Wendell “Winky” Berryhill and James “Speedy” Holland, friends for more than 50 years, never set out to be environmentalists. Yet thousands of people living within the Altamaha watershed in Georgia enjoy cleaner water, thanks to these vigilant guardians of the Altamaha and its tributaries, the Ocmulgee and Oconee rivers.
“My wife says I’ve got river on the brain,” said Berryhill, 68, a retired carpenter. He was one of the first volunteers to sign on in 1999 after Holland, representing the Georgia Waterman’s Association, and a dozen other concerned citizens founded the Altamaha Riverkeeper Inc., headquartered in Darien, Georgia.
Fed up with the litter, sewage and dirt that fouled his beloved Oconee River, Berryhill uses his boating, hunting and fishing skills to track polluters.
Holland, 65, a professional crabber for 20 years, became an activist after watching his crab harvest dwindle from 1,500 to 160 pounds a day -- the result of increasingly degraded water in Georgia’s rivers and marshlands.
“We called it ‘getting loud’,” Holland said of the initial efforts of a colorful assortment of local residents who banded together to form the waterman’s association.
Holland, the official Altamaha Riverkeeper, investigates hundreds of sites each year, depending upon tips from a network of individuals who keep watch over activities along their particular piece of the river. Like Berryhill, he is a premier outdoorsman with a very understanding wife.
“I’d go for weeks without a call when we first started,” he said. “Now I get a couple of calls a day. We’re on the go all the time. That tells me something is happening. People are starting to realize they do make a difference.”
The work requires patience and persistence. Holland and Berryhill have been working on one municipal sewage pipe for almost three years, checking and rechecking the site for violations.
“They think I’ve forgotten,” Holland said. “I never forget. I’m gonna be back until they comply. We have good laws in Georgia; they just have to be enforced.”
Holland and Berryhill’s fieldwork has supported five successful efforts to implement various state and federal laws during the past several years. Working with the Georgia Center for Law in the Public Interest, they are proud that their site investigations have served as the foundation for environmental policy change.
“They know how to operate in the wild,” said Deborah Sheppard, executive director of the Altamaha Riverkeeper, of Berryhill and Holland. “That’s what makes them so valuable as field agents.”
In 2006, Berryhill’s volunteer efforts captured $50,000 for Altamaha Riverkeeper when he won a national conservationist award sponsored by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and the Anheuser-Busch Companies Inc.
Although greatly pleased with the honor, his real motivation for keeping up his demanding volunteer activities is his abiding affection for the rivers.
“Sometimes I just take the boat out on the water and ride,” Berryhill said, looking out at the slow-flowing brown water of the Ocmulgee. “I don’t fish or anything; I just ride.”