Update 2020-08-10: Register to comment: Nestle water withdrawal on SRWMD agenda; staff in favor 2020-08-11

Nestlé water withdrawal from Ginnie Springs next to the Santa Fe River is back on the SRWMD agenda for Tuesday morning, with staff in favor this time. Please speak up now!

Seven Springs Water Company Project, 2-041-218202-3, August 2020
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That’s 9AM, Tuesday, August 11, 2020, online only; see below for how. As near as I can tell, the main difference is the withdrawal request is reduced by 14.58% from 1.1520 million gallons/day to 0.9840 MGD. I still don’t see why a Swiss company should profit from sucking up Floridan Aquifer water to sell us back plastic bottles that we then have to clean up from springs and rivers.

If you don’t think a 14.58% reduction is enough, you can still

• comment to SRWMD before the meeting.
• Or attend the meeting online Tuesday morning.
• I recommend both.
• Also, letters to the editor, calls to your Florida statehouse delegation, etc., would be good.
• As OSFR recommends in its Action Alert, you can “write each board member this week and ask them to deny the permit. Here is a link to all the board members:” http://www.srwmd.org/134/Current-Board-Members.
• While you’re at it, how about as the Governor why there are still three vacant SRWMD board seats, including the one for the Santa Fe River. The other two vacant board seats are for the Upper Suwannee Basin and the Aucilla Basin. So the seats for all the most populated areas of the Suwannee River Basin are basin, and also areas with many if not most of the springs.

And is there even really a reduction in water use? On page 121 in “NWNA High Springs Water Consumption, Viability Analysis“ this table seems to indicate that the 0.9840 MGD figure is merely due to lack of efficiency in Nestlé’s bottling lines.

Table 4.1 – Facility Capacity Buildout Spring Water Consumption

Either total is after Nestlé’s planned doubling of bottling lines, as depicted on pages 119, 120, and 121:

Adding bottling lines

Does that seem like a good idea to you?

The Notice

Here’s the notice that SRWMD sent to most commenters, but apparently not to WWALS:

August 3, 2020

Dear Sir or Madam,

The Suwannee River Water Management District ( District) previously received your comments related to Water Use Permit renewal application number 2-041-218202-3 (Seven Springs Water Company, Gilchrist County).

This correspondence is to serve as a notification that the Administrative Law Judge has relinquished jurisdiction relative to consideration of this application back to the District, and both the application and revised staff recommendation will be considered by the District’s Governing Board at its August 11, 2020 public meeting held by webinar from Live Oak, Florida at 9:00 am EDT. The webinar will include a call-in number for you to address the Board regarding this application if you so choose.

Board materials including the meeting call-in number, webinar information, staff recommendation, and technical staff report can be found at: http://mysuwanneeriver.com/137/Board-Meeting-Materials.

Suwannee River Water Management District | MySuwanneeRiver.com | 9225 CR 49, Live Oak, FL 32060

The Meeting

Both the 9AM SRWMD Board meeting and the following Lands Committee meeting use the same communications parameters:

In compliance with Governor DeSantis Executive Order 20-52 which outlines measures to mitigate COVID-19, the District is hosting the Governing Board meeting via communication media technology and/or remote conferencing technology.

The Meeting will be conducted via GoTo Webinar for Presentations Only

GoTo Webinar Link: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/3310540859352809487

Separate Call-In Number for Audio

Toll Free 1-888-585-9008 -Conference Room Number: 704-019-452 #

On page 3 of the agenda:

22. Modification of Water Use Permit Application 2-041-218202-3, Seven Springs Water Company Project, Gilchrist County

Details are on page 102 of the packet, starting with:

Modification of Water Use Permit Application 2-041-218202-3, Seven Springs

For your convenience:

• Board packet, on SRWMD website , on
• WWALS website.
• Lands agenda, on SRWMD website, on WWALS website.

The WWALS website also has images of each page of each document.

Other Springs

Also in the packet, on page 132, there’s an Activity Summary for Twin Rivers State Forest that mentions the recent closures of Falmouth, Suwannee, and Pot Springs.

Augmentation of River Gauges

On page 149, SRWMD proposes joint funding with USGS for, among other things, “purchase, installation, and maintenance of equipment to monitor continuous temperature and conductivity at three existing long-term flow and level stations on the middle Suwannee River (Ellaville, Luraville, and Bell)”.

Page 150 mentions: “Under existing agreements, Nestlé Waters North America and Packaging Corporation of America will reimburse the District for $70,000 and $16,480, respectively, toward Withlacoochee River monitoring in FY 2021.” I bet Nestlé is making way more than $70,000 a year from its water withdrawals next to Madison Blue Spring.

FEMA and risk mapping

On page 51, staff recommends accepting $2,136,750 from FEMA “to implement the Fiscal Year 2020 Risk Mapping, Assessment and Planning Program in the Santa Fe, Upper and Lower Suwannee, Withlacoochee, Aucilla, and Alapaha river basins.”

Weekly Top Performing Post

On page 162, the Weekly Top Performing Post was the July 9th Advisory by Madison and Hamilton Counties Health Departments of potential bacteral contamination in the Withlacoochee River.

Weekly Top Performing Post: July 9 Advisory, Bacterial Contamination, Withlacoochee River

On page 165, the Weekly Top Performing Post was the July 15th announcement that that Advisory was being lifted.

For much more on that, see WWALS Water Quality Testing.

 -jsq, John S. Quarterman, Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®

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

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