Tag Archives: Georgia

Wastewater at Valdosta City Council, Winter 2018-2019

While the Rivers Task Force of the dozen downstream Florida counties is looking for something to do to help, Valdosta clearly hasn’t yet done enough to stop its sewage spills, but they are doing more. Here’s some context that may indicate what might help. Spoiler: water quality monitoring, funding for further fixes, and enforcement if necessary. Unless raw sewage spills really are what Valdosta wants to be known for in Tallahassee and Atlanta.

See Valdosta December 2018 sewage and Hamilton County, FL legislative delegation 2019-01-16″>

Also: come on up and talk to the Valdosta City Council. Merrillee Malwitz-Jipson did, and it got their attention. They keep hearing from me for years now, and it helps to see somebody directly affected downstream come up and speak.

This post is mostly about two Valdosta City Council meetings, that included much discussion of the recent Valdosta wastewater spills, on on Continue reading →

Valdosta December 2018 sewage and Hamilton County, FL legislative delegation 2019-01-16

Water quality testing of drinking wells and rivers is needed, and not just when there is a spill. Maybe the state of Florida will help fund it. Or maybe Valdosta should. It doesn’t seem right that Hamilton County should have to pay for it.

For the WWALS automated updates on GA-EPD Sewage Spills Reports, see wwals.net/issues/vww/ga-spills/.

The main newspaper of Suwannee and Hamilton Counties, Florida, is getting into the act, but seems to only know part of the picture. Editorial: It’s time for support with sewage spills, The Suwannee Democrat, Jan 24, 2019, Continue reading →

Rochelle, GA, spills again 2019-01-24

Back in 2015 and 2016, Rochelle, GA had some sewage spill problems, but they appeared fixed. Until March 2018, and then again in November 2018, and twice now in January 2019.

The January 10, 2019, Rochelle spill seemed almost negligible at 300 gallons of raw sewage. It took GA-EPD several tries even to figure out Continue reading →

Sewage spills in the Suwannee River Basin 2015-2018

Update 2019-01-25: Added an HTML table of all spills in the Suwannee River Basin in Georgia since the beginning of 2015.

WWALS Science Committee Chair Tom Potter made this committee report to the WWALS Quarterly Board Meeting of January 2019:

The Science Committee has focused on monitoring sewage spills from Municipalities in the region. The primary data is the online database provide by the GA EPD. The agency regularly compiles spill volume, date, and, location across the state and posts the information on-line.

WWALS played a central role in convincing EPD to provide this data in a timely manner and has regularly posted spill data on the WWALS website, wwals.net/issues/vww/ga-spills/. This a substantial improvement over prior reporting systems and is contributing to timely reporting of conditions that may adversely impact water quality and recreational uses of streams and rivers.
The following graph summarizes reported spill data in Quitman, Tifton and Valdosta and Continue reading →

WWALS invites downstream counties to Valdosta City Council meeting 2019-01-16

Update 2019-01-22: Yes, that’s the same day as the 4PM meeting in Lake City, Florida of the Task Force of the downstream counties. Since each county only has one Task Force delegate, maybe they can send other people to the Valdosta City Council meeting. Or, if Valdosta is too far for you, maybe you’d like to go to Lake City Thursday.

WWALS Watershed Coalition board member Eileen Box invited downstream counties and residents to come speak to the Valdosta City Council this Thursday. Suwannee Riverkeeper John S. Quarterman added, “Every Valdosta City Council agenda has Citizens to be Heard. They’re tired of hearing from me about sewage spills. Maybe if some of the affected parties downstream spoke to them directly they would notice. Come on up and give it a try!“

Photo: Jamie Wachter, Suwannee Democrat, Youtube video, 2019-01-14.

Jamie Wachter, Suwannee Democrat, January 16, 2019, ‘IT’S A SHAME’ Residents, officials share wastewater spill concerns with legislative delegation,

[Eileen] Box, who is a board member of the Suwannee Riverkeeper, said North Florida residents may need to expand the reach of their complaints. She said those concerns need to be directed at the people who can do something about it — the Valdosta City Council.
“If they start hearing from Suwannee County and Hamilton and Madison and all these counties that are affected, when you come and talk, it does have an effect, she said. That may be one little thing that we can do.”

The next Valdosta City Council meeting is this Thursday:

When: 5:30 PM, Thursday, January 24, 2019

Where: Council Chambers, 2nd Floor
Valdosta City Hall
216 East Central Avenue, Valdosta, GA 31601

What: Agenda Item 5. Citizens to be Heard Continue reading →

Water Quality Testing, Troupville Boat Ramp 2019-01-06

You can learn how to do water quality testing, and help WWALS test our waters. We have Florida training coming up this Monday, January 21, 2019, at noon, at Suwannee River State Park. We’ll be scheduling another Georgia training soon.

Air

Here is Sara Jay testing Little River water at Troupville Boat Ramp, Sunday, January 6, 2019.

Continue titrating with Sodium Thiosulfate ONE DROP AT A TIME, swirling thoroughly after each drop,

Pictures of the whole test procedure are Continue reading →

Public Health Assessment of Rice Rail Yard, Waycross, GA 2018-06-07

The Georgia Department of Health published many positive downwards trends in contaminants, and some big “cannot conclude”s last summer, when it released through the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) a Public Health Assessment, CSX TRANSPORTATION — RAIL YARD SITE, WAYCROSS, WARE COUNTY, GEORGIA.

Most of the graphs show downward trends, like this one, of Trichloroethene (TCE), the substance whose detection seems to have kicked off all this work.

On page 39, the report says about data collected by Silent Disaster: Continue reading →

Rochelle details, and Tifton spills at Agrirama Lift Station 2019-01-15

Tifton, and any other cities: if you keep spilling from the same place whenever there’s a big rain, maybe it’s not the rain that’s excessive. Maybe your sewage infrastructure is inadequate and you should fix it.

One day a week ago GA-EPD included latitude and longitude in the spreadsheet, with this for Tifton’s Agrirama Lake Lift Station: 31.464770, -83.530532, shown here on the WWALS map of the Withlacoochee and Little River Water Trail (WLRWT).

In yesterday’s GA-EPD Sewage Spills Report we have a little more detail on the 300-gallon Rochelle, GA spill: Continue reading →

Quitman spill amount 2019-01-14 for 2019-01-03

Finally we see in the GA-EPD data from yesterday a total for Quitman’s spill of the third of January:

120,000 gallons of raw sewage. That’s far more than my previous guess.

Maybe you’d like to join the new WWALS water quality testing program. Or maybe you’d like to join this fun and work by becoming a WWALS member today!

Let’s add up Quitman’s recent spills: Continue reading →

Top of the Alapaha River Basin: Rochelle, GA, spilled 2019-01-10

First time we’ve seen this: 300 gallons of raw sewage spilled from Rochelle, Georgia, in Wilcox County, at the top of the Alapaha River Basin.

Rochelle is nestled between Continue reading →

WWALS Watershed Coalition (Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®)

WWALS Watershed Coalition advocates for conservation and stewardship of the Withlacoochee, Willacoochee, Alapaha, Little, and Suwannee River watersheds in south Georgia and north Florida through education, awareness, environmental monitoring, and citizen activities.