Oconee River

Description and History

The Oconee River is a river which has its origin in Hall County, Georgia and terminates 170 mi (274 km) later 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. Below the northern part of the river, known as the North Oconee River, the two forks of the river converge to form what is known as the Middle Oconee River. The Oconee River passes through the Oconee National Forest into Lake Oconee, a manmade lake in the 1970's, near the towns of Madison and Greensboro off I-20. From Lake Oconee, the river travels to Lake Sinclair, another manmade lake, in Milledgeville, Georgia, the town founded on Georgia's fall line and former state capital. South of Milledgeville, the river flows unobstructed to its mouth. 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.

"Oconee" River Name Meaning

"Oconee" means ("O") People/Place or Nation of ("Conee") The Skunk in Creek Indian language. You can look at a map and see many creek and area names in the Southeast beginning with "O", like the Ocmulgee River, the Ogeechee River, and so on.

River Pollution

The main sources of pollution come from fecal coliform bacteria that gets into the river as rainwater on vast farmlands throughout the watershed trickles it's way to the river. The Georgia Environmental Protection Division of the Department of Natural Resources has much more detailed information in pdf format. This 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 thouroughly.

The second biggest form of pollution in the river is fertilizer runoff. 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. They grow like crazy. The affect is two-fold:

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 plantlife there, the bottom of the ecosystem.

2: The algae eventually dies and rots in the water, and as it decomposes, sucks oxygen out of the river, killing fish, especially large ones, and applies pressure to other wildlife dependent on the river.

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, which is stressful to the ecosystem.

External links:

• Oconee River - The Oconee River Land Trust