A few paddle strokes and it's like gliding.
Except that for the hundreds of rowers who navigate the Chattahoochee River daily, the rippling runway is fraught with hurdles. More and more, recreational and team rowers must skirt sandbars that waylay their progress, interrupt their rhythm and damage their crafts.
"It has gotten progressively worse," said Ed Bauer of Atlanta, a 34-year member of the Atlanta Rowing Club. "I can see the difference now in how large the sandbars have actually gotten."
Bauer said sandbars have long been a problem for rowers, but the floods of 2009 have fueled their growth.
"There are times when we have big storms and it moves the sandbars a lot," said Atlantan Teresa Wright, another Rowing Club member. "You have to really keep alert."
The Chattahoochee River Recreation Area, part of the National Parks System, runs 48 miles from Buford Dam south to Peachtree Creek in Atlanta. But the 6 1/2-mile stretch from Ga. 400 in Roswell to Morgan Falls Dam in Sandy Springs draws some of the largest crowds of boaters, rowers and kayakers.
River conditions in this area effect more than 400 rowers participating in two college and three high school programs and the Atlanta Rowing Club. Many others enjoy the section for fishing, canoeing and kayaking.
One of their key complaints is the varying stream levels that create inconsistencies in their routes, said Charlie Freed, Atlanta Rowing Club vice president. The rowers are in training for national competitions and need an area that is safe and allows them to row uninterrupted, he said.
The club keeps a current map of sandbars at its boathouse on Azalea Drive in Roswell.
"We really do sympathize with them, but there are multiple agencies that have management missions up and down the river," said Patty Wissinger, park superintendent for the Recreation Area.
The park is subject to intermittent water releases from Buford Dam at Lake Lanier and that can cause large fluctuations in flow, Wissinger said.
"The low flows are what affect the rowers and the kayakers, but high flows can affect homeowners' properties and other forms of recreation," she said.
Releases from Buford Dam are governed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Over the past year, those releases have ranged from 411 cubic feet of water per second for several days in February to 3,900 cubic feet on Nov. 4.
Releases are determined by a number of factors, said Pat Robbins, spokesman for the Corps' Mobile District.
"Water supply, minimum flow of Peachtree Creek and then, if possible, hydropower is incorporated into that, but it's not done separately for hydropower," he said.
In the wake of recent federal court litigation, the Corps is in the process of compiling a new operating manual for Lake Lanier. Stream levels along the Chattahoochee will not be a priority, Robbins said, because the river is not navigable in north Georgia and because it is not an authorized purpose of the dam.
"They can certainly submit [stream levels] as a concern when we start on the update of the manuals again and it would be looked at," he said.
Dredging the area would run in the millions of dollars and no one seems willing to pick up the tab.
"Some of the days, it's un-rowable," said Paul Merrion, team director and coach for St. Andrews Rowing Club, which holds practices for more than 100 students six days a week during the school year and conducts camps during the summer. "It is a problem and it would be nice if it would go away. But I'm not sure the Corps can do anything about it."
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