Our New Report on Restoring Healthy Flows in Georgia’s Upper Flint River
Ben Emanuel, Associate Director, Water Supply
April 30, 2013 | Most Endangered Rivers, Climate Change, Water Supply
Snipe Shoals on the Flint River, GA | © Stan Lumsden
April has been a busy month at American Rivers, with the release of our annual America's Most Endangered Rivers® report. As you may have noticed, many of the rivers spotlighted on this year’s list are there because of threats related to water quantity, which is increasingly a concern here in the Southeast. That’s the case for the Georgia’s Flint River, where low flows threaten the river’s health throughout its length from Atlanta to the Florida state line.
With all that going on, though, here in Georgia we’ve also kept at our ongoing project in the upper portion of the Flint River basin. And, just this month we also released an important report on low-flow problems there. The report is called Running Dry: Challenges and Opportunities in Restoring Healthy Flows in Georgia’s Upper Flint River Basin and is available for download.
We’re hopeful that the report will provide a good baseline of information going forward in our work with many partners to restore the upper Flint to health. In addition to documenting recent years’ low-flow problems in the river, the report examines the various causes of low flows and points the way toward solutions that can heal the river.
Restoring healthy flows in the upper Flint will mean keeping enough water there for paddling, maintaining populations of the native shoal bass and threatened and endangered species, securing sustainable water supplies for communities throughout the river basin, and more. It means regaining and keeping all of the various benefits that a healthy river provides.
Most important is our plan to work together with diverse stakeholders throughout the upper Flint basin on finding solutions to the river system’s challenges. In our work to create this report, we’ve been happy also to begin creating relationships with all types of stakeholders in the upper Flint, and we’re excited to keep working together with the water providers, non-profits and many others who rely on a vibrant, flowing Flint River.
In other words, this report on the upper Flint is in many ways just a beginning – a starting point. We hope that it can help play a role in good things to come.
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