Thanks to UGA Professors Jaivime Evaristo (isotope data) and Todd Rasmussen (water levels) for reviewing their two lines of evidence that the Okefenokee Swamp leaks through the underlying limestone into the Upper Floridan Aquifer.
This webinar explains their recent scientific paper on this subject.
Note that this means that nearby water withdrawals draw more water down from the Swamp into the Aquifer.
This paper is more incentive to pass Georgia House Bill 561 to protect the Okefenokee Swamp from mining, at least on its east side.
Georgians, please ask your statehouse delegation to pass HB 561.
Floridians, please ask your Georgia friends and relatives to do the same.
Here’s how to contact Georgia Statehouse members:
A few paragraphs about Chemours layoffs have been circling around north Florida,
about the titanium dioxide (TiO2) mines near Starke, Florida.
Chemours layoffs actually affect many mines in both Florida and Georgia, and Chemours already closed some mines, due to low prices for the minerals it mines.
No, Krebs Land Development did not buy any mines nor operations from Chemours.
Krebs is an earthmoving contractor that has worked for Chemours for some time,
in both Georgia and Florida.
Now Chemours is outsourcing more operations to Krebs.
Some Chemours former employees may end up working for Krebs,
run by Stuart Krebs.
Why?
Housebuilding is down, so there is less demand for white paint.
Also, much TiO2 is being imported.
So the price of TiO2 is down.
This is the most up to date graph I can find, which only goes through October 2025.
Apparently it’s gotten worse since then. Continue reading →
Hahira, Georgia, January 12, 2026 —
For thirty years it was suspected that the Okefenokee Swamp leaks water into the groundwater from which we all drink.
Now we have much stronger evidence, that the Swamp leaks not a little but a lot of water into the Floridan Aquifer.
At noon by zoom this Thursday, you can watch
the UGA professors who published it explain that evidence.
They will also mention some consequences, such as nearby water withdrawals
pull more water from the Swamp into the Aquifer.
Lead author Prof. Jaivime Evaristo will explain the isotope evidence.
Prof. Todd Rasmussen will explain the water level evidence.
This paper is more incentive to pass Georgia House Bill 561 to protect the Okefenokee Swamp from mining, at least on its east side.
Georgians, please ask your statehouse delegation to pass HB 561.
Floridians, please ask your Georgia friends and relatives to do the same.
Here’s how to contact Georgia Statehouse members:
UGA Professors Jaivime Evaristo (isotope data) and Todd Rasmussen (water levels) review
two lines of evidence that the Okefenokee Swamp leaks through the underlying limestone into the Upper Floridan Aquifer, and nearby water withdrawals draw more down.
This WWALS Webinar by zoom at noon will explain their recent scientific paper on this subject.
This paper is more incentive to pass Georgia House Bill 561 to protect the Okefenokee Swamp from mining, at least on its east side.
Georgians, please ask your statehouse delegation to pass HB 561.
Floridians, please ask your Georgia friends and relatives to do the same.
Here’s how to contact Georgia Statehouse members:
History Instructor Vickie Everitte
conducted
a historical exploration of Georgia’s Wiregrass Region
and the complex stories of survival, resistance, and adaptation that unfolded there after the 1814 Treaty of Fort Jackson.
WWALS Board Member Janet Martin gave a brief introduction to this WWALS Webinar.
Questions and answers were at the end,
including a distinguished guest.
Native American and Passageways to Freedom within the Wiregrass Region1
As settlers moved south of the Oconee River, drawn by the land’s
economic promise, waves of migration and militia efforts reshaped
the landscape—and the lives of the Native American families
who called it home. Through rivers, streams, and the vast Okefenokee
Swamp, Indigenous people found ways not only to endure but to carve
out paths of freedom and self-determination amid the U.S. Indian
Removal Policy of the 1830s.
Drawing from original correspondence between settlers, militia, and
Georgia’s governors in Milledgeville, this presentation reveals how
waterways became corridors of escape and survival. As Everitte
reminds us, “Swamps are places on the margins — as much,
they are places of transition, opportunity, and challenge.”2
University of Georgia (UGA) Professor Todd C. Rasmussen is back after 30 years
with peer-reviewed double evidence that the Okefenokee Swamp does exchange water with the underlying Floridan Aquifer from which we all drink in south Georgia and north Florida.
This paper is more incentive to pass Georgia House Bill 561 to protect the Okefenokee Swamp from mining, at least on its east side.
Georgians, please ask your statehouse delegation to pass HB 561.
Floridians, please ask your Georgia friends and relatives to do the same.
Here’s how to contact Georgia Statehouse members:
According to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the Suwannee River Basin
starts in Waycross, Georgia, around a line south down Gibbs Street, east on Walker Road, south on Gilmore Street, south down Swamp Road, then east along Washington Drive.
Looks like you could paddle through the Suwannee River Sill, but it’s not clear how far you would get through the Narrows below Stephen C. Foster State Park Ramp
before you got to the Sill.
