Monthly Archives: March 2019

WWALS Booth at Wild Azalea Festival, White Springs, FL 2019-03-16

This festival is new to WWALS, with music and dance, arts and crafts, foods and contests in historic White Springs, Florida. You can volunteer to help WWALS talk about our outings and advocacy, including, yes, Valdosta wastewater, plus the Second Annual Suwannee Riverkeeper Songwriting Contest coming up in August. We’ll have the froggy toss game, the EnviroScape, and a kayak raffle.

Wild Azalea Festival logo

When: 10AM-4PM, Saturday, March 16, 2019

Where: Downtown Streets, White Springs, FL 32096

Event: facebook by the festival, meetup

What: “Come out for music and dance by Florida entertainers, arts and crafts, regional foods, contests and other outdoor activities. Visitors can also purchase azaleas and other local plants to take home.”

For more WWALS events and outings, see Continue reading →

Videos: Florida Rivers Task Force about Valdosta Wastewater 2019-02-28

Update 2019-03-17: Valdosta has agreed to meet with the dozen downstream Florida counties, elected officials to elected officials, 6PM, Wednesday, April 10, 2019, at Valdosta City Hall Annex, and “the public will have an opportunity to speak.”

A dozen downstream Florida counties want to meet with the Valdosta City Council, elected officials to elected officials, to present a resolution they passed urging the states of Florida and Georgia to do something about Valdosta’s sewage, and to discuss raising funds to help Valdosta fix its sewage infrastructure, so the Florida counties can restore their eco-tourism on the Withlacoochee, Alapaha, Suwannee, and Santa Fe Rivers. Restoring eco-tourism came up again and again. It’s not just the actual sewage, which never gets to Taylor or Alachua Counties. It’s the stigma of sewage in the rivers. Fixing Valdosta’s spills and regular testing to find other sources are needed.

Valdosta said no. So delegates from all dozen counties are going to come to the March 21, 2019, Valdosta City Council Regular Session and speak in Citizens to Be Heard, three minutes each, some time after 5:30 PM that Thursday evening.

[Movie: Approval of Resolution (115M)]
Movie: Approval of Resolution (115M) Task Force, clockwise from front: Scott R. Koons (NCFRPC), Ken Cornell (Alachua County), Anthony Adams (Lafayette County), Don Hale (Suwannee County), Gene Higginbotham (Dixie County), Kenrick Thomas (Gilchrist County), Danny Riddick (Bradford County), Thomas Demps (Taylor County), Beth Burnam (Hamilton County), Rick Davis (Chair, Madison County)

Apparently Valdosta told them that Valdosta doesn’t do workshops or joint meetings, which is curious, since Valdosta’s city council members a month earlier met with council members from all the other Lowndes County cities and the Lowndes County Commissioners about their Service Delivery Strategy, which includes wastewater. Last year, members of Valdosta Mayor and Council met with elected officials Continue reading →

Florida Community Solar SB 1156

If you want solar power in Florida, please call your state Senator and ask them to support SB 1156. If incumbent electric utilities don’t get on with solar power, community solar is one of the things that will replace them. Expect utilities and fossil fuel companies to oppose this bill, so it is important for you to support it.

Vote Solar
Florida Introduces Community Solar Legislation to Expand Clean Energy Access, Jobs, by rosalind, Vote Solar, 19 February 2019.

Vote Solar et alia, Press Release, 19 February 2019, Florida Introduces Community Solar Legislation to Expand Clean Energy Access, Jobs, Continue reading →

Sunrise at Banks Lake, Time Lapse Video by Guy Bryant 2019-07-29

Found this on YouTube. Thanks, Guy Bryant and Amy Sturkey. Everyone is invited to come see the opposite, the sun set, (and the moon rise) at Banks Lake, Wednesday, March 20, 2019.

Sunset at Banks Lake by Guy Bryant 2018-07-29

Here’s the video: Continue reading →

WWALS booth at Azalea Festival, Valdosta, GA 2019-03-09-10

Update 2019-03-20: Pictures.

Come help WWALS celebrate spring with 30,000 of our south Georgia and north Florida friends, at the Azalea Festival in Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia. We will have information about our outings and advocacy (yes, including Valdosta wastewater), and pictures for sale Gretchen took of our rivers, plus a kayak raffle.

When: 10AM-6PM Saturday 9 March 2019
10AM-5PM Sunday 10 March 2019

Volunteer: WWALS members can help at the table!

Where: Drexel Park
30.846771, -83.285066
Patterson at W. Brookwood Drive, Valdosta, GA
(across Patterson from VSU)
That’s on One Mile Branch, which flows into Sugar Creek, then the Withlacoochee River, the Suwannee, to the Gulf.
Drexel Park is upstream of Wainwright Drive, where WWALS did a cleanup in November 2017, and Valdosta spilled 218,075 gallons of raw sewage. You can help with cleanups or water quality testing.

Event: facebook, meetup

Shirley, Gretchen, pictures are a hit, Volunteers
Photo: John S. Quarterman, of Shirley Kokidko and Gretchen Quarterman at Azalea Festival 2018.

What: Our Story, Azalea Festival,

Approximately 30,000 attendees from all over the Southeast come to Valdosta to enjoy Continue reading →

Generators to be installed at Valdosta lift stations

Received Wednesday. Presumably these are the ten generators approved by the Valdosta City Council December 6, 2018, along with a SCADA system (the “city-wide control system”) so they’ll know the status of their distributed equipment, for a total of around half a million dollars. Also note that not included is a generator for the big force main lift station on Gornto Road, because that one would apparently cost around a million dollars. Maybe there is state or federal funding available for that. Hm, I’d think resuming weekly water quality testing, including at the state line, would cost much less than any of this. So Valdosta could do both again, as it has for years before it ceased weekly testing this year.

Generators To Be Installed At Ten Lift Stations, by Azhia Smothers, Wednesday, February 27, 2019 9:55:00 AM,

The City of Valdosta Utilities Department will be placing ten generators at lift stations around the city. The generators will help to ensure that the city experiences fewer power outages which can sometimes result in sewer spills. Recently, the first generator was installed at the pump station at Hyde Park. All ten generators will be installed before the upcoming hurricane season.

In the event of a power outage that occurs for more than an hour, Continue reading →