2012 COUNTY-BY-COUNTY WATERSHED HIGHLIGHTS:
TOWNS COUNTY, GA. – Volume 2
By Tom Bennett
Special to Hiwassee River Watershed Coalition
Hiwassee, Ga., Feb. 19, 2013 – A state of Georgia grant has made it possible for a trained professional, who turned out to be Scarlett Fuller, to be named Lake Chatuge Watershed Coordinator for the Hiwassee River Watershed Coalition.
Fuller had been in the position only a few months when she faced her first crisis, and it came from the North Carolina side.
The N.C. Division of Public Health issued an advisory against eating Lake Chatuge white or largemouth bass after tests showed elevated mercury levels.
As Fuller moved speedily to help clarify the matter, and residents asked if the problem existed here, she introduced Towns County Herald readers to new facts of marine life.
“Fish don’t know where state boundaries are,” Fuller said.
(The advisory remains in effect for those two species, and especially applies for pregnant women and children under 15. “Others should limit their consumption to one meal a week,” she said.)
Americans love rivers. A few are willing to arise from the recliner and go help them. For Fuller, leading the Georgia’s Rivers Alive cleanup day on Lake Chatuge was joyous.
“It’s a lot of fun to see people coming together for a common cause,” she said. “People have fun and laugh. Who knew picking up trash could be so much fun?”
The March 2007 Lake Chatuge Watershed Action Plan skillfully defines water-quality problems, bluntly identifies sources, and breaks out for the leaders and the interest groups what has to be done.
Immediately coming to the smelly fore is the pollution from leaking and flawed septic systems at some lakeside homes.
“That’s one of the first big problems in the Lake Chatuge watershed that we’ve pushed out (to the forefront),” Fuller said. “It’s always been a part of the plan. It just took forever to get the money. To finally get to implement it is rewarding.”
I commented that you need youth, fitness and strength to deal with a 7,000-acre man-made impoundment 13 miles long, sprawling across parts of two states and through parts of two national forests.
“Sure you do, and when you think about it that way, yes, it’s a big undertaking,” Fuller replied.
After asking her to forget how I’d characterized the daunting task so she won’t resign, I asked, “What keeps you going?”
“The beauty around me,” she said. “I’ll see fog or mist or clouds or blue sky and the mountains, and I’m inspired to continue working hard for clean water…
“Yes, I do kayak and I love a little bit of whitewater,” Fuller said. “I paddle a lot on the Chattahoochee because it’s very paddle-able. I guess I just invented a word.”
FULLER HAS HER DEGREE in biology from Armstrong Atlantic State in Savannah and a master’s in environmental health from the University of Georgia.
Her parents named her for Scarlett O’Hara of “Gone with the Wind.” Can you see where I’m going with this? Just before intermission, the beleaguered fictional Scarlett is digging a radish from the ground of the ruined Tara. She’s asked how she’ll ever solve her crushing problems. She replies: “We’ll think about it tomorrow.”
I asked the environmentalist Fuller, you’re a different type of Scarlett, aren’t you?
“Sure I am,” she replied. “We don’t need to wait until later, because later will be too late.”
The city of Hiwassee once procrastinated like the movie Scarlett, but now thanks to good leadership, it has become a pacesetter. It adopted a storm-water ordinance. Its treatment-plant lab is the site of testing of water samples taken by Fuller and her volunteers. Apathy’s what? It’s gone with the wind at the lake.
Tom Bennett of the Martins Creek community near Murphy, N.C., was a retired newsman, Hiwassee River Watershed Coalition member/volunteer/donor and recipient of the 2015 Holman Water Quality Stewardship Award. Tom died on December 28, 2020.