Above the Waterline: RiverLands offers new Chattahoochee access

Revival is a beautiful, powerful word: a return to life, vigor, and strength. Over the past two decades, the river that flows through metro Atlanta, sustaining millions of Georgians with drinking water and more, is reviving from nearly a century of abuse and neglect.

Today, the Chattahoochee River between the city of Atlanta and West Point Lake — a 70-mile stretch with forested riverbanks, rocky shoals, rural communities, and cultural sites — is no longer regularly polluted with the city’s waste. Water quality data collected by Chattahoochee Riverkeeper confirms the river’s health has dramatically improved in this area. The organization’s 1995 lawsuit against the city resulted in a federal mandate and the investment of billions of dollars to overhaul its long-neglected sewer system to meet clean water standards.

Once considered off-limits for recreation due to chronic sewage overflows and polluted storm runoff, this previously blighted section is on the cusp of becoming a major destination for outdoor experiences. The transformation now underway will result in new parks, hiking paths, bike trails, a Camp + Paddle Trail, and improved access to historic and cultural sites. A bold vision developed over the past five years through a collaboration with nonprofit Trust for Public Land (TPL), Atlanta Regional Commission, City of Atlanta, Cobb County and eighty local partners is leading the way.

Called Chattahoochee RiverLands, the extensive plan will connect communities, parks, greenways, and trails along a 100-mile extent of the river from Lake Lanier to Chattahoochee Bend State Park; its implementation is expected to take several decades, as funding becomes available. The upstream half of the RiverLands corridor already includes the much-loved Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area with its five-thousand-plus acres of riverfront parks and forty-eight miles of river.

“RiverLands will redefine our relationship with the Chattahoochee,” says TPL’s Chattahoochee Program Director Walt Ray. “It will stitch together local, state and federal partnerships to provide outdoor access for all in the region’s new defining public space.”

Cultural Connections

I love to explore the river downstream of Atlanta — truly my favorite place to paddle — but I am particularly excited about the opportunities presented by RiverLands to interpret and connect the cultural resources in and along the Chattahoochee. I want to better understand the indigenous people who came before us, even more dependent on the river’s many benefits from drinking water and crop irrigation to fish, game, and transportation. Over the centuries, human dependence on the Chattahoochee has changed in many ways, but our reliance on its life-giving waters is never-ending.  

The pre-colonial history of Georgia is largely the story of the Muscogee Indians: the indigenous people named Creeks by European colonists for their streamside settlements in the Southeast. During the colonial period, they outnumbered Europeans and enslaved Africans, occupying more land than the newcomers — until they were considered impediments to the expansion of plantation slavery and “removed” to Oklahoma in the early 1800s. By that time, millions of acres of native Muscogee (Creek) land had been ceded to the Europeans through trickery, unfulfilled promises and coercion.

On a windy, blue-sky day last November, I drove to the McIntosh Reserve, located at the downstream end of the RiverLands project, about an hour from my home in midtown Atlanta. Named for William McIntosh, a controversial Muscogee chief in the early 19th century, it is the site of his plantation home and assassination — after he ceded all remaining Muscogee lands in present-day Georgia to the U.S. government for personal benefit.

Over the past 30 years, I’ve traveled to this park by car and kayak many times and camped on its riverbanks. This forever-protected place never fails to take my breath away, especially on sparkling late-fall days when I’ve joined park supporters to talk about progress being made to revive our river. From Council Bluff, where our group gathered, the views of the Chattahoochee and a prehistoric fish weir or trap (visible when the water is low) were spectacular. We celebrated the river’s return and all that will come with a cleaner, safer river.

Caption

To date, $250 million in public and private funds have been raised to build initial sections of the 100-mile river trail.

Credit: RiverLands rendering courtesy of Trust for Public Land.

Major Investments

A significant state grant and local county support are providing funds to double the size of McIntosh Reserve to nearly 1,000 acres. At upstream Standing Peachtree Park — a former Muscogee village located at the confluence of Peachtree Creek and the river — a new kayak launch will be completed in May for the 48-mile Camp + Paddle Trail; the route will take paddlers through a previously inaccessible (and previously filthy) section of the Chattahoochee. A bike path along the river here and a bridge over Peachtree Creek are also planned. Connections to the Silver Comet Trail and the Atlanta Beltline are part of the vision.

At Buzzard Roost Island in south Fulton County, the beach and upland will be available for short stops and picnics, as paddlers make their way downstream. The island was once a crossing point for the Muscogees, part of the Sandtown Trail, said to be one of the oldest “roads” in the Southeast; native settlements were established on both sides of the Chattahoochee and the area has been described as archaeologically significant. Additional cultural sites will no doubt be found and interpreted as deserved attention is finally paid to this long-ignored section of the river.

To date, $250 million in public and private funds have been raised to build initial sections of the 100-mile river trail with TPL providing an impressive $20 million of that total. The speed in which the RiverLands vision will be realized depends on securing additional funds. Thirty years ago, this transformative project would not have been possible, given the health and safety risks associated with the river, especially downstream of Atlanta. Today, we celebrate the river’s revival and a new recreation destination for all! 

This story comes to GPB through a reporting partnership with Rough Draft Atlanta.