Driving north on Highway 172, winding lazily through lush pastures dotted with homes and churches, it’s hard to believe that downtown Athens is only 20 minutes away. Just a few miles south of Bowman, the road dips, the air cools slightly and the trees part to reveal the Broad River, slow and dark, passing beneath the highway on its long journey to the Clarks Hill Reservoir and its confluence with the Savannah River. The river is calm, and on a quiet morning it pours gently over the rocks and under the bridge. But in a few hours, this scene will be transformed.

Brightly colored kayaks filled with boaters make their way down this section of river every afternoon during the warmer months. There are church groups, school groups and families. And there are college students. There is laughing and playing, swimming and shouting, and there is drinking. Lots of drinking.

“There are times when one can see a continuous stream of kayaks in both directions,” says Michael Moody, owner of the Broad River Outpost, which along with Gerald Carey’s Sandbar rents boats and shuttles paddlers upstream for the five-mile, three-hour float back down. And whether here to relax or to party, the paddlers must be enjoying it, because every day they return.

As the drought-stricken river, too low to paddle for much of last summer, swelled this year with spring rains, so too did the number of those hoping to enjoy the beauty of the Broad River or the party-like atmosphere that it offers as hundreds of people take to the water, coolers in tow. And while this is good for business, some local landowners don’t think it’s good for the river.

Jim Beall, a homeowner not far away along the Broad and a member of the Broad River Watershed Association (BRWA), recently sent a letter to Flagpole to voice those concerns. He wrote, in part: “Georgia’s rivers provide us with precious, life-giving water. But when they are treated with disregard, they suffer… [W]ater quality is compromised, wildlife habitat is degraded or destroyed, waste and trash becomes an issue for downstream users, and the value and enjoyment to landowners who own property along the river is reduced.”

Gerald Carey declined to be interviewed for this story. “You do get some bad apples,” acknowledges Todd Carey, his son. “But nobody’s ever complained to me about trash or people on their land,” adds Natalie Carey, Gerald’s daughter and manager of The Sandbar, which operates a bar and restaurant a stone’s throw from the water’s edge at its takeout point just downstream of the Highway 172 bridge.

“I moved on the river knowing that people were going to be coming here,” says Scott Edwards. “But I had no idea that Milledge Avenue was coming.” Edwards operates Glass Onions Farms, an organic flower and vegetable farm across the river from The Sandbar. He and his wife Ginni, a co-founder of the BRWA—a non-profit land trust focused on protecting the Broad River and its watershed—have lived there for 23 years. “I don’t want the river to become a police state, but… there’s more rules at the 40 Watt Club on a Saturday night than there are on the Broad River on a Sunday morning,” Edwards says.

The complaints from landowners like Beall and Edwards are numerous; they largely center on issues of litter, overcrowding and the drunken behavior of the increasing numbers of paddlers on the river each week. Landowners worry that so many visitors and the trash they generate threaten the health of the river, but both outfitters say they’re doing all they can. Neither allows styrofoam coolers or glass bottles on the river, and they provide places in their boats to store trash. Also a member of the BRWA and a self-described “rabid environmentalist,” Moody is quick to point out the steps he takes to protect the environment: “I’m a real hardcore recycler… we have carpool discounts… we use vegetable-oil-running vans, for God’s sake!” Says Natalie Carey at The Sandbar, “We love the river and we don’t want trash in it either.” But while he encourages paddlers to be conscious of their waste, Moody says, “I’m not my brother’s keeper.”

“As soon as they get around that first bend Michael Moody and Gerald Carey don’t mean nothing to them,” claims Edwards. “They may not try to throw their trash down when they first get in the river, but you know after several beers… if their boat turns over they’re not capable of picking up their trash.”

Regardless, Moody says, “I’m a firm believer that if you have a precious resource that nobody knows about, it won’t get any protection.” He adds that the greatest threat to the long-term health of the Broad is not his clients’ beer cans but the pollution of the river from runoff, saying that land development is the real danger. He warns of the trash from nearby roads, pesticides and fertilizers from yards and fields, and dirt from development sites, all of which pose a threat to the health of the river. Of the continued development of the watershed, Moody says, “they’re basically bringing suburbia to the river.”

