On February 16, 1990 flooding of the river submerged much of the central business district of the riverfront towns of Copperhill, Tennessee and McCaysville, Georgia. The area was once heavily mined for copper ore from the Copper Basin and polluted by smelting operations. Extensive logging and plant destroying smog depleted topsoil and polluted acid and metals into the area's streams. The area has since been cleaned and greened. Olympic kayaker Joe Jacobi led a successful effort to bring the Atlanta Olympic white-water event to the Ocoee River in 1996, and his wife Lisa, a former CNN news producer, left her job to open a downtown bed-and-breakfast and become a local internet entrepreneur.