NGCSU professor to conduct study of Chattahoochee, Apalachicola river systems

DAHLONEGA - Dr. Robert Fuller, director of the Environmental Leadership Center and professor of geoscience at North Georgia College & State University, will spend the next year traveling by canoe and by foot to sample the waters along the entire lengths of the Chattahoochee and Apalachicola rivers.

On Sept. 22, Fuller will begin his trip from a spring near Chattahoochee Gap, and will be using the Lagrangian Sampling Scheme, a process that involves putting a small amount of fluorescent dye in the water and tracking it down a free-flowing river system. This method will allow him to sample the same water mass as it flows down the river, providing insight into what happens to that specific portion of water as it moves through the system.

"I've been sampling the Chattahoochee for 13 years," Fuller said. "I want to document where pollution and degradation of the water occurs in the river system, so I will be sampling water all the way down these systems, excluding the reservoirs, to find locations of interest."

Fuller, who is taking a year of professional leave, will start at the river's headwaters in the Blue Ridge mountains, then continue down the Chattahoochee and Apalachicola rivers to the Gulf of Mexico. After reaching the gulf, he plans to turn west along the gulf coast to Mobile, Ala. He will then make his way up Mobile Bay, to the Mobile River, the Alabama River, the Coosa River, and then take the Etowah River back into Lumpkin County.

"I will be maintaining a blog during the trip, and plan to publish one or more papers on my findings," Fuller said. "The papers will be submitted to scientific journals, and I will be giving presentations at one or more conferences, including the Georgia Water Resources Conference in the hope that regulatory agencies and municipal governments will use this information to help provide solutions to water-quality problems."

Fuller's study is being sponsored by the Georgia Power Co., Appalachian Outfitters, the Chattahoochee Basin Group, North Georgia College & State University, the North Georgia College & State University Foundation, the university's Environmental Leadership Center, and his own personal resources. Technical assistance for the trip is being provided by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Environmental Protection Division and the U.S. Geological Survey.

To read Fuller's blog and keep track of his progress, visit: http://blog.northgeorgia.edu/rcfuller.