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I've lived most my life in the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River basin. My Granddad would take us down the Chattahoochee River in the summer on his boat to

I've lived most my life in the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River basin. My Granddad would take us down the Chattahoochee River in the summer on his boat toward Apalachicola and we'd swim at the beaches and eat at Boss Oyster and climb up and slide down a huge sand dune along the bank of the river. It's a shame this happened to it. > I ask Schoelles why he keeps the journals and what will become of them. “Just for the hell of it, really,” he says. “They’ll probably get thrown in the trash when I’m gone.” That's a pessimistic thing to say, but I can't dispute it or say I feel differently. Individuals can do everything they possibly can to save an environment -- Not "the environment", a distant idea of rain forests and coral reefs, but a particular environment, one they've spent their lives in and depend on for their livelihood -- and another individual's decision 200 miles upstream (or 1,000 miles upstream, or on another continent) can undo all their work and more, and there's nothing they can do about it.

brodouevencode 4y ago
I grew up in this area too and have noticed that both the Flint and the Hooch have both developed a smell over time. Each having their own distinctive smell, but both not smelling like what I knew to be a healthy river bed from growing up. This despite the conservation efforts on particularly the Hooch by high society Atlanta money. You don't have to go very far - Chattahoochee Hills will do - just to look at the river and see and smell how terrible it is. The Chattahoochee National Recreation Center is very nice, but it's far enough upstream before it goes through the industrial areas of south Cobb/Fulton so it hasn't developed "that smell". The Flint is no better. By the time you get to Albany it's almost putrid. The local riverfront society there has Turtle Grove Park, which in the small handful of times I've been was largely abandoned and taken over by homeless and junkies. Not sure which situation caused which, but the locals don't go there. Most of it comes from ag pollutants - pesticides, fertilizers, etc. There used to be a time where you could stand on the Broad Street bridge, drop a hook into the water with a chicken liver on it and pull up a mudcat that would feed an entire family. There's no way I'd eat anything out of that river - not any more.

brodouevencode 4y ago

I grew up in this area too and have noticed that both the Flint and the Hooch have both developed a smell over time. Each having their own distinctive smell, but both not smelling like what I knew to be a healthy river bed from growing up. This despite the conservation efforts on particularly the Hooch by high society Atlanta money. You don't have to go very far - Chattahoochee Hills will do - just to look at the river and see and smell how terrible it is. The Chattahoochee National Recreation Center is very nice, but it's far enough upstream before it goes through the industrial areas of south Cobb/Fulton so it hasn't developed "that smell". The Flint is no better. By the time you get to Albany it's almost putrid. The local riverfront society there has Turtle Grove Park, which in the small handful of times I've been was largely abandoned and taken over by homeless and junkies. Not sure which situation caused which, but the locals don't go there. Most of it comes from ag pollutants - pesticides, fertilizers, etc. There used to be a time where you could stand on the Broad Street bridge, drop a hook into the water with a chicken liver on it and pull up a mudcat that would feed an entire family. There's no way I'd eat anything out of that river - not any more.