Cleaning streams and rivers, one project at a time

The recent release of the Georgia Water Coalition’s Clean 13 is good news for Georgia’s rivers and the people that depend on them. The report highlights 13 individuals, businesses, industries, nonprofit organizations and state and local governments who are protecting Georgia’s water, including two clean water projects that are helping protect Rome’s drinking water in the Etowah and Oostanaula rivers.

These 13 clean water initiatives solve real pollution and water supply problems and show us a path for moving forward to create cleaner rivers and more livable communities.

Interestingly, the problems are getting solved the same way they were created — one small project at a time.

Since Oglethorpe landed at Savannah in 1733, Georgians have slowly changed the landscape of their state — often not for the better. Our streams and rivers have borne the brunt of these changes. One stream at a time, over the span of nearly 300 years of Georgia history, these small changes have added up to some major problems for our water.

A recent state Environmental Protection Division assessment of Georgia’s water found that 8,529 miles of streams, 96,754 acres of lakes, 10 square miles of sounds and harbors and 2.7 miles of coastal beaches fail to meet clean water standards.

As a city that sits at the mouths of two rivers, Rome knows a thing or two about upstream pollution. The cleanliness of the drinking water we pump from the Etowah and Oostanaula depends on the cleanliness of all those tiny streams that feed these rivers in places like Calhoun, Dallas, Canton and Dalton.

Thankfully as the Clean 13 Report reveals, we’ve got some good folks looking out for us upstream.

The Georgia Department of Natural Resources, in partnership with Paulding County, has over the past decade protected more than 16,000 acres of land along Raccoon Creek. This protected land is helping rare fish thrive in the clean, clear creek and is also helping keep the Etowah River clean.

Upstream on the Oostanaula, Rep. John Meadows, the powerful chairman of the House Rules Committee, has been instrumental in the adoption of legislation improving Georgia’s oil and gas drilling laws to protect our water from the risks associated with hydraulic fracturing or fracking.

While currently no drilling is taking place in the natural-gas-rich Conasauga shale formation of Northwest Georgia, Meadows’ legislation will ensure that if drilling does occur water protections will be in place.

For sure, there’s still many pollution problems to correct in the upper Coosa River basin, but the work of our state’s Department of Natural Resources and Rep. Meadows is leading to healthier rivers one drop, one stream, one river at a time. JESSE DEMONBREUN-CHAPMAN