Behind the lake house where we used to live, there’s an old stadium seat on the point of the peninsula. The realtor who sold us the house referred to it as a "million dollar view". The seat was put there, I assume, untold years ago, by someone who wanted to sit and watch the sunsets and the sailboats from Lanier Sailing Club. From our house it was a small hike and then a short climb to get up to the grassy bluff where the seat was positioned for the best viewing. The effort is worth it, though, because from that advantage there was an incredible panorama of the water and sometimes I was held there, spellbound. On a clear day you could see Sawnee Mountain and Booger Hill in Cumming. This is where I went when I needed to think.

There are so many benefits to living on the lake, I can’t begin to list them. There are disadvantages as well, but most of those involve the carelessness of visitors and shortsided decisions made by people in power to determine the future of the lake. Recently, one Saturday morning, when our radio alarm tuned into O’Neill Williams, Great Outdoors Show, half asleep I heard a caller ask O’Neill what could be done about the pollution in Lake Allatoona that is ruining it. Fishermen now refer to this once beautiful body of water as "The Dead Sea". O’Neill admitted he didn’t know what could be done and offered it was a political problem with development by big business and land gobblers at the root of most of the dilemma. It was his opinion that nothing could happen to reverse the damage done that is killing the wildlife and ultimately the lake because when there is big money to be made, nothing else matters - not even the future of Cobb county’s drinking water.

Suddenly, I was wide awake. I started thinking. Big Business. Big Money. Big Housing Developments. Decision makers siding with money over prudence. Small municipalities and county officials zoning with only income in mind, then petitioning to be allowed to dump millions of gallons of treated sewage into the lake, even when the EPA has warned against it. Big Landfills that will eventually leach toxic chemicals into the water. Lake Lanier. Destined to be another Dead Sea?

I was haunted by this for days. I’m not an alarmist. I’m not a pessimist. But I do love this lake and Ron and I do our small part to take care of it even if all that means is keeping the beach around our dock cleared of Styrofoam and other trash that floats up. Some of this is swept off other docks in storms, some of it is caused by thoughtless people dumping out of their boats. These people, who only come on the weekends to enjoy the pleasures of this exquisite place don’t live here, so they don't care where their trash ends up. Even so, all the trash in the lake left behind by fun-seekers do not contribute near the pollution that weed-killers and fertilizers do. Then burden the perimeter of the lake with septic tanks that often seep and houseboaters who ignore the no-waste dumping laws and last but not least mix in manufacturing, processing and industrial waste and you have a deadly formula. If natural erosion was not enough, even the silt that slides in from and during housing development is slowly choking the lake.

I think about this now because I am a grandmother and wonder what will be left of this lake, if these damaging factors are left unchecked, when my grandchildren are raising their families. When officials are willing to sacrifice the future for present profit, I wonder what can they be thinking?

We believe we are in control of our lives but we are so busy living our lives we entrust the business of our precious future to others; others who often are only thinking about myopic short term gains. This, then, leaves us at their mercy.

From Sunset Point, every clear evening, I could watch a heavy orange sun stain a glimmering corridor on the vast water that made up our back yard. It’s hard to imagine not being able to hear the loons calling or see the gulls in a feeding frenzy where the shad are chased to the surface by the big game fish. I have never been able to take these everyday wonders for granted and now I commit them to memory and then to paper because it might be all I have left to bequeath our children and theirs.

For what good can riches do, or might, or fame or power, if ne’re again there blooms the sweet and fragrant flower...