Finding the Flint is a campaign to reveal and restore the Flint River headwaters in the Atlanta Airport area. 

Since 2017, in collaboration with stakeholders across Atlanta's Southside, our team has studied and developed a series of projects to reclaim the river in ways that supports existing communities by enhancing connectivity and economic development. Finding the Flint projects range from new parks and trails along the upper headwaters to larger scale restoration and land protection downstream. Atlanta-based urban planner and author Hannah Palmer convenes both a Working Group of airport-area leaders and community engagement activities to galvanize widespread support for this vision. 

The Flint is Georgia’s second longest river, starting in Atlanta and flowing 344 miles south to the Florida border, where it joins with the Chattahoochee to create the Apalachicola River. It flows for nearly 220 miles without a single dam, making it one of just 40 rivers in the United States that flow unimpeded for more than 200 miles. The Flint River Basin is home to an estimated 412,000 acres of wetlands, and the river itself is home to rare and endangered species of mussels, fishes, and flowers.

The Flint River also serves as a water source for more than one million people, and boasts prime fishing and paddling opportunities. All of these critical benefits of the Flint River are at risk because of the many challenges it faces upstream—rapid urbanization, increasing demands for drinking water supply, extremely low flows in times of drought. Our goal is to restore and protect the upper reaches of the Flint River, while turning it into a space that metro Atlanta residents can enjoy.

With Finding the Flint, we hope to showcase all that makes the Flint River unique and create new ways for metro Atlantans—and all Georgians—to access and enjoy the river.