Day of the Iron Scepter, 26th of Midsommar, 526 M.E. (Deneb): Earlier this month, I was bragging, raving really, about the wonderful Atlanta weather. I'm glad that I appreciated it when I did because since then the weather's turned to shit. Rain every day, and when it's not actively raining, it's cloudy and humid (79% relative humidity). The cloud cover has kept things relatively cool (average temperature today was 78°F), but the 60+ degree dew points make it uncomfortable.

But at least we've had rain. I managed to get my steps in today (Deneb, a walking day) between the noontime rainfall and the 5:00 p.m. showers, a 6.4-mile Quincy. My route crosses Peachtree Creek four times, and the water was an opaque muddy brown - earlier this month, during the drought, the water was so crystal clear I could easily see the bottom.

Atlantans know to avoid contact with the river water when it's turbid like that. Not only does the rain bring sewage overflows into the river, the runoff from rich people's riverfront lawns carries fertilizers and herbicides to the river. Clear water is fine to splash and play in (I still wouldn't drink it) but any contact with brown turbid water is to be avoided.    

Peachtree Creek is a west-flowing tributary to the Chattahoochee River, and right now the 'Hooch is suffering nothing short of an ecological emergency. Along a 20-mile stretch, from where Peachtree Creek empties into the Chattahoochee downstream to West Point Lake, thousands of dead fish, ranging from massive, 30-pound striped bass to smaller catfish and carp, are completely blanketing the riverbanks. Levels of E. coli have reached over 4,000 colony-forming units/100 ml, over 17 times the acceptable limit. Water-safety experts (i.e., not just me) are calling it the single worst fish kill in the region in over two decades.

Because we had been locked in a prolonged drought, the Chattahoochee's water level had been exceptionally low. The river simply didn't have the volume or the cool temperature needed to buffer a sudden influx of pollution. When last Wednesday's storm dumped up to 3.5 inches of rain in under an hour (the amount of rain that would normally fall in the entire month of May), the rainwater hit the urban asphalt and concrete that had been sitting under the Georgia sun and rushed to the river as a super-warm flood. 

Warm water physically cannot hold oxygen, and it instantly shocked the aquatic environment. The sheer volume of the flash flood completely overwhelmed Atlanta's water treatment capacity. The system overflowed, sending a massive mix of raw sewage and toxic street grime directly into Peachtree Creek and hence to the Chattahoochee.

The fish weren't actually poisoned by the sewage; they were suffocated. When that massive wave of organic waste hit the warm, low river, it triggered an immediate explosion of bacteria. As the microbes decomposed the waste, they consumed every last bit of dissolved oxygen out of the water. The river was essentially choked of oxygen, leaving fish with high oxygen demands completely asphyxiated. River crews reported a foul-smelling black muck coating the entire downriver ecosystem.

This is a catastrophic blow to a magnificent natural resource that will take years to recover.