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ATHENS AREA HUMANE SOCIETY’S Adoption Location is inside
Pet Supplies PIUS at the Alps Shopping Center
It’s been a rough summer for those among us who live in the river. A die-off Aug. 22 or 23 is estimated to have killed at least a
couple hundred fish in the North Oconee River, right here in town.
Watershed Protection Branch, the plant has had
at least one ammonia violation every month from
January through June, excepting May. (July and
August figures aren't in yet.) At very high levels,
ammonia—a product of organic matter decom
position-can be toxic to fish; it's not known
yet if the levels were near high enough to have
contributed to the recent fish kill.
A combination of factors is likely to blame,
and the drought-stricken river's overall poor
condition this summer is incontrovertible. DO
levels when DNR sampled them were around five
parts per million above the wastewater plant,
and around three and a half beiow it. It usually
takes DO levels below one part per million to
kill fish. Martin measured the river's temperature
at around 80 degrees Fahrenheit, which is very
warm. Warm water is naturally lower in oxygen
than cool water, and warm water also causes
ammonia to be more toxic to fish. And, Shelton
says, all those factors can combine to stress fish.
How often do fish kills happen around here?
"Not very often," says Scott Callaway of the local
EPD office, "but if the creeks keep drying up like
this, we're going to have more and more of 'em."
Ben Emanuel ben@flagpole.com
Transit Notes
Bases; Planning; Googling...
The current multi-county "Transportation
Improvement Program" that outlines (mostly)
road-building projects for the next six years was
approved last month by the MACORTS (Madison-
Clarke-Oconee Regional Transportation Study)
board, which advises the Georgia Department of
Transportation (DOT) on local projects funded
through state and federal taxes. Only one pub
lic comment was received on the 200-page
plan, and that was a multi-page critique from
BikeAthens, which closely watches developments
in local transportation.
In it, the group criticized local representation
on the MACORTS board, on which Athens-Clarke
County is underrepresented. (While Athens has
most of the area's population, it has no more
votes on the board than the two more rural coun
ties do.) And the group wrote that, while public
comments are copied to all board members,
MACORTS lacks a systematic approach to con
sidering or implementing public comments, and
so they "will ultimately be ignored." Neither is
the public allowed to speak before the decision
making MACORTS policy committee, BikeAthens
said. And while ACC transportation planner
Sherry Moore says MACORTS has had "some very
cursory discussions" about giving BikeAthens
a seat on a MACORTS board (as the group has
requested), the group wrote it has heard no re
sponse. "BikeAthens represents a user group with
a clear active interest in transportation issues,"
the group wrote, "and is at least as deserving of
being a part [of] Committee deliberations as are
many current member organizations such as the
Athens Downtown Development Authority, the
Athens Area Chamber of Commerce, the Oconee
Rivers Greenway Commission, [and] the U.S. Navy
Supply Corps School," which are represented.
(The full critique is at www.bikeathens.com.)
Meanwhile, a cause for which BikeAthens
often advocates—improvements to the Athens
Transit bus system—is seeing some progress
made. Most county bus stops consist only of a
sign to mark the stop, but 36 stops will soon
get concrete pads underfoot and "semi-seats"
that attach to the signposts. Five stops will
get shelters with benches—all funded by the
county's one-cent SPLOST sales tax, with most of
the costs going for grading and concrete pads.
Athens-Clarke is also negotiating with adjacent
property owners for enough additional land to
allow improvements at 43 other bus stops. (The
county could legally require owners to sell, but
does that only as a last resort.) Some business
owners don't welcome nearby bus stops and have
even asked that they be removed, transit director
Butch McDuffie says, but none have been.
And four innovative "art" bus stops—winners
of a national contest sponsored by the Athens
Area Arts Council—will soon be installed on
Baxter Street, Alps Road and Atlanta Highway,
says Chris Evans of the arts council "It's very
exciting," he says. The $3000 contest winners
are from North Carolina, New York, Alabama and
Athens. Winning bus shelter designs had to pass
muster for durability, including approval by the
DOT, which took six months.
Athens Transit is also cooperating with
BikeAthens to make Google's Internet transit
planner available to bus users in Athens. When
origin and destination addresses are entered
on the Google Transit site (www.google.com/
transit), it will produce a travel route and sched
ules using local public transit. The experimental
service is now available for about a dozen U.S.
cities and all of Japan. It will soon be available
for Athens as well.
