Along the Chattahoochee

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Along the Chattahoochee

Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper boat travels along the low Chattahoochee River.

Harlan Trammell (from left), George Floyd and Sally Bethea push the Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper boat through the Cochran Shoals section of the Chattahoochee River in Cobb County. Even though the boat can run in less than six inches of water, the river is so low in places that it had to be pushed over the rocky bottom.

Trammell repairs a hole in the boat as Floyd watches. The boat hit a submerged rock in shallow water. The trip down the Chattahoochee with Riverkeeper Bethea shows effects of the drought on Atlanta's main water artery. The river is fed by controlled releases from Lake Lanier, which is below normal and falling.

The crew with Riverkeeper Bethea, an advocate for environmental protection of the river, had to navigate around once-submerged rocks, tires and pipes. Old tires that normally would be submerged litter the banks of Buzzard Roost Island, where the Chattahoochee winds its way through South Fulton County.

Bethea and her colleagues went from from Morgan Falls Dam, near Roswell, to Newnan. Dry spots like this one were seen along the way.

A man fishes in the Chattahoochee just upstream of a pipe discharging water from the R.L. Sutton Water Reclamation Facility near Smyrna.

A flock of Canada geese takes flight off the river.

The birds wing their way above the river near the Johnson Ferry Road bridge between Cobb and Fulton counties.

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Harlan Trammell (from left), George Floyd and Sally Bethea push the Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper boat through the Cochran Shoals section of the Chattahoochee River in Cobb County. Even though the boat can run in less than six inches of water, the river is so low in places that it had to be pushed over the rocky bottom.

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