, plastic bottles and to-go food boxes collecting along the banks where Bull Creek empties into the river represent the biggest environmental challenge today. Further south, a riverbank where the National Infantry Museum gleams on the horizon represents how Columbus has come in taking care of its most valuable natural resource.

“The old city landfill was literally right here,” Jackson says. “I see it as a monument to how much Columbus’s views of the river have changed. We used to dump our trash here. But now we clean it up and actively make a space for people to come and enjoy. It’s now something we want to preserve and protect and value as an important part of our lives.”

This local shift mirrors national trends toward environmental awareness in the 1970s, when acid rain and Lake Erie catching on fire led President Nixon to form the Environmental Protection Agency. That same decade, Jimmy Carter—first as governor, then as president—enacted the Wild and Scenic designation to protect rivers still unspoiled from industry and pollution from any future development. This landmark legislation will be celebrated this month in Columbus in its namesake Wild and Scenic Film Festival.

The Chattahoochee does not fit the terms of the Wild and Scenic designation because it’s always served Columbus as a working (read: economically empowering through industry) river, explains Trees Columbus Executive Director Dorothy McDaniel. However, she notes that her organization’s overall mission and hosting of the Wild and Scenic Film Festival go hand in hand with mission of the Chattahoochee River Conservancy, a fellow non-profit housed in the Spencer Environmental Center downtown.

“The Wild & Scenic Film Festival is a unique opportunity to bring people together who are energized about the environment and the outdoors and foster a community of members, volunteers and advocates,” McDaniel states. “These films are a call to action for the challenges facing our planet, and inspiration for our communities to protect the environment and the places we love.” 

Arguably what Columbus loves most about its river today is its recreational opportunities. Jackson says “the future of the river is recreation” but adds that the “revolutionary” project to breach the dams in 2012 was born of environmental interest more than the vast recreational potential it unleashed.

The organic cohesion of environmental and recreational efforts now underway is revealed in the collaboration between the CRC, Whitewater Express and owners of the Nearly Native plant nursery in metro Atlanta to re-establish the endangered spider lily in the shoals that form the river rapids adjacent to downtown, which before 19th century development held the largest concentration of these precious blooms in the United States.

“Our spider lily project is going great,” Dan Gilbert, owner of Whitewater Express, explains via email. “We have about 500 living plants in the river and have just harvested 900 seeds two weeks ago. We have a 25 percent success rate with our planting in the river!”

Given all this positive momentum, the fact that human behavior—the collective mindset of ignorance—is the biggest threat facing the Chattahoochee today is disturbing.

“Efforts to bring awareness to the problem of litter as far as protecting the quality of the river are constant and ongoing,” says Keep Columbus Beautiful Commission Executive Director Gloria Weston-Smart, whose organization leads the volunteer Help the Hooch trash removal every fall. “It’s very difficult to change the behavior of adults, so we focus a lot on education for students kindergarten though fifth grade about the importance of protecting our water.”

Another major misconception, according to Jackson, is that the water quality of the Chattahoochee today is bad.

“When I was working as a guide, I’d hear all the time: ‘I’d never kayak in that river. It’s nasty. It’s Atlanta’s sewer,’” he recalls. “That’s not true and now I have proof. We take water samples every Wednesday [the CRC monitors from seven locations on Lake Harding, three on Lake Oliver and three along the urban whitewater course]. So now I can say, ‘The water’s clean and here’s the data.’ As long as we take care of the river, it’ll be clean. And it can get cleaner.”

How so?

“Pick up your trash,” Jackson answers. “Pretty simple, really—behave like an adult.”

He adds that, despite all the progress made and the current healthy water quality, the community must remain vigilant. “The river was pretty gross, pretty nasty, back in the day,” Jackson says. “But the river we have now? The fishing is excellent. The birding is excellent. It’s a great place to canoe, kayak or go tubing. And all that is possible because Columbus now holds the river in high esteem. But if that slides backwards, we’ll be back to where we were 20, 30 years ago. And all that will be gone.”

View “The Wild President” and other acclaimed eco-conscious films—plus parties and special-guest panels—during the Wild & Scenic Film Festival, to be held July 27-28 at CSU’s Bay Gallery and Riverside Theater.   

by Frank Etheridge