The Riverkeeper

Coosa Riverkeeper employs a full-time Riverkeeper, Frank Chitwood, who is the eyes, ears, and voice of the Coosa River. Chitwood actively patrols the Coosa River by boat and plane. Responding to citizen complaints of pollution, conducting permit research, and discovering illegal pollution keep the Riverkeeper in tune with the myriad threats to the Coosa River. Part scientist, part law enforcement, the Riverkeeper exemplifies citizen activism, but with a core, mainstream value: clean water is a right for all.

About the Riverkeeper

The father's side of Frank Chitwood's family has lived along the Etowah tributary of the Coosa River near Lake Allatoona since about 1830 (well before the lake was built). Chitwood, however, is a first-generation Alabamian, growing up in Birmingham. His favorite places in Alabama growing up were Camp Laney in Little River Canyon of the Coosa Valley and Talladega National Forest. For recreation, he enjoys hiking, paddling, and photography.

Chitwood attended the Altamont School in Birmingham where he was Vice President of the Environmental Club. At Altamont he was honored with the William Ransom Johnson Dunn, III award which "recognizes students who have unselfishly served the school as leaders and helpers." Later, he graduated cum laude from Boston University with a dual-concentration in accounting and entrepreneurship and a minor in environmental analysis & policy. While at BU, he was a member of LOCK Honorary Society, a group of School of Management students who tutored fellow students as a free service. After some volunteering with Riverkeeper groups, Chitwood became interested in starting a Riverkeeper program to protect the places he loved in Alabama. Chitwood is currently the youngest Waterkeeper in the world.

The Olive

To patrol the lakes, Coosa Riverkeeper deploys its 18' aluminum craft "The Olive." The boat is named after Popeye the Sailor's boat. Popeye's creator, Tom Sims, inherited a comic strip called Thimble Theatre, the predecessor to Popeye. Sims' father was a captain on the boat Loeta, which the Army Corps of Engineers used to keep a channel of the river over Horseleg Shoals in Georgia clear. Sims, a resident of Ohatchee (on Lake Neely Henry in the present day), once said "Fantastic as Popeye is, the whole story is based on facts. As a boy I was raised on the Coosa River. When I began writing the script for Popeye I put my characters back on the old Leota that I knew as a boy, transformed it into a ship and made the Coosa River a salty sea."

The Olive is a fighter, having been flipped over and significantly damaged in Tuscaloosa during the April 27, 2011 tornado which affected much of Alabama. The Olive has been restored to continue its commitment to protecting clean water in Alabama. If you see the Olive on the road or in the water, give us a holler!

"The Olive" on Hatchet Creek on an October morning