The water that binds us
Coalition for Sound Growth (CSG) is a non-profit partnership of individuals, businesses, and organizations dedicated to improving quality of life in our community. Monday, August 31, we meet at Troy University's new campus just across the 13th Street Bridge in Phenix City.
Many won't appreciate the significance of meeting across the river in an area where even in the early '90s many felt they couldn't walk safely. Today, not only can I drive to Troy University, I can now walk or bike from my Spencer-House CSG office on 12th Street in Columbus to the new Troy campus in Phenix City in about 20 minutes.
Troy wasn't the first university on the Alabama-Georgia riverfront. Ideas for a downtown campus began circulating around Columbus College during the early '90s before the riverfront became a destination point. Assorted downtown renewal ideas begin to emerge.
The allure of the river continued to attract more than just a few citizens to live and work in the area before it was convenient. On the other hand, the concept of students housed and educated in downtown Columbus was not popular with everyone for a variety of reasons.
Nevertheless, the idea of bringing students to classrooms on the river continued to brew (among many) and eventually bubbled to the top, tempered with great caution and discretion.
Even so, few anticipated the new spark of life students would ignite which had disappeared so long ago in the downtown district.
Let's go back a few years.
In 1996, CSU moves Uptown under the leadership of its president, Dr. Frank Brown, and with assistance from numerous patrons, city leaders and philanthropists builds the spectacular Coca-Cola Space Science Center, bringing public and private school students of every age and grade level to the banks of the Chattahoochee.
The RiverCenter follows and, in addition to world-class entertainment, also brings the CSU School of Music with its students.
And CSU students are housed in Uptown for the first time. That's something that wouldn't have happened even eight years earlier, and here's why.
Before 1988, Columbus routinely discharged raw sewage into the Chattahoochee. After a 1988 drought exposed pollution at West Point, the state of Georgia mandates water standards to require all flow from combined sewers (Combined Sewer Overflow CSO) to be treated except in cases of extremely heavy rain. All outdated CSO sewer systems in Georgia must be replaced. Columbus has three years to comply and it's going to be expensive.
Billy Turner, president of Columbus Water Works at the time, struggles with the task of cleaning up the sewer rainwater overflow and also toys with options to make the roughly $100 million CSO project less expensive.
He first hears about a possible RiverWalk project in 1991 at a Downtown Rotary Club meeting where Peggy Theus and Ed Burdeshaw demonstrate vividly how a RiverWalk can transform downtown Columbus. Turner becomes the catalyst for the RiverWalk.
The plan is approved. The RiverWalk is placed on top of the new sewer lines and stretches from Fort Benning to Lake Oliver. The Chattahoochee RiverWalk is all that was expected, and more. It begins to bring people back to the river with a renewed pride in their city.
Later, and crucial to connecting our Chattahoochee Valley neighbors, Phenix City adds its own River Walk and links our two cities in a new way.
Leaders on both sides of the river have worked together to produce what is arguably one of the most outstanding outdoor adventures in the country. Studies found we could restore the river to its free-flowing state, providing new recreational opportunities not only for the Columbus-Valley region but also for the tourists who visit our community.
Breaching the Eagle-Phenix and City Mills dams to restore a free-flowing river creates what some have called the finest urban white-water run in the world.
Whitewater rafting became a team effort with the addition of the zip line, which can spawn other outdoor adventures while at the same time binding our bi-cities into one indistinguishable community and tourist destination.
Early on we recognized that people who experience the river are far more likely to protect the river. Even though students may create special challenges for both sides of the river they create an environment of togetherness we've worked so long to promote.
Students bring a unique link which isn't always possible among adults. Back and forth walking, biking, eating, and socializing while spending money in both places, they create an environment of togetherness we've worked so long to promote.
Also, there are certain givens they don't sleep, they eat continuously, and they bring vibrancy day and night to our Chattahoochee River Valley community ultimately protecting those things they appreciate and love the most.
Next Monday, when the Coalition for Sound Growth (part of the Spencer Environmental Projects) meets at Troy University, we will have so much more to celebrate than just the opening of a new building on the Chattahoochee.
Carole Rutland, former executive director of Riverway South, is coordinator for the Coalition for Sound Growth; coalitionforsoundgrowth.weebly.com.
This story was originally published August 22, 2015 at 12:00 AM with the headline "The water that binds us."