Yesterday Shirley Kokidko checked on water levels in the Suwannee River in the Okefenokee Swamp.
She says there is enough water to paddle to Billys Island or Minnies Lake.
Until we get some rain to break this drought, paddling
from SCFSP to Griffis Fish Camp will be doubtful.
Here is a video Shirley sent from the First Gate at the Suwannee River Sill,
the 4.5-mile-long earthen dam that was supposed to keep water levels up
in the Okefenokee Swamp to prevent fires, but did not work.
Actually, the Suwannee River Sill Gates are always open.
This was a facebook comment yesterday, “Open the dam in the swamp.”
It was on this WWALS facebook post:
Very low water, Fargo Ramp, Suwannee River 2025-11-12 Video by Shirley Kokidko for WWALS Watershed Coalition, Inc. (WWALS):
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1946665392780126
The Sill itself was an experiment in fire prevention that did not work,
and also turned out to be a bad idea, because the Okefenokee Swamp
needs fire to regenerate itself.
Veronica Kelly-Summers, a dedicated Visitor Services Manager with
Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge,
talked about the Okefenokee Swamp, its history, significance, places to go, things to do, and what’s next,
in this largest and best-preserved freshwater wetland in the U.S.
The Swamp is the headwaters of two rivers: the St. Marys that forms the border between Georgia and Florida,
and the Suwannee, which flows through Georgia and the Florida state song.
Here is the WWALS video of Veronica’s webinar, from noon-1 PM, Thursday, September 11, 2025:
https://youtu.be/pvLU8wPLsZc
The WWALS
campout at Floyd’s Island
in the middle of the Okefenokee Swamp
has unfortunately been cancelled due to low water.
So you can watch Veronica’s presentation instead.
WWALS Board Member Janet Martin gave a brief introduction.
In questions and answers at the end,
Veronica elaborated on what it means
for the Okefenokee NWR to become a World Heritage Site:
more visibility, more visitors, but no additional federal funding.
Veronica Kelly-Summers is a dedicated Visitor Services Manager with
over 15 years of experience in protecting natural resources and
connecting people with nature. She holds a bachelor’s and master’s
degree in forestry from Southern Illinois University with a focus on
forest recreation and wildlife habitat management. Her career with
the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has taken her to eight national
wildlife refuges from the woods and swamps of southern Illinois to
the Loess Bluffs of Iowa and Missouri, the Florida Everglades, and
she’s now stationed at Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge in
Georgia. She works closely with staff and partners to provide
leadership and strategic direction for the Visitor Services program
including managing visitor facilities and recreational opportunities
for camping, boating, interpretation, environmental education,
special events, outreach, hunting, fishing, managing volunteers, and
much more. When not at work, she enjoys spending time with her
husband, Jacob, and their pets, a yellow lab named Charlie and a
spicy tuxedo cat named Tino.
![[Video: Okefenokee Swamp leaks into the Floridan Aquifer, peer-reviewed evidence, WWALS Webinar 2026-01-15]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2026-01-15--okefenokee-into-aquifer-webinar-pictures/fbmany.jpg)
![[Chemours closed some TiO2 mines, now lays off workers 2026-01-06, outsources to contractor, because of low prices]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2026-01-06--chemours-layoffs/fbmany.jpg)
![[Okefenokee Swamp leaks into the Floridan Aquifer, WWALS Webinar 2026-01-15, Prof. Evaristo & Rasmussen]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2026-01-15--okefenokee-into-aquifer-webinar/fbmany.jpg)
![[Geography of Opportunity, by Vickie Everitte, a WWALS Webinar, 2025-12-11]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2025-12-11--geography-of-opportunity-webinar-pictures/fbmany.jpg)
![[Okefenokee Swamp leaks water into the Floridan Aquifer --peer-reviewed evidence 2025-12-09, Mining withdrawals would make it worse]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2025-12-09--okefenokee-swamp-floridan-aquifer/fbmany.jpg)
![[Where does southwest Waycross drain? Through Lees Branch, into Middle Fork, Suwannee River]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2025-11-23--waycross-sw-drain/fbmany.jpg)
![[Map: SW from Brunel Street --SRWT 2025-11-23]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2025-11-23--waycross-sw-drain/2025-11-23--map-sw-from-brunel-st-srwt.jpg)
![[Low water, first gate, Suwannee River Sill, Okefenokee Swamp, Thursday, November 20, 2025]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2025-11-20--suwannee-sill-gate-1/fbmany.jpg)
![[Open the Okefenokee Gates, Suwannee River Sill, Actually always open, Since around 2000]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2025-11-15--open-the-okefenokee-gates/fbmany.jpg)
![[Okefenokee Swamp by Veronica Kelley-Summers, a WWALS Webinar by Zoom, 2025-09-11]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2025-09-11--okefenokee-swamp-webinar-video/fbmany.jpg)