"I have come to know Dave as a careful researcher and a clever writer with a meticulous style appropriate to a GeorgiaTech-trained engineer," Emerson says. "If you didn’t see him in action, or on his Norton 750 Fastback motorcycle, Dave might seem like Mr. Scientific Method, a number cruncher and nothing more. But underneath his methodical exterior, Dave Kaufman is a fanatic."

Kaufman is persistent, for sure.

As a 13-year-old boy living in Decatur, Ga., he was exploring the South Fork of Peachtree Creek when he discovered the ruins of Decatur’s 1906 waterworks, where the waters of South and Burnt forks were impounded to provide the city’s drinking water.

Kaufman became intrigued by the sense of romance and mystery surrounding the creek and its forgotten past.

During his student days at Tech, Kaufman took an industrial design course that required a photo essay as a term project. He decided to photograph hydropower plants and investigated rivers in north Georgia and North Carolina.

"It was therapeutic," Kaufman, ME 85, says. "I ended up with several hobbies — canoeing, photography and exploration."

And the mystery of Peachtree Creek continued to fascinate him.

"I’d see this creek on Clairmont Road, then I’d see it on Northside Drive, at Market Square and Woodward Way and other places throughout Atlanta. I wondered how it tied together — where it came from and where it went to. I started doing a little research and, not knowing what I didn’t know, I decided I would pull all this together and write a book," Kaufman says.

"I figured this project would take a couple of years," he adds and laughs. It has been a 13-year undertaking. "It’s sort of an endless trail. It’s hard to decide when you’ve done enough research to cover the topic adequately."Confederate soldier Wallace

This fall the journey finally comes to trail’s end when the book is published by Hill Street Press in Athens, Ga. It will be a full-color, coffee table book priced at $32.50. And the fall printing means the book will be available for the holiday season.

"It’s a nontraditional history," he says. "I began writing this book not knowing how history is supposed to be written. I started with the watershed and looked at the development. What features were here that attracted people? How did they evolve as the urban environment evolved?"

Kaufman knew he needed to ferret out historical information, talk to people familiar with the creek and personally explore the 131 square miles of watershed drained by Peachtree Creek and its tributaries — South Fork, North Fork, Main Branch and Nancy Creek — which finally spill into the Chattahoochee River.

Atlanta attracted settlers because of a combination of land and water. "People were drawn to the area because of the water resources — drinking water, hydropower,"

Kaufman says. "One of the things I wanted to find out was how this pristine creek came to be relegated to a sewer.

In 1990, Kaufman launched his red, 17-foot Old Town tandem canoe into the raw waters and began navigating the waterway.

"I see Peachtree Creek as a forgotten river," he says. "It was once the source of drinking water and a source of power. The waterway is horrible. And you hear residents complain, "Hey, I’ve been calling the county for two years.’

The city of Atlanta started dumping sewage in Peachtree Creek in the early 1900s. One of the dams for the mills had to be demolished because of stagnant sewage.

"But it is getting better," he says.

Kaufman has studied how some other cities have attempted to solve their water problems and is impressed with the tunnel system Chicago built to provide a reserve capacity for storm water. Extra capacity would mean storm waters would not cause Atlanta’s sewer system to overflow untreated material into its water system.

"I think that’s where we are headed," Kaufman says.

©2003 Georgia Tech Alumni Association