Oconee River

Map of the Altamaha River system with the Oconee highlighted.

The Oconee River is a 220-mile-long (350 km)^[1] river which has its origin in Hall County, Georgia, and terminates where it joins the Ocmulgee River to form the Altamaha River near Lumber City at the borders of Montgomery County, Wheeler County, and Jeff Davis County. South of Athens, two forks, known as the North Oconee River and Middle Oconee River, converge to form the Oconee River. Milledgeville, the former capital city of Georgia, lies on the Oconee River.

Course

The Oconee River passes through the Oconee National Forest into Lake Oconee, a manmade lake, near the towns of Madison and Greensboro off Interstate 20. From Lake Oconee, the river travels to Lake Sinclair, another manmade lake in Milledgeville, the town founded on Georgia's fall line and former state capital. South of Milledgeville, the river flows unobstructed and later merges with the Ocmulgee River to form the Altamaha River. Along the river there are many sandbars and oxbow lakes while the forest bottomland swamp surrounding the Oconee extends for miles, creating a very remote setting.

Name origin

"Oconee" is the Anglicized form of the Itsati (Hitchiti-Creek) word Okvni, which means "born from water" or "living on water."^{[citation needed]} This branch of the Creeks is better known for the name given them by the chroniclers of the Hernando de Soto Expedition in 1540, Ocute - which is the Spanish version of the Itsati word Okvte. Okvte means "Water People." According to Oconee-Creek tradition, their original homeland was in the Okefenokee Swamp of southeastern Georgia. In fact, a branch of the Oconee still lived in this vast expanse of water during the 1600s, when it was under the domain of Spain. The Oconee Creeks also once occupied towns in present-day northeastern Georgia, northwestern South Carolina and in the Great Smoky Mountains. Their presence in the Great Smoky Mountains is remembered by the name of the Oconaluftee River, which in the Itsati-Creek language means "separated Oconee people."^{[citation needed]}

River pollution

Fecal coliform bacteria

One of the main sources of pollution comes from fecal coliform bacteria, a bacteria found in human and animal feces. Fecal coliform enters the river through a number of sources; stormwater runoff leaving farmlands, stormwater runoff carrying pet waste, from leaking septic and sewer line contaminating surface or groundwater and from sewer spills throughout the watershed. Fecal coliform can be deadly to humans if ingested or acquired through an open wound. Eating fish from the Oconee Basin is fine if it is cooked thoroughly. ^[2]

Fertilizer runoff

The second biggest form of pollution in the river is Fertilizer. This is measured by nitrogen parts per million found in collected samples regularly. The nitrogen from the fertilizers do the same thing to algae that it does to land plants: it causes abundant growth. The effect is twofold:

1. The water becomes murkier from the algae growing in it. This inhibits sunlight's path to the bottom of the river and destroys naturally occurring plant life there, the bottom of the ecosystem.
2. The algae eventually dies and rots in the water, and as it decomposes, it pulls oxygen out of the river, killing fish, especially large ones, and applies pressure to other wildlife dependent on the river.

Sedimentation

The third largest source of pollution (?) is sedimentation, typically caused by construction and urbanization. Loose dirt washes away with rainwater, clouding the river and eventually settling to the bottom at a faster rate than the river carries it away naturally. The clarity effects are the same as the algae effect, and the depth changes affect the flow and temperature of the river, stressing the ecosystem.

References

1. ^ U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline data. The National Map, accessed April 21, 2011
2. ^ Georgia Environmental Protective Division; Georgia Department of Natural Resources. Fish Consumption Guidelines http://gaepd.org/Documents/fish_guide.html

External links

• Oconee River Land Trust