Monday, July 25, 2011

Reconnection through Canoes

Stumbled upon this article about reconnecting with the past through canoeing:
 

The Chattahoochee River has a grand history to share. After researching a bit further, I stumbled across this piece of history about the River from sherpaguides.com:

The River
Origin of the name "Chattahoochee" isn't nearly as certain as the birthplace of the river that carries the name. The most generally accepted story comes from the 1799 travel log of Benjamin Hawkins, an Indian agent: "The name of the river derived from 'Chatto,' a stone, and 'hoche,' marked or flowered; there being rocks of that description in the river above Hoithletigua at an old town Chattahoochee." Exact location of that old town remains a mystery, but most historians place it near the present town of Franklin in Heard County. 
Living in the headwaters area, the Cherokee had named the river "Chota," which was also the name of a town in the Nacoochee Valley. When the river flowed into Creek territory, it became the "Chattahoochee."

When the Cherokees were forced out of their homeland, the name "Chota" disappeared with them.  The Chattahoochee, though, carried on, just as it had during the times of the mound builders hundreds of years before and just as it does today, when it helps grow peanuts and cotton in southwest Georgia, powers turbines, and flushes every toilet in Atlanta. 


Over the centuries it served as possibly the most important route for connecting the Gulf of Mexico to the interior of the nation. It allowed for Indian tribes to travel and trade, and it provided entry for white explorers and settlers. The Spanish traveled up the river as early as 1639 and tried to establish exclusive trade with the Creeks.  By 1824, the federal government already had begun to "improve" the Apalachicola for commercial navigation. With the forced removal of the Indians, hundreds of steamboats began traveling the 262-mile waterway between the port town of Apalachicola and the Columbus wharf. Stopping at any number of the more than 200 landings along the way, the boats carried cotton bales downriver and brought back manufactured goods and food, including Apalachicola Bay oysters kept alive with cornmeal sprinkled in wooden barrels. The last steamboat to dock in Columbus was the George W. Miller in 1939.

In addition to the steamboat trade, grist, lumber, and textile mills flourished on the river, especially along the "fall line" between West Point and Columbus. During the 1830s, Columbus erected a dam to divert water to its business district, enabling it to become one of the South's most prominent industrial centers by the 1850s. The fall line designates a dramatic change in character for the Chattahoochee, as it stops flowing from the mountains and starts running to the sea. Dropping more than 300 feet over 38 miles, the river historically raced over a long series of waterfalls and shoals created by the transition from Piedmont to Coastal Plain. 

The fall line provided the perfect setting for mills, as well as marked the end of navigable waters from the Gulf of Mexico. Millions of years before, the fall line had marked the edge of that same ocean body. The richest land for farming along the river is just below the fall line. There the Chattahoochee drops its soil load across the bottomlands, and it was there that most of the Indian settlements occurred. The lower Chattahoochee, in fact, probably has the largest collection of archeological sites in Georgia, ranging from Paleo-Indian to Creek.


Farther upriver, the waterfalls and rocky creeks of the Brevard Fault also enabled mills to operate. The area around Hilly's Mill Creek and Red Bone Creek marks the point where the fault continues on into Alabama and the river turns south, forming the boundary between Georgia and Alabama. Since steamboats couldn't travel this far north, poled barges frequently moved cotton downstream to Columbus during the nineteenth century.


The Brevard Fault, which cuts diagonally from northeast Georgia to Alabama, probably is the Chattahoochee's most important geological feature and has contributed much to the scenic beauty of the river, both above and below Atlanta. A "fault" is the result of one part of the earth's crust moving or slipping in relation to another. In this case, the river flows through 100 miles of ridges, valleys, palisades, and waterfalls because of the fault.


