River Cleanups yield 4 tons of tires, oil, and garbage around area streams
Over thirty individuals attended two river cleanups sponsored by the cities of Mount Airy, Cornelia and Clarkesville on Saturday. Together the groups collected more than 4 tons of refuse, including items such as TV’s and over 40 tires.

The cleanup marked the very first effort between Mount Airy and Cornelia to address problems on Camp Creek, a tributary of the Soque Watershed and the drinking water supply for the city of Cornelia. Camp Creek first begins behind Mt. Airy city hall and flows within the city limits until it is captured by the Camp Creek reservoir. The cleanup volunteers identified and collected three and a half tons of garbage along the creek and the reservoir, including such items as gas cans and milk jugs filled with oil.

The Camp Creek team consisted of citizens, kids and city officials and staff. Representing Mt. Airy were mayor Gary Morris, city councilman Ray McCalister and staffers Mark Gardner, and Richard Burton. Representing Conelia were Colleen Hyde and Mona Painter. The event was organized by Justin Ellis of the Soque River Watershed Association. In addition to area residents, six neighborhood kids joined the clean-up and helped volunteers identify particularly littered areas. The cleanup was the first of its kind for Cornelia and Mt. Airy.

“Of all the tributaries to the Soque we believe Camp Creek is one of our top priorities for restoration,” states Ellis. In addition to garbage, there are several other problems that should be addressed. Pools of stagnant water, laden with iron leachate, erosion, the washing of oil and antifreeze from cars passing through the dip, blocked culverts and agriculture inputs all add up to a drinking water supply that needs attention.

“When we approached the cities of Mt. Airy and Cornelia, they expressed nothing but enthusiasm for bringing some much needed attention to these problems. The real purpose of this clean-up was as a first step towards the two cities, as well as the county working together to identify long-term solutions to preserving and restoring this important water supply.”

The clean-up identified dump sites along Camp Creek that appeared to be over forty years old and contained items that leach toxic compounds into the water. Mt. Airy and Cornelia crews worked together to remove these illegal piles and take them to the Habersham County Landfill.

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There is something exciting about waking up in the morning and deciding that the day is going to be spent in a canoe. Once my decision was made, the uncertainty of the location, the conditions, and perhaps even the feasibility of the whole venture were simply par for the course. Canoeing isn’t a picnic, it’s an adventure.

Memorial Day Weekend should be considered an official water holiday. It’s the weekend when summertime swoops in out of nowhere, the intense heat controlling our minds and causing us to flock somewhere wet to cool off.

For me, that wet place was going to be the lower Soque. The Soque River is thirty miles long and though most of it is inaccessible by canoe, the last five miles, from below the new bridge at 105 to the Chattahoochee River looked promising. A river is best experienced by boat, and it was time to see just what the Soque had to offer.

Before the trip began some scoping was required. Beneath the new bridge on Highway 105 is Old Cannon Bridge Road which now simply dead ends at the Soque. The old bridge is gone and to the right of the dead end is a perfect area for parking. This little piece of land was the Department of Transportation’s old staging area from their bridge construction and actually belongs to the City of Cornelia. Though the terrain around the parking area is rugged and steep, there was a narrow drainage area almost perfect for launching a canoe.

Before you can start a canoe trip, you have to arrange a shuttle, so before starting I left my bicycle downstream at Duncan Bridge Road at the takeout on the Chattahoochee River. One more stop for a bunch of worms and it was time to hit the river.

As soon as I launched the boat I knew it was going to be a good day. The sun was sparkling off the water, the highway traffic on 105 was quickly fading in the distance, birds and dragonflies were flitting across the water and everything in front of the boat was wet, rocky or green.

One thing I love about rivers is no matter how much time you spend on them, you are always going to be humbled by how much you don’t know. There are the things you recognize such as kingfishers, clubtail dragonflies, mountain laurel and dog hobble, but then you’re stumped when spotting a fish resembling a gar or an orchid like bloom on a shrub with heart shaped leaves.

Pretty short into the trip I began coming upon areas that were just begging to be named. The first was “skat rock” which was a stone in the middle of the river absolutely covered with the droppings of Canadian geese. A better name might have been “loose goose rock.” I encountered two Canadian geese families during the trip with their yellowish-green goslings following them about. The father of one family made a honking ruckus trying to distract me away from the mom and kids.

