Publishing the Chattooga Quarterly
The Chattooga Quarterly is composed and published by the Chattooga Conservancy. This acclaimed publication features articles about the Chattooga watershed’s natural and cultural history, as well as updates on program work, timely articles about conservation and advocacy, and membership news. The Chattooga Quarterly is posted on this website, and also appears in hard copy as a 12 to 20 page magazine that is mailed to our membership and placed at several venues.
The latest version of the Chattooga Quarterly is posted below. We also keep a PDF repository of every past issue of the Chattooga Quarterly.
Winter 2012 Edition
Director’s Note
This issue of the Chattooga Quarterly celebrates a new direction for our organization. I have decided to step down as executive director and into a new position as program associate. The board of directors has asked Nicole Hayler, our program and development director, to take my place. Continue reading about this transition.
“Assisted Migration” and the Stinking Cedar
Torreya taxifolia, commonly named the Florida Torreya or the “stinking cedar,” is a critically endangered evergreen tree that is endemic to a very small existing range in Liberty, Gadsden and Jackson Counties in the Florida panhandle, and also up the east bank of the Apalachicola River, occurring in widely scattered colonies within ravines and limestone bluffs, to about a mile into Decatur County in southwest Georgia, altogether a range of about 40 miles. Continue reading about the Stinking Cedar..
A Walk in the Park
Back in 2009, the Chattooga Conservancy engineered a deal between our organization, the City of Clayton, United Community Bank, and the Georgia Department of Natural Resources (GA DNR), that ultimately resulted in the acquisition of a 3-acre tract located between Stekoa Creek and State Highway 441, to be used for a new city park. The property had been partially filled with large hunks of busted concrete and asphalt as well as mounds of bricks and dirt, which were dumped there to create a flat spot for building adjacent to the highway. Nearly all the trees were cut down prior to the filling operation, and the rest of the property was covered with a tangled mass of invasivespecies featuring kudzu, privet,honeysuckle, multiflora rose and poison ivy. Continue reading this story.
Dad Brewer’s Grist Mill
My husband’s father Jarrell H. Brewer was working in Atlanta when he met Dick’s mother, Grace Hamby Brewer, from Clayton. She was a school teacher in Raymon near West Point, Georgia, where she boarded with the Brewer family. Mr. Brewer, fondly known to me in later years as Dad Brewer, ran a water wheel grist mill on the back waters of Stekoa Creek, which flows along and near to the Highway 441 by-pass in the town of Clayton. Continue reading “Dad Brewer’s Grist Mill.”
John Bachman, Naturalist and Social Activist
The Bachman’s Warbler, a rare migratory bird that passes through the Blue Ridge Mountains in the spring and fall, was named for a man whose fascinating life history is as elusive as the little warbler that bears his name. Continue reading about John Bachman.
Watershed Update
- Southern Appalachian Farmstead Proposal
- Dam Removed From Chattooga Headwaters
- 319(h) Projects
- Upper Chattooga Controversy
- Native Cane Restoration – Next Steps
- Draft Environmental Impact Statement Released
- Staff Transitions
Members’ Update
Contributions dedicated to the Conservancy in honor of friends and family, along with other community news can be found in our Members’ Update. As always, this issue is available in PDF format for easy reading.