Remember when: Jimmy Carter saved the Chattahoochee River
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Then-Gov. Jimmy Carter jumps off a diving rock near the Palisades into the Chattahoochee River. Photo: Courtesy of Atlanta Journal-Constitution Photographic Archives, Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library
Shootin' the 'Hooch with friends and hiking the hills in East Palisades wouldn't be possible without Jimmy Carter.
The big picture: As Georgia governor and later U.S. president, Carter, a lifelong outdoorsman, advocated for and protected the environment with a hands-on tenacity especially uncommon for many elected officials of that era.
Catch up quick: In the late 1960s, pollution, creeping suburban sprawl and increased environmental awareness sparked a movement to turn the deep forests along the Chattahoochee River, just west of downtown Atlanta, into protected parkland.
- Local officials in Fulton and Cobb counties opposed the movement and wanted to keep development a-flowin'.
Flashback: Shortly after being elected governor in 1970, Carter befriended Claude Terry, a canoeist and microbiologist (and later the stunt double for Jon Voight in "Deliverance"). Terry introduced Carter to the so-called "River Rats" and the larger movement to turn the riverside wilderness into a state or national park.
- Carter came on board, saying that same year "the time has come in Georgia to stop the rape of the Chattahoochee," according to a 2021 history of the Chattahoochee National Recreation Area.
In 1973, Carter signed a state law that protected the banks of the river from development, creating a legal obstacle to rampant overdevelopment.
- That same year, Fulton County officials moved too slow in purchasing a 142-acre tract eyed for development in the northern part of the county, and the governor stepped in and used state funds to purchase the green space.
Zoom in: In 1974, near the end of his time as governor, Carter joined Terry on what's thought to be the first recorded tandem canoe descent down the Chattooga River's famous Bull Sluice rapid.
- The death-defying experience “opened my eyes to a relationship between a human being and a wild river,” Carter said in a short film about the event.
In 1978, surrounded in the Rose Garden by some of the original "River Rats," then-President Carter signed the act to create the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area. It was one of 29 national parks the president signed into law that year alone.
What they're saying: "The fact that we had a governor and then later a president who truly cared about the environment made it possible," Alan Toney, one of the environmentalists who worked to protect the river, said. "It was a magical time."
The bottom line: “Without Carter's involvement, the river would be as developed as Roswell Road and the natural beauty would be lost forever,” Marcia Bansley, who co-founded the Friends of the River while serving on the Junior League of Atlanta, told Axios.