The next stretch of river I named “kingfisher alley.” Kingfishers are my absolute favorite bird because of their colorations, their high crest, their love of water, and their curious swooping flight. They were chittering up a storm and several were clumped together in this section, an odd occurrence since kingfishers are known for being solitary. There may have been some flirtations going on.

Next up was “catfish hole.” Every river’s got a hole that you just know is full of fish. Sure enough, my dinner was waiting for me there. I even had enough for breakfast. You always know when you’ve caught a catfish because they shake their heads from side to side once they’ve been caught.  They were delicious too, fried up later that night with a little Cajun style batter.

Then I came upon “Barking beaver hill.” A large rustling came from a tall hill and then a mysterious low grunting, hacking bark indicated I had moseyed into hostile territory. This was a new experience to me, so I had to investigate. Upon climbing up the bank and walking a few paces I found a large beaver hut, high on the hill overlooking the river. The beaver had skeedaddled but his giant nest was a reminder of how amazing the beavers ability to cut and carry vast quantities of wood. Nature’s engineers are always busy.

Throughout the trip I encountered short rapids and shoals. The river had a gentle fall that made it simple to navigate yet fun and exciting. At this point I hadn’t seen a single person all day and had only passed three or four houses. When its summertime and no one’s around, skinny dippin is not, or should not, be considered a sin. Besides I only had one set of britches. Don’t shake your head. I was in the middle of nowhere, all by myself, and it was a near religious experience. I haven’t named that spot yet.

Rain had been a possibility all day with signs of clouds and thunder skirting the sunshine. Then all of a sudden a wicked little thundershower with dark clouds, lightning and big wet raindrops came down. The cold rain brought my goose bumps out. As each rain drop hit the river it formed an inverted drop that made the surface jump about in a beautiful display. The shower lasted all of ten minutes and then blew off. The sun came back out and the whole world had a nice steam to it.

As I approached the Soque’s terminus into the mighty Chattahoochee, I felt like I had absorbed some of the essence of the Soque. The juncture of the two rivers is spectacular as the tight green canopy of the Soque opens up wide and the Chattahoochee broadens revealing tall straight pines downstream. Looking back upstream at both rivers you can see the steep drop and the whitewater runs of the Chattahoochee, a strong contrast with the dense foliage and slow easy water of the Soque. Each river has its own character, its own hidden secrets, and each are vital to millions of people who drink their waters.

After pulling my canoe out and visiting with the folks at Wildwood Outfitters I hopped on my bike for the trip back up to my car. After climbing the steep hill out of the Chattahoochee Valley, I swung a left down Pea Ridge Road which forms the watershed divide between the Soque River and Mud Creek. As I peddled I realized that the farms on my right drained south to Mud Creek while the farms on my left drained north to the Soque River. The landscape of the river basin came into focus because of the gentler pace of a bicycle in the open air.

There’s nothing quite like floating a river. I’d be surprised if so much as one other person floated the Soque that day. All the better for me considering my swimming wardrobe, but the Soque is like all rivers, it desperately needs us to care about it. I felt more connected to the Soque that day than I have all year, because I got to know it up close.

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Chastain Branch - Watery Mountain Treasure
The Northeast Georgian - December 23^rd, 2003
by Justin Ellis

Everyone who lives in Habersham County should at some point get a chance to see Chastain Branch, even if only for a moment. It is a tucked away jewel of a stream that to its great fortune begins and ends completely on National Forest lands.

The branch is named after the Chastain family that settled the area during the original land lotteries back in the 1820’s.

We know that historically Chastain Branch harbored populations of native Brook Trout. Brook Trout are the most rare and threatened fish in the entire Soque Watershed Basin. They are also Georgia’s only native trout. They require crystal clear cold water and have a hard time competing with Rainbow Trout which are an introduced species. In areas where Rainbow Trout have been introduced, Brook Trout populations are often eliminated. The only remaining habitats for Brook Trout in the Soque Basin are at higher elevations where the water is cold and there is a natural barrier, such as a waterfall, that prevents rainbow trout from swimming upstream.

Native Brook Trout were known to inhabit Chastain Branch in the late ‘70’s. Since that time forest management around Chastain Branch allowed for one clear-cut in the early eighties, and then around ’85-’86 the Forest Service began identifying areas for the burgeoning sport of ATV riding, which stands for All-Terrain Vehicles. ATV’s consist of vehicles like four-wheelers and dirt bikes.

