Public gets first look at new park on river

May 13, 2005
By S. Heather Duncan
Telegraph Staff Writer

Drive to a park a few minutes from your home, float down the Ocmulgee River in an inner tube for two hours, then jump back in your car - right where you parked it in Macon.

This will be possible for visitors to Macon's new Water Works Park, 180 acres of meadows and forests embraced by the Ocmulgee River. The park, which is not expected to open for a couple of years, will be twice the size of Central City Park and linked to it by the Ocmulgee Heritage Trail.

The public got a first peek at the park Thursday at a signing ceremony and picnic to mark the donation of the land by the Macon Water Authority to the Urban Development Authority, which will lease it to NewTown Macon to turn into a park.

The signing was held in an area bordering a field of grasses, trees, wildflowers and blackberries. Everything in sight would have been underwater during the 1994 flood, noted Ben Porter, NewTown volunteer and a former member of the Board of Natural Resources.

The city waterworks occupied an oxbow, or U-shaped bend, in the Ocmulgee River for more than a century before it was flooded in the wake of Tropical Storm Alberto.

After the flood, the Macon Water Authority built a new water treatment plant in Jones County and dismantled the old one. Federal emergency management officials say no buildings can be constructed on it.

With a boat ramp at each end, the park will provide opportunities for tubing, canoeing and kayaking the 1.75 miles from one ramp to the other. It is only 0.75 miles on foot between the ramps, NewTown officials said.

NewTown officials said the park will include 3.5 miles of new walking trails, a 22-acre great meadow for kite flying, a wilderness area with biking trails, a 3.5-acre lake, pavilions for picnics and two overlooks with sweeping views of the river.

Paul and Darlene Brown walked their border collie Katie Belle to a platform three stories above the river, where pumps once moved water into the treatment plant. The
river curves away beneath overhanging flowering trees.

Darlene Brown said her family was among the first to use the riverwalk and said she looks forward to eventually taking it all the way to Water Works Park.

Chester Stewart, a manager at the new Amerson Water Treatment Plant, stood on the overlook platform and remembered when it was in the river during the 1994 flood.

After waters receded from the small building there, Stewart was never able to reach high enough up the wall to completely clean the mud away.

A 32-year veteran at the water authority, Stewart began his career at the waterworks when he was 18 and it was still surrounded with cows. He feels a little like he grew up there.

Stewart jounced his truck along rutted roads - more like gullies - to the prettiest spots in the new park. Dark woods rise out of rolling sand in the wetter areas. The track winds through tunnels of honeysuckle to the pond, a placid expanse broken only by a jumping fish and the calls of Southern cricket frogs. It's "restocked" by river flooding every year, he said.

"You couldn't ask for any more peaceful fishing than this," said Stewart, who has caught crappie, catfish and bass there.

He recalls picnics on rocks in the Ocmulgee near what authority employees called "the big eddy."The area will be the site of a second overlook.

Rocks shot through with long black and white bands trail into the river, creating bubbling ripples and drawing up visible bass. A turtle paddles nearby.

NewTown needs about $5 million to put the land into shape for public use, NewTown CEO Mike Ford said. The nonprofit has been focusing its funding on other portions of the river trail.

U.S. Rep. Jim Marshall, D-Ga., sent a letter saying $6 million was set aside for the trail in the transportation bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives. The Senate has not yet voted on its version. Ford said if NewTown receives the grant, most of it will be used for the park.

Once the money is allocated, it will probably take a year and a half to two years to prepare the parking, repair a bridge, make overlooks safer and get a railroad-crossing gate installed, said Nimrod Long, who is managing parts of the trail design for NewTown.

However, special events may be held at the park before it's completely finished, Ford said.

For example, this summer's Ocmulgee Adventure Race will go through the park. Proceeds from the July 30 race will go toward creating biking trails there, race coordinator Scott Wilson said.

Chester Stewart steps down off a rock bluff overlooking a section of the Ocmulgee River near a proposed boat launching area at the old waterworks that will soon become a part of the Ocmulgee River Greenway. Photo by Beau Cabell

Katie Belle, a dog whose owner, Darlene Brown right says will enjoy taking a swim in the river soon, checked out an overlook Thursday. Photo by Beau Cabell

A pond created in the wake of I-16 construction.
Photo by Beau Cabell

A rock bluff overlooking a section of the Ocmulgee River near a proposed boat launching area at the old waterworks that will soon become a part of the Ocmulgee River Greenway.
Photo by Beau Cabell

A large map of the Water Works Park gave officials something to show off as a great place for a picnic.
Photo by Beau Cabell