We’ve had more rain since Ben Emanuel left town than we had the whole time he was here. Any chance he was using his ecologist friends to suppress rainfall so that people would be concerned about the river and give him a job as Riverkeeper? Jus' sayin.’ Seriously, here’s hoping Ben and Jess thrive in their new environment and that the Flint River rises to new levels of health and protectedness. Here’s hoping, also, that another Riverkeeper steps forward to keep an eye on our Oconee Rivers and that Gilbert Milner is able to dig the Barnett Shoals Dam out from under all the mud Georgia Power left there and operate the dam without decimating the river. The North and Middle Oconee Rivers are fragile resources that need all the help they can get. Athens is a city set on a hill, but it sits on two rivers and a bunch of creeks, also, and none of them should be taken for granted by any of us. In that sense, we can all be riverkeepers, although we need a professional to keep us focused and tell us what needs doing to assure the health of our rivers and streams.

Name Withheld

Athens