Chastain Branch emanates from the steep slopes of Oaky Mountain. The ridgeline of Oaky Mountain is also the county line between Habersham and Rabun counties. When standing atop the mountain, if you look west everything you see below flows into the Soque River and into Habersham County. If you look east everything below flows to the Tallulah River and into Rabun County.

As the Forest Service sought to identify areas for new ATV trails, the Oaky Mountain ridgeline was chosen and plans made for a trail system. The main challenge with this location was how to create a loop so that the trail didn’t simply travel in a straight line and back. Many, many years earlier there had been a timber road that paralleled Chastain Branch all the way to its beginnings. At the time it seemed like a good idea to have ATV traffic come down off of Oaky Mountain and loop up this timber road, creating a circle.

Two problems have ensued as a result of this trail. The dirt trail is in steep terrain and every time it rains, the road washes sediment into the branch, leaving a rutted road in its wake. To eliminate these ruts the Forest Service must then regrade the road, which loosens more dirt, which then is subject to additional erosion. The trail also closely parallels the branch for over a mile with a narrow forest buffer of only 15 to 50 feet.

The problem cannot be blamed purely on ATVs. Any disturbed area, on steep terrain, within feet of a small and delicate branch would have a negative effect. Trail placement was perhaps the biggest mistake, and the Forest Service has been talking about repairing the mistake for several years.

Chastain Branch has become an opportunity for many groups to work together. In October of 2002 a diverse group of citizens organized a Restoration Workday to repair some of the eroded areas of the trail. They reinforced areas where water left the trail making sure as little dirt as possible entered the stream. The volunteers included trout fisherman, conservationists, ATV users, college professors, extension agents, DNR biologists, and Forest Service staff.

Since the problem is chronic and not correctable due to the trails location, the Forest Service has committed to permanently fix the erosion problems by completely rerouting the ATV trail away from Chastain Branch. The plan calls for re-routing the ATV trail back onto the Oaky Mountain ridgeline and allowing the existing trail to be restored to a healthy forest. Action on this plan should occur within the next three months.

Chastain Branch has gone through many evolutions in its long history. Today the stream relies on our attention and care in order to flow clean and clear enough that native brook trout can survive. Learning from our mistakes, working together, and restoring our shared natural resources to their intended splendor is something that could and should make Habersham County stand apart from other counties in Georgia.

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One of the most memorable lessons my college horticulture professor taught us was that there is a big difference between dirt and soil. “Dirt,” he said, “is actually soil that is out of place.” To be certain we got it, he showed us a picture of someone sweeping dirt out of their home and another picture of someone planting a tree in the soil. The purpose of his lesson was to demonstrate that soil was primarily valuable when it was where it belonged; and preferably growing something. Dirt, by contrast, often didn’t belong and could be a nuisance.  

Of all the things that move dirt around, the one that may be the most underestimated is the force of water. You can picture how much dirt a shovel can move, and a bulldozer, and even a cloud of dust stirred up by the wind, but water is a little trickier to imagine.

Just about all of our available fresh water begins by falling out of the sky as rain. Each little raindrop has to land on something on its way down and there are only a handful of options. There are trees and vegetation, houses and buildings, rocks and paved areas, and then there is the bare soil. As these raindrops land they act like miniature torpedoes setting off small explosions. These explosions have different effects on different objects. For instance, the leaves of trees simply slow raindrops down on their plummet from the sky. The drop hits a leaf and then slowly drips to the ground below.  

Since bare soil has nothing to slow that raindrop down, the full force of the explosion causes the dirt to break apart and move. Each drop breaks away a little more and a little more. As the water drops accumulate and are pulled downhill by gravity, small rivulets form that begin to carve away at the soil beneath it. Nothing moves more soil than this powerful process of erosion. Soil is washed from the land and into our rivers and streams by the ton after every steady rain.

Nature often provides an extremely good model for keeping things in balance. The way nature handles the potentially destructive forces of erosion is by developing a kind of “raindrop defense system.” To prevent soil from being washed away after every rain, the earth maintains a protective layer of armor in the form of trees, grass, and vegetation. Vegetation can be considered the earth’s armor, protecting the soil from raindrop torpedoes and holding the soil in place with its root systems.

