A Lifelong Keeper of the Chattahoochee SALLY BETHEA

Since childhood, Sally Bethea has been fascinated with nature. In her backyard explorations she would follow a small stream as far as her child self could, curious about “where the water went" when it left her backyard. Years later, she realized that her backyard stream went to Nancy Creek, into Peachtree Creek,

By Sherri Smith Brown

and finally, into the Chattahoochee River. Perhaps it was fate that Sally would become one of the toughest advocates around to save the Chattahoochee.

By becoming the first Riverkeeper for the Upper Chattahoochee—the half of the river that runs from its headwaters in the north Georgia mountains through Atlanta to West Point Lake—Sally was tasked with creating a new nonprofit organization devoted to restoring and defending this heavily used waterway. As she states: “Plagued by chronic sewage spills, uncontrolled urban growth, dirty storm runoff, industrial toxins, trash, and overuse, the river was repeatedly named one of the most endangered rivers in the country.”

I met Sally during those fledgling years of the riverkeeper organization when Fred Brown and I worked with her to write The Riverkeeper’s Guide to the Chattahoochee, a section by section guidebook to the river. Unlike some directors of environmental organizations who mainly sit behind a desk, Sally was not afraid to get her feet wet. She was always on the river, putting her own eyes on its problems as well as its magnificence. A river could not ask for a better defender than Sally Bethea. Twenty years later, she retired from the organization, leaving the river and its tributaries all the better for her passion, spirit, and tireless work.

Sally and I recently spoke about her riverkeeping days as well as her newly written memoir, Keeping the Chattahoochee, Reviving and Defending A Great Southern River.

SSB: What made you want to write your story?

SB: I never seriously considered it until I started regularly walking on a path to the Chattahoochee

BOOK DISCUSSIONS:

PTC LIBRARY SAT., SEPT. 30, 2PM PTC ROTARY CLUB•NOV. 16, 12PM

Sally Sierer Bethea’s memoir, Keeping the Chattahoochee, Reviving and Defending A Great Southern River, is a story about bravery and persistence. Sally will be discussing her book at the Peachtree City Library on Saturday, September 30, at 2pm and as well as the November 16 meeting of the Peachtree City Rotary Club. Sally will have books to sell and autograph at both events.

Sherri Smith Brown, a longtime resident of Peachtree City, is the editor of Peachtree City Magazine. She wrote The Riverkeepeer’s Guide to the Chattahoochee with Fred Brown as well as The Flint River.

River in retirement. Inspired by a book called The Forest Unseen (David Haskell), I was motivated to find a place in nature that I could explore over the course of a year and get to know intimately. I wanted to slow down, pay close attention to plants, animals, and landscape—adopting the pace of nature, as Ralph Waldo Emerson counseled. I found such a place near the river: a path in the national park that I had never before walked. As I discovered its woods, streams, and riverbank through the seasons, I reflected on my two decades as the founding director of the nonprofit Chattahoochee Riverkeeper (CRK) organization. Memories emerged from the past: funny, alarming, frustrating, exhilarating, and instructive.

When the pandemic demanded that I shelter at home, nearly a year into my river walks, I decided to spend my time remembering and writing stories about our efforts to clean up the long-neglected Chattahoochee and my walks that had triggered these tales. The process was immensely satisfying. As I wrote, it occurred to me that my stories might be interesting and useful to others. My hope is that Keeping the Chattahoochee will help inspire and guide a new generation of river advocates and energize those already giving a voice to rivers, forests, and mountains with their time and resources. I also hope readers will be encouraged to find their own special place in nature, be it in the city or a wilderness, and that through the seasons they will allow themselves to explore these areas slowly and attentively.

SSB: When we were writing the Riverkeeper’s Guide to the Chattahoochee, you were just getting your feet wet, so to speak, as Riverkeeper. How did that job change you over the next 20 years?

