Backyard blueway

Local waterways are important for many reasons, and recently, some Alabama groups have been highlighting one that’s right outside your door: the Cahaba River. 

The Cahaba River is one of the most biodiverse rivers in the country and is a strong resource for both the state and local communities. It’s also the longest free-flowing river in Alabama. 

To bring even more attention to the waterway, the University of Alabama Center for Economic Development, the Cahaba River Society, The Nature Conservancy of Alabama, the Freshwater Land Trust and the Cahaba Riverkeeper have created the Cahaba Blueway, a 200-mile water trail from Trussville to the Old Cahaba.

“[The program] is designed to bridge the gaps that currently exist with respect to public awareness, public information and public infrastructure along the river,” Director of UACED Brian Rushing said. 

Executive Director of the Cahaba River Society Beth Stewart said the organizing groups have been working on the blueway plans for four to five years. 

“It’s been a very thoughtful process,” she said. “… There’s been a lot of effort that’s gone into this.”

The blueway has a few different facets, but one of the main ideas is the creation of access points for watercraft. These access points are safe and environmentally sustainable and durable, Rushing said. Stewart also said that they created design guidelines for landings along the river, so renovations or new access points would be minimally or noninvasive.

Of the 31 existing landings along the blueway, 15 meet the requirements as of press time, one of which is the landing at the Trussville Senior Citizen Center. The site was dedicated April 18. 

Other named sites include landings in Mountain Brook, Helena and Irondale. 

“What we’re wanting to do is to encourage communities along the river to build access along the river that is safe, reliable and durable,” he said. That ties in to the community development side of the initiative.

Rushing said they are working with local cities for the blueway to develop programming and events for the Cahaba River and hopes to attract recreational tourism, which can have a “rather significant impact” on local economies. Some areas in the country, he said, can generate millions of dollars a year on environmental and recreational tourism alone.

“We didn’t want to just slap a label on it but wanted to develop a program around the river,” he said, especially since it’s so biologically diverse and is a fragile resource. “… We wanted to create and facilitate sustainable ecotourism and sustainable public use of the river, and provide more opportunity to use and come to know and appreciate it, but yet not impact the resource.”

The groups didn’t necessarily “reinvent the wheel” for the blueway, Rushing said, but rather found the best practices from blueways all across the country and applied them to the Cahaba River. 

Rushing said the blueway has distinct signage in place to make it easier for people on the river to find their way and know more about the landings. They’ve also put together an informative website so people can plan trips, learn more about the access points and learn more about the communities they’ll be visiting.

“We’re wanting to connect citizens and communities along the river to the river, and we’re also wanting to connect all visitors to the Cahaba Blueway to the businesses in the communities,” he said. 

In addition to general information about the blueway, part of the website is dedicated to listing locally owned restaurants, lodging options and outfitters in the area to encourage visitors to shop locally. Together, the groups want to “tie the local hospitality and retail to the blueway,” Rushing said. 

Finally, the groups are working on putting information stations out in communities. The stations, Rushing said, will be in outdoor outfitters and other businesses and will have a reference map on the wall that details the blueway and its access points. A rack below will hold free Cahaba River resource guides. 

The guides will be a printed version of the website, incorporating a map similar in size to the Alabama highway maps with additional information like contact information for community partners and emergency services, all on water-resistant paper.

“A lot of resources have gone into this program, and so I would say we’re probably one of the more developed blueway programs in the country,” Rushing said. “We have been very deliberate, not only creating a trail but creating a program around a trail.

“We want everything about the blueway system to be as high quality as the river is, in terms of the experience,” Stewart said.

Although there are still 15 access points in need of improvements before they can be a designated part of the Cahaba Blueway, Rushing said the organizing groups are working with municipalities to help them renovate the landings. Eventually, they would like to see all 30 access points as part of the blueway.

Learn more about the Cahaba Blueway at cahabablueway.org.

Cahaba River Clean Up

Want to help the health of the Cahaba River? The Cahaba River Society is hosting the Big Cahaba Clean Up on June 8, with the goal of cleaning 40 miles of the Cahaba River in a day. 

Executive Director of the Cahaba River Society Beth Stewart said the society has held a lot of smaller cleanups on different days before, but this will be the first cleanup of its size they have put on. 

“We really hope it’ll really help us educate the public,” she said. “… When people throw things out, … I think most people don’t realize that that is going to get flushed down the storm drain and it’s going to then go through the creeks and streams and into their Cahaba River and into their drinking water.”

Due to the scale of the event, Stewart said “masses of people can’t just show up that day,” and volunteers are required to register beforehand. They will be placed in teams, including river team, shore team and support. After they are assigned, they will learn more about their specific role before the big day. 

Teams can be groups from corporations or businesses, schools, friends or individuals, she said. They hope to have seven teams on the water.

Depending on water levels, Stewart said the start points may be in Trussville or off Grants Mill Road, but that will be communicated to volunteers closer to the date of the event. 

“If we have more teams, we could easily double up on some of the sections of the river that really have a lot of trash,” Stewart said.

Volunteers should contact the Cahaba River Society by June 1. To sign up or to learn more about the event, email Gordon Black at clean@cahabariversociety.org.