A great exercise for children or inquiring adults curious about erosion and “green armor” would be to build two identical mounds of dirt, maybe one or two feet high and several feet wide. On one you would plant grass seed, add a little fertilizer, and then add some mulch, which helps protect the seeds from being washed away and protects from erosion. On the other, you would simply keep the mound bare. In a fairly short period of time you would begin to see incredible differences in the two mounds. The bare mound will begin to get shorter and shorter as it is pounded down by rains. Small gullies and channels may start to form where water has begun to concentrate. The other mound will allow the rain to seep into the soil slowly because the mulch will slow the rain down, allowing it to drip to the soil’s surface. As the grass grows it too will shield the soil and hold it in place as excess water rolls off.

It is interesting to note that if you decided to plant seeds on the bare mound after a few months, it would not be as successful as your first mound, because the rain is no longer flowing down the slopes uniformly. It is concentrated in gullies, moving too fast, and causing erosion.

To apply my horticulture professor’s lesson to this scenario, the soil loses its value and becomes just dirt when it is washed from the land and into our rivers and streams. The fancy word we use for dirt in water is sediment and sediment has tremendous affects on rivers and streams. Most would agree that there is something inherently unappealing about watching a typically clear stream run muddy after a simple rain shower. Most people probably aren’t terribly drawn towards steep, gullied, muddy hillsides either. What we instinctively feel drawn to are clean streams and green hillsides.

Sometimes conservation isn’t as complicated as we think. Sometimes it’s as easy as recognizing the widespread benefit of restoring the earth’s armor to every place that lies bare and eroding. A green patch always looks better than a orangish-reddish patch. Were the entire Habersham County community to embrace the idea, maybe one day people will refer to us by saying, “Them folks in Habersham, they cover their soil in a blanket of green. I didn’t see no dirt at all.”

Article originally appeared in the Northeast Georgian

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Camp Creek provides much of county’s drinking water
The Northeast Georgian - November 7th, 2003
by Justin Ellis

While it’s impossible to know exactly how many, approximately 7,500 people in Habersham County drink water that comes from Camp Creek. You, or someone you know, are probably one of them. That’s 20% of the people in the county, or one out of every five people you might run into. A lot of people drink Camp Creek water. 

This water is very important to the people who drink it. A full 70% of our bodies are water. We consume it, carry it around for a while, and then it “travels on downstream” so to speak. But water is always a part of us.

Camp Creek is a very small stream that very few have heard of, and fewer still have seen. Like all streams, it begins at a higher elevation, called its headwaters, and flows downhill until it empties into a larger stream. Camp Creek’s headwaters are easy to find. The creek begins immediately behind Mount Airy City Hall on Dick’s Hill Parkway. City Hall is at the top of a hill and the creek flows down the hill to the north and east until it slows down a few miles later at Camp Creek Lake. This lake is somewhat hidden from the casual resident, but can be found close to the Water Treatment Plant on Camp Creek Road.

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The Soque is no Ordinary River
The Northeast Georgian - September 5th, 2003
by Justin Ellis

Rivers and streams have often been compared to a human’s circulatory system. Just as our bodies need oxygen enriched blood circulating to each of our organs for us to survive, the Habersham County community needs clean, plentiful waters for business, industry, drinking water and recreation across the county to flourish.

So why is the Soque River Watershed so unique? Because the Soque River is the only river of its size in the state of Georgia that rests entirely within one county. The Soque River begins and ends in Habersham County affording us the good fortune of possessing the Soque River in its entirety. The Soque is no ordinary river because it is ours and ours alone.

The Soque River Watershed could be considered the “Heart of Habersham County.” Every drop of drinking water for the cities of Clarkesville and Cornelia comes out of the Soque Basin. The majority of Mount Airy’s wells withdraw water from aquifers draining to the Soque Basin. A large portion of the Baldwin and Demorest water supply is Soque water. Fieldale, Ethicon and Scovill, three of the areas biggest industries, all depend upon water from the Soque River Basin. The majority of our agricultural products, primarily chickens and cows, drink water from the Soque Basin. And even if you drink well water, there is a good chance that this water is within the Soque Basin.

Without the waters of the Soque Basin, our cities, our businesses and our quality of life would be like organs without a steady supply of blood to keep them alive. Habersham County is particularly blessed that the control and protection of these water resources is completely up to us. Many other regions are not so fortunate. Imagine if the city of Atlanta lay in the headwaters of the Soque River rather than many miles below us. Our waters would be much less clean and much less plentiful. The fact that our water resources are completely under our control is both a blessing and a tremendous responsibility.