Extended nighttime hours begun last year
for six bus routes—until 11 p.m.—are "going
very well" and attracting 6,000 riders a month,
says Pat Hale, Athens Transit's superintendent of
operations. She notes the transit system (which
is actually run jnder contract by Texas-based
McDonald Transit Associates, Inc.) is looking at
using smaller "trolley" buses on some routes,
but that no buses routinely run empty, and some
routes that are heavily used by UGA students are
often standing-room-only.
John Huie iphuie@athens ne!
Fish Kill
Bad Day on the River
On Friday morning, Aug. 24, Anna Albert
was walking to work along College Station Road
when she noticed 20 to 30 dead fish floating
in the shallow water of the North Oconee River.
She called the nonprofit Georgia River Network,
which in turn called the Georgia Department
of Natural Resources (DNR) and the Georgia
Environmental Protection Division (EPD). Staff
from both of those agenries then spent that
Friday collecting dead fish, testing water quality,
and beginning the process of determining what
caused the fish kill.
For starters, there's the obvious: it's been a
very hot, dry summer, and both branches of the
Oconee are near record low flows. (Athens had
to stop drawing drinking water from the North
Oconee early in August, depending for water
on just the Bear Creek Reservoir.) In the words
of Ramon Martin, a fisheries specialist in the
DNR's Wildlife Resources
Division who came down
to the North Oconee
that day, "The fish may
already be stressed."
The kill probably hap
pened on Wednesday or
Thursday, Aug. 22 or 23,
Martin says.
As for more specific causes, there are some
likely culprits, but anything official is yet to be
determined. At press time, Martin and the biolo
gists in his office are still preparing a report to
send to EPD, the agency in charge of the permit
for Athens-Clarke County's North Oconee R ; ver
wastewater treatment plant.
When fish kills happen, typically a key factor
is a very low level of dissolved oxygen—what
fish breathe, often called simply DO—in the
water. Low DO is often caused Dy high concentra
tions of bacteria, algae, or other small organisms
that consume oxygen. Although fish are mobile
enough animals and can often escape bad water,
it doesn't always work out that way.
While he shies away from a firm number until
an official report is complete, Martin estimates
the North Oconee fish kill at "a couple hundred
fish" or more, most of them suckers and carp,
with some bass, bluegill, catfish and others. That
lines up with the observations of Scott Messer,
a fisherman who put his canoe in the river
at College Station Road on Saturday. (Messer
doesn't eat what he catches there, but says the
fishing is always good.)
Did Athens' wastewater come into play?
There's no saying for sure yet, but it's certainly
possible that a "pulse" of biologically active
water came from the plant and overwhelmed the
low-flowing river's capacity to assimilate it. River
flows were so low when the kill occurred that
rough calculations show the wastewater effluent
may have made up a third or even more of the
water running between the river's banks below
the sewage plant.
In the words of UGA fisheries professor Jay
Shelton, "There's that really corny expression
about how 'dilution is the solution to pollution,'
but it's not so corny because it's true." With the
river so low, he points
out, it's more a matter
of concentration than of
dilution.
The sewage plant
in question is the first
that Athens-Clarke is
planning to decommis
sion as soon as it can
(probably around 2011), and also the same plant
that creates the notorious stench around town,
which results mainly from anaerobic activity in
the sewer lines carrying untreated sewage to
the plant. Its effluent, going into the river, has
an entirely different, somewhat soapy odor that
decreases gradually as it moves downstream from
the plant.
Athens-Clarke is buildir.g a new plant there
because the current one (originally built in the
late 1960s) is outdated, at capacity, and under
a consent order—involving ongoing monetary
payments—to reduce its ammonia output,
which has been a problem for years now. This
year, according to Marzieh Shahbazaz at EPD's
A combination of factors is likely
to blame, and the drought-stricken
river's overall poor condition this
summer is incontrovertible.
Tiger is 11 years old, a
large gorgeous fluffball
with blue-gre-Mi eyes
and a luxurious coat Hs
regal ness was not
captured in the photo.
Daisy is a cute-as-can-
be princess kitty, who
wants to be your only
pampered cat
Lucky was found in a
dumpster as a kitten
and is lucto to be here!
Sweet and gracious
young male.
Pretty and playful ginger
kitty was a very good
youpg mother tofattens
who nave all found
homes. Now it's her
turn. Very affectionate.
From
August 23
August 29
ACC ANIMAL
CONTROL
52 Dogs Recerved
29 Dogs Placed
ATHENS AREA HUMANE SOCIETY
25 Total Cats Received
l2Cats Placed
0 Adoptable Cats Euthanized
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4 FLAGPOLE.COM • SEPTEMBER 5, 2007
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