But neighbor Velton Hix—who keeps a separate trash can just for the beer cans, drink bottles, flip flops and other trash he pulls from the river—wonders why littering should be taken less seriously on the river than it is in other communities. He asks, “If me and you got in my pickup and drove around Athens tossing out beer cans every other block, how far do you think we’re going to get?”

Hix also says that sometimes paddlers “get so drunk they just lay out on a rock there and pass out.” He even has boaters periodically wander up into his yard, too drunk to continue with their trip. Over the years he has learned not to get involved. He just calls the outfitter named on the side of the boat and waits for the boater to be hauled away. “It’s pitiful,” he sighs.

Hix says that the more boaters he sees in a day, the more trash he sees washing down the river. And though neither outfitter will confirm the number of boaters they send down the river, Hix, whose home sits just yards from the water, claims to have counted over 800 paddlers in a single day.

Neither of the outfitters sees the number of boaters as a problem. “You can have a thousand people float a river and cause no harm,” says Moody. “You don’t own the river. I’m sorry that you can’t go down on that section and enjoy yourself like you used to, but guess what? That’s six-and-a-half miles of that river; you know how much of that river there is, total, to enjoy? Like a hundred. Just go to a different spot.”

According to Sgt. Stan Elrod of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources (DNR), the main problem with crowding arises when several groups of boaters stop on their way down the river. “That’s when you get 40 or 50 people congregating on a rock or a sandbar,” he says. And that, according to Georgia law, is technically trespassing.

Sgt. Elrod points out that the Broad River is currently designated a non-navigable river, which, as he interprets it, means that “right now [paddlers are] enjoying the privilege” of getting out on rocks and sandbars. He also acknowledges that confrontations have arisen between boaters and landowners, saying that “the homeowners have been very patient.” But if behavior doesn’t improve and landowners move to restrict access to their land, he says, “it’ll be a quick float.”

Actually, Georgia law does not guarantee public access to non-navigable waters, so it is conceivable that landowners could restrict passage down the river altogether. But nobody is talking about that yet. “I am aware of all that… but I’d really rather not go there,” says Beall. Edwards agrees. “I don’t think anybody wants to be that big of an asshole,” he says.

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So, could the landowners, outfitters and perhaps the BRWA work together to improve the situation? Sgt. Elrod recalls his time working in White County, GA. “We had all the same problems with the tubers in Helen,” he says. To resolve the issues there, local outfitters agreed to pay a fee to fund ongoing cleanup by an outside company.

On the Broad, both outfitters are also landowners. Moody owns both his put-in and take-out spots on the Madison County side, and Carey owns several miles of frontage along the Broad in Elbert County. And they don’t see their clients as a problem. In addition, Moody sits on the board of the BRWA, and his clear commitment to the environment notwithstanding, some see this as a conflict of interest. Edwards, no longer a BRWA member, feels that Moody’s presence on the board has alienated Carey, and that the BRWA should “cater to [Carey] as much as Moody if they hope to solve the problem.”

But many believe that getting the two outfitters to cooperate with one another may be the biggest obstacle to a resolution. It’s clear that their years of operating on the same stretch of the river have not brought the two together.  Edwards says of Carey and Moody, “They have two very very strong personalities, and the only way they’re going to get together is if there’s a law that makes them.”  Moody acknowledges the problem, saying, “the only way to deal with it is to get both of us involved, and it’s going to be very hard to have any trust.”

Landowners have begun to meet with local law enforcement and the DNR to discuss their concerns, but Sgt. Elrod notes that furloughs brought on by budget shortfalls will mean a reduced DNR presence on the river.  And despite talk of a community forum, no meetings involving all parties have yet taken place.

Neither Beall, Hix, nor Edwards wants the outfitters shut down.  “I don’t have a problem with them making money out here.  I’m proud for ’em,” says Hix.  What these landowners hope for is a limit to the number of boaters put on the river each day; accountability for the cans, bottles and other trash that paddlers generate; and respect for homeowners and their property. “I don’t want to threaten anybody with anything,” says Beall. “I want a dialogue; I want the issues brought to a head.”

Says Edwards, “I think Gerald Carey’s got the right to have his business and I think Michael Moody’s got the right to have his business, and I want them to... I want people to float down the river.  I want people to have a good time… but I just want them to do it in a way that is not at the cost of the river.”

But, warns  Hix, “If this keeps going on, in 25 years there won’t be any river left to come see.”

Lane Seabolt