A river flows under Atlanta’s airport, and people hope to make it a destination

South of the airport, the Flint River gains in size and flows above ground. The lights for the fifth runway are in the background.

Dustin Chambers / WABE

When you’re in a plane on the runway at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, or on the plane train heading to a terminal, the Flint River might be flowing somewhere beneath you.

The river starts just north of the airport, and it’s not really much to see around its headwaters, woven into the cities through which it flows, through pipes and in ditches along roads.

There’s an initiative now to bring the Flint out of its relative obscurity in the Atlanta area and to make the river a destination.