SB: As I learned to be more thoughtful and careful in decision-making and successes followed, I became more confident in myself and my ability to bring people and resources together to make progress on behalf of the river. I became less concerned about what people said or thought about me; it hurt of course when I heard that someone thought I was too this or that, but I learned to hold my head up and keep on moving forward. CRK's board and staff are very clear about its mission, core values, and strategies employed to get the job done. While I'm still an optimist, I've become more of a realist with regard to environmental work. My youthful idealism has morphed into a more clear-eyed and tough-minded approach. It is simply not radical to demand clean, abundant water sources for everyone and to use all available tools toward that end.

SSB: How did it change the Chattahoochee?

SB: The water in the Chattahoochee is dramatically cleaner today than it was three decades ago, particularly the section between the city of Atlanta and West Point Lake. For decades the river did not meet federal environmental standards, largely because of chronic sewage spills in the city. The situation was disgusting, hazardous, and shameful. In fact, the river was so dirty that the state would not install public boat ramps in this area. Working with downstream communities and advocates for West Point Lake, CRK prevailed in a successful federal lawsuit filed in the 1990s that required the city to spend more than $2 billion to overhaul its sewer infrastructure. CRK's monitoring data has confirmed significant improvements in the river and in many of its tributaries and reservoirs, including West Point Lake. These successes were achieved through legal actions, legislative initiatives, stronger regulations and policies, monitoring, and educational programs including floating classrooms. While challenges remain, notably the impacts of climate change, the Chattahoochee's future is bright. Importantly, the people who live and work in the watershed are more acutely aware of all that our hard- working river provides for them and their communities--and that we must never again condone the level of pollution that existed in the past.

SSB: You talk about overcoming fears and jumping right in, doing things outside your comfort zone on behalf of the river. What stands out as the hardest problem you had to tackle?

SB: That’s a tough question. A lot of things come to mind. One is certainly the initial (and in some areas continuing) reluctance of local and state officials to admit the Chattahoochee's serious problems and move to resolve them with policy decisions and funding. CRK deals with quality of life issues that are critical for communities to prosper. Elected officials, in particular, should make decisions that help improve the lives of their constituents, which includes the environment. It was particularly frustrating for me personally to sit for more than seven years on the state board of natural resources and try to convince my colleagues (many who represented corporate interests) that a clean, healthy environment is good for business. As a woman, I often found it hard to deal with men who clearly did not take me or my organization very seriously.

SSB: Your memoir has an interesting structure. Tell me about it.

SB: I did not want to write a book that simply recounts the story of Chattahoochee Riverkeeper and my personal involvement in a chronological, historical format. I wanted to use an approach that would draw the reader into the river's watershed—its landscape and plants and animals—in a visceral way, revealing the looks, sounds, and smells of the river. For readers unable to take a walk along the Chattahoochee, I wanted to offer what I was seeing and feeling in the hope that my words would convey the beauty and fragility of this place of land, water, and sky. Each chapter begins with a walk and a description of the things I see; a memory then emerges from my riverkeeping days and I tell a story. These stories are not sequential in their telling; they move backward and forward in time, as they illustrate the work of our board, staff, and allies to save an endangered river.

SSB: Do you still walk the bamboo forest that has become an important character in your storytelling?

SB: Yes! And I still discover new things on my path to the river, despite the hundreds of hours I've spent in the woods and along the river there. This past spring, I found a blooming Catesby's trillium. Now that I know where she grows, I'll be back next spring to visit her.

SSB: Your accomplishments with Riverkeeper are numerous. What makes you proudest?

SB: I’m proud of helping build and sustain an organization that is known for its credibility, integrity, persistence, and courage. The job of safeguarding a valuable natural resource such as the Chattahoochee River and its lakes and tributaries is never- ending in our constantly changing world. CRK will always need to be a strong, visible presence in the watershed, collaborating with allies and using the power of the law and media, if necessary, to achieve our mission: enough clean water for people and wildlife.