Just as important to the character of the river is the fact that the Brevard Fault serves as the dividing line between the Appalachian Mountains and the Piedmont Plateau. The fault itself serves as a natural barrier to movement of flora and fauna between the two distinct geological regions. But plants and animals have migrated up and down the aquatic highway connecting the two, and thus have moved far outside of what might have been their natural range. Some species of salamanders and birds, for example, have made their way from the mountains to the Piedmont along the Chattahoochee, as have numerous species of trees. Beech, white oak, umbrella magnolia, tulip popular, black locust, and mountain laurel are but a few species that grow farther south than they might have if not for the Chattahoochee River and Brevard Fault.

Most all of the river along the fault lies exclusively in Georgia, but when the fault continues on past Heard County and into Alabama, the Chattahoochee turns more southerly, forming a 200-mile boundary with Alabama and a small portion of Florida.


On its way to flush 16 billion gallons of water a day into Apalachicola Bay, the Chattahoochee drains an estimated 8,770 square miles. The Flint drains another 8,460 square miles and the Apalachicola 2,370, so that the combined watershed of the system is an impressive 19,600 square miles. More than 70 percent of that lies in Georgia. 

Read even more about the Chattahoochee River here:  
Chattahoochee River Sherpa Guide





Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Tour of Morgan Falls Dam

Morgan Falls Dam in Roswell, Georgia, is located on the Chattahoochee River, 36 miles downstream from Buford Dam on Lake Lanier. These dams work together, in operation by Georgia Power and the United States Army Corps of Engineers, to regulate peak energy consumption times as well as the level of the River.  The reservoir created by Morgan Falls Dam has drastically changed the land area in and around the river. What once was a narrow river with rolling rapids, shoals and rocks, now is a wetland paradise for migrating birds, waterfowl, songbirds, shorebirds, mammals such as beaver and muskrats and numerous species of reptiles and amphibians.


Morgan Falls Dam, originally constructed in 1904, is a hydroelectric dam – with a generating capacity up to 16,800 Kilowatts. The 673 acre reservoir, known as Bull Sluice Lake (still part of the Chattahoochee River) is the area we paddle on our trips. Before each trip, we monitor the flow and level of the water to make sure Buford Dam isn’t releasing too much water too fast for a trip to occur. The releases result in a stronger current than one might expect on this calm and quiet section of the river, making it a bit challenging on occasion to paddle back upstream on CNC’s canoe programs.  It takes about 4 hours for the gallons upon gallons of water Buford Dam releases to reach Morgan Falls Dam.The Chattahoochee River, starting in Helen, GA and flowing south towards the Gulf of Mexico, is dammed 16 times making it one of the most dammed rivers in the southeast.

Our guides were lucky enough to visit Morgan Falls Dam and get a closer look at how it all flows (pun intended).  Below are two of the turbines that generate water into electricity... really - how cool is that!?



 


A closer look at the turbines - the water is being held behind those huge metal doors to the left in the picture!





Waiting in line to see inside the holding tank.... that door is massive!
Looking inside one of the water tanks currently being repaired
Here we are seeing INSIDE one of the tanks that holds water. This one is undergoing some repairs and needed equipment upgrades. Many of the equipment is ORIGINAL to the Dam (did I already mention it was built in 1904?). Because of the age of the equipment, it can take several months to build the new piece needed.  Much of the original equipment is no longer manufactured and has to be built when ordered. The gate at the end of the tank opens, the tank fills with water, runs the turbine and VOILA! We have POWER!! 

To see an animation of how Morgan Falls Dam generates electricity, click here!

To learn more about the Morgan Falls Dam Project by Georgia Power, click here!

An added bonus: There was a Great Blue Heron Rookery (a colony of nests) near the top level of the dam. We spotted over 10 Great Blue's squawking at each other and flying in and out of their nests. Great Blue Herons build nests or refurbish old ones in tall treetops near their feeding area.

Dam from Top Level
Kim, one of our great canoe guides, says "seeing the dam up above where water enters the screened area (before flowing into the water holding tank) was one of my favorite parts". Kim also makes a good point by reminding people people to heed the warning signs especially when the alarm sounds! Safety first on the River!

A special thanks to CNC Docent Jim Taylor who captured these great photos of our tour!