Not so long ago, the Georgia’s Chattahoochee River looked poised to suffer the same sad fate as so many other urban rivers of the past century.

Though it serves as Atlanta’s main source of drinking water, raw sewage from Atlanta’s new, sprawling suburbs ran into the river and its feeder streams after rainstorms. Industrial sites routinely discharged pollution into the river in violation of state clean water standards. Agricultural runoff from farms further upstream in north Georgia choked the river’s oxygen supply and destroyed habitat for fish and other wildlife.

Some of these problems persist today, especially stormwater runoff. But in 1994, a new current of activism began to stem the flow befouling one of Georgia’s great waterways. Founded that year, the Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper has worked tirelessly over the past decade to clean up the Chattahoochee. For their efforts, environmental organizations have hailed them as one of America’s most effective river protection groups.

Now, to celebrate ten years of progress, the Riverkeeper will host Back to the Chattahoochee River, a race and festival that will get pros and novice paddlers alike out on a premier stretch of Chattahoochee flatwater on June 12. “Our major goal is an awareness of the recreational opportunities on the river. Now that we’ve got a handle on when the river is good for recreation and when it’s not, it’s a perfectly good resource,” says Riverkeeper staffer Bill Crawford, who organized the event.

The day will start with two competitive events: a 10-mile high-energy race that will pit Georgia’s best paddlers against one another as they vie for points in the Georgia Flatwater Canoe/Kayak Race Series. At the same time, recreational paddlers will set out on an 8-mile race route for some friendly competition without race hulls.

The put-in for the race, Roswell’s new Garrard’s Landing Park, highlights the efforts of local communities in the Atlanta metro area to take advantage of a neglected outdoor resource.

“The best way to preserve the river and make sure that the river is going to last a long long time is to get people on the river so they can appreciate the beauty of the natural resource that it is,” says Morgan Rogers, assistant director of the recreation and parks dept for the city of Roswell, one of the festival’s sponsors.

Over the past few years, Roswell has opened several parks along the Chattahoochee. They plan to construct an 8-mile river walk and offer a concert and movie series at Riverside Park that runs from May through October.

Yet despite all the positive publicity, the Chattahoochee still suffers from an image problem. Atlantans often still see the river as a toxic, trash-strewn disaster area. That’s partly because the section of the river they see in downtown Atlanta, downstream from Peachtree Creek, still fits the bill, thanks largely to the city’s still-antiquated sewer infrastructure.

But Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper executive director Sally Bethea points to a new bacteria monitoring program run by the National Park Service that shows other sections of the river flow clean and clear, at least most of the time. “In the area where the race will be happening, the data shows that 85 percent of the time the water is safe for body contact for recreation,” Bethea says. The bacteria count rises to unhealthy levels, she says, only during and after rainfall.

“This is a very small river trying to supply drinking water to 3 million people and carry away the waste of 3 million people,” Bethea says. “The river is a workhouse of a river, but she also has beautiful shoals, areas where development hasn’t occurred. We’ve tried to bring the positive face forward while at the same time attacking the negative.”

For more information on the Back to the Chattahoochee River Race & Festival and on what you can do to help the Chattahoochee, visit www.chattahoochee.org.

-Marcus Wohlsen