WWALS and Sierra Club

WWALS and Suwannee-St Johns Group of Sierra Club Florida are cooperating on outings now, and Sierra Club Florida is holding a Rural Office opening in October.

Merrillee Malwitz-Jipson, previously president of Our Santa Fe River (OSFR), recently was hired by Sierra Club Florida as Campaign Organizer, and she’s having an Open House for a new Rural Sierra Club Office:

When: 10AM-2PM Saturday October 8th 2016

Where: Rum 138
2070 SW County Road 138
Fort White, FL 32038-2652

What: art gallery, music, picnic, and paddle down the Santa Fe River, which is the third big tributary of the Suwannee River, downstream from WWALS’ Withlacoochee and Alapaha Rivers.

You’re also invited to meet Merrillee, with whom WWALS has long collaborated. OSFR and Sierra Club have been intervenors on the Sabal Trail FERC docket as long as WWALS has, for example.

Here’s the September 2016 Newsletter of the Suwannee-St. Johns Group. All of it is well worth reading, especially the press release about the lawsuit against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers by Sierra Club, Flint Riverkeeper, Gulf Restoration Network, and others. That newsletter also advertises two upcoming WWALS outings:

For more WWALS outings and events as they are posted, see the WWALS calendar.

That SSJ newsletter lists their own fall meetings, which are all 7PM on the first Thursday of the month at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, 4225 NW 34th St, Gainesville, FL 32605:

  • SEPTEMBER 1: WATER CONSERVATION ISSUE FOR HOMEOWNERS Stacie Greco and Emily Rodriguez are both working with the Alachua County Department of Environmental Protection. They will have a Power Point presentation on the ways to conserve water in your yard and house, and they will explain the new Irrigation Code Enforcement.
  • OCTOBER 6: MEMORIES OF JOHN MUIR. With Merald Clark, Park Ranger at Morningside Nature Center – A FUN PROGRAM TO REMIND US THAT JOHN MUIR HIKED ACROSS FLORIDA, from FERNANDINA BEACH to CEDAR KEY during the fall of 1867.
  • NOVEMBER 3: “SANDHILL ECOLOGY” With Professor Francis Jack Putz, of the University of Florida, author Of “Finding Home in the Sandy Lands of the South: A Naturalist’s Journey in Florida”
  • DECEMBER 1: HOLIDAY PARTY AND AWARDS CEREMONY: Mark your calendars…. Bring a dish!!! SSJ will provide desserts…

WWALS has for years collaborated with Sierra Club, from even back before Georgia Sierra Club invited us to testify about solar power and water at the Georgia PSC in Atlanta in 2013. Sierra Club Florida (and national) contributed to legal expenses for WWALS v Sabal Trail & FDEP. All three Sierra Club chapters in Florida, Georgia, and Alabama have been on record against Sabal Trail since March 2014 and WWALS has been actively working with them, including speaking at the Alabama Sierra Club retreat in 2014. WWALS is not alone in this, of course: the Riverkeepers of Georgia and Florida have also long collaborated with Sierra Club against Sabal Trail and on other matters.

Back in January 2016 the Suwannee-St Johns Group of SC Florida hosted a hike at Suwannee River State Park to where Sabal Trail proposes to drill under the Suwannee River and that group has been at most of the WWALS events at that site, not to mention Sierra Club, WWALS, OSFR, and Madison Garden Club were among the speakers against Sabal Trail and on other matters at the August Suwannee River Water Management District (SRWMD) board meeting.

Suwannee-St Johns Group Chair Maryvonne Devensky went on the recent WWALS outing on the Suwannee River from Roline to Cypress Creek. She rode in a canoe with WWALS board member Outings Chair Chris Mericle, and liked it so much that her Group and WWALS are now advertising each others’ outings and other events, and collaborating on new ones.

So come on down to the Alapaha River in September and the Withlacoochee in October, and you may see some Sierra Club people joining in! Plus the day before that WWALS Withlacoochee outing is the Sierra Club Rural Office opening in Fort White. I hope to see you there, too.

-jsq

You can join this fun and work by becoming a WWALS member today!