The guardianship of our water resources may become more and more challenging in the years ahead. This past year the Georgia Legislature considered legislation that would allow water resources to be bought and sold as a commodity on the open market. To understand how this legislation would affect Habersham County and the Soque Basin consider this example.

A few years ago the county unfortunately witnessed the closing of Habersham Mills. Before the closing, Habersham Mills had a permit to withdraw several hundred thousand gallons of water a day from the Soque River for use in their plant. When the factory closed, their permit to withdraw this water simply disappeared, allowing for the state to reapportion this water for other uses provided it was in the best interests of Georgia’s citizen’s and the environment. Now consider if water were treated as a commodity and not as a public resource. When Habersham Mills closed, among their assets they would have possessed a water permit good for the allocation of several hundred thousand gallons of water a day. This water permit could then be sold for a profit to the highest bidder. In order for the people of Habersham County to determine how this water might be used, we would have to purchase it, while also out competing all other bidders.

As the value and the demand for clean water climbs it is concerning that our citizens might one day have to chock up the money to purchase water permits to retain control of the waters that flow within our own boundaries. Currently we are able to withdraw this water for free because it is treated as a public resource. Under a commodity system we might one day be faced with the difficult task of competing with large multi-national conglomerates who want this water for their own purposes.

To treat the Soque River as a commodity would be like allowing someone else to remove and sell your blood without permission. To our great fortune our local legislators have worked to protect Habersham County from this mistake and they deserve our thanks. Representative Ben Bridges and Senator Carol Jackson took leadership to preserve our waters as a public resource, taking a stand to keep the Soque ours, and ours alone.

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What exactly is a Watershed?
The Northeast Georgian - August 1st, 2003
by Justin Ellis

Rivers, streams, branches, brooks, creeks, and tributaries. There are literally hundreds of words that describe water, and most of them role easily off the tongue and conjure up images of your favorite childhood stomping ground. There is one, however, that causes folks to pause, scratch their head, and wonder what exactly it means. That word is “watershed.”

Common sense would lead one to think a “watershed” is a newfangled way to describe the old outhouse, and perhaps a hundred years ago that was all a “watershed” could have been.  Today, we use the word “watershed” to describe the land area that drains waters to a common river. This short definition, while useful, usually fails to capture the fascinating and complex relationship between water and the land around it.

A simple way to create a mental picture of how a watershed works is to hold your hands in front of you in a cup shape as if you were going to drink from them. As you look at your hands you’ll notice that where your middle fingers rest is the highest point in the bowl and where your hands meet near your wrist is the lowest point. Now if there were a miniature rainstorm parked right above your cupped hands, the tiny raindrops, no matter where they fell, would eventually flow towards the center, and right out of your hands at your wrist. The center of your hands represents the winding course of a river and all the little rivulets of raindrops are creeks and tributaries that feed this river. This straightforward image describes how every river in the world works.

There is a simple expression used by carpenters, farmers, and others that goes, “Water always finds the lowest point.” I’ve always liked this saying because it describes perfectly how watersheds work. Each little raindrop, whether it lands on the tips of your fingers, or right smack into the river itself, will eventually flow right out of your hands at what is called the mouth of the river. The term “mouth of the river” seems like an odd word to signify the end of a river, but remember that each river “feeds” something else, whether it is another river or eventually the ocean.

At the opposite end of the river’s mouth rests the “headwaters” of a watershed. Notice how the fingers of your hands form steep slopes. This is the highest point of a watershed, and water flows quickly down these steep slopes, gathering both in speed and volume.  The headwaters are where a river first begins. Each small brook and branch quickly come together and form the river’s “mainstem.”

There is one notion of a watershed that is the hardest to grasp. A watershed is not just a river, or even the culmination of all of its creeks, branches and brooks. The watershed is your hands themselves. In other words, when you think of a watershed, more than anything else, picture a watershed as the land.

Watersheds are the sum total of the lands from which they flow. If your watershed drains from a healthy forest, then your water will be clean and clear. If your watershed drains from a dense urbanized area, then your water may be something less than clean and clear.

What is interesting about watersheds is that even if you don’t live right next to a creek or river, everyone lives in a watershed. So ask yourself, “What watershed do I live in?”

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