Coosa named 5th most endangered river in US
ROME — The placement of dams and reservoirs, alongside pollution, have led to the Coosa River being named the fifth most endangered river in the United States, the river conservation group American Rivers announced during a teleconference on Tuesday.
The Coosa River is formed in Northwest Georgia when the Etowah and Oostanala rivers join together in downtown Rome. Jesse Demonbreun-Chapman, executive director and riverkeeper of the Coosa River Basin Initiative, said the river has historically endured ecological hardship but still manages to be one of the most bio-diverse.
“Over the last century, many dams and reservoirs were formed on the Coosa, causing one of the largest extinction events in the modern era,” Demonbreun-Chapman said. “Despite this impact, the Coosa River remains one of the most biologically diverse systems in all of North America.”
Justinn Overton, executive director and riverkeeper of the Coosa Riverkeeper in Alabama, said the river faces two major threats. One is the large number of poultry plants that discharge waste into water, which creates sanitary problems and sewer overflow into the river. The other is chicken litter and other waste that is sprinkled onto fields and runs off into local water systems.
This attracted enough attention for the state to impose pollution budgets to limit how much waste can be dumped into the river. However, permits and regulations are not being enforced by the state agencies who instated them, Overton said.
In Alabama, the Coosa River pollution primarily affects Black and low income neighborhoods due to crumbling sewer infrastructure in the area, she added. This is in part due to state agencies using the
pollution budget to protect state agencies rather than local citizens’ health, she said.
In Demonbreun-Chapman’s view, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region 4 needs to step up to become a house of data so scientists can research where the chicken litter is coming from and how it spreads, to prevent it heavily polluting other local rivers.
“With more information we can make better informed decisions on how to reduce nutrient pollution, the pathogens that it carries, and harmful algae blooms in our rivers and waterways,” DemonbreunChapman stated.