We appear to be the poster child for Recreational redesignation of waterbodies by GA-EPD.

Prioritization of Nominated Waterbodies; blue marks prioritized waterbodies.

That’s a slide from today’s update meeting.

Not all our blue prioritized waterbodies were redesignated: not Banks Lake nor Grand Bay. But the Withlacoochee and Alapaha segments were redesignated. We may have gotten more river miles redesignated than anywhere else in Georgia.

Stretches redesignated Recreational on the GA-EPD map.

As you can see, GA-EPD stuck to considering swimming as most important for what they call primary recreation, which is what they require for Recreational redesignation. Thanks to all of you who sent in swimming pictures and locations. You can keep sending those in, especially for the Suwannee River. Thanks to those cities and counties and Chambers of Commerce that sent in letters of support.

Recreation and Investment Location Data

I thanked GA-EPD for their efforts to handle the deluge of requests. And for changing from Fecal coliform to E. coli for those designations that did not previously use E. coli, and for saying that Georgia Adopt-A-Stream methods could be used. I once again recommended that for Recreational redesignation actual water quality measurements be given more weight than circumstantial evidence from satellite views.

Bacteria Criteria

I thanked EPD for starting to do something about Harmful Algal Blooms. While that problem is not as bad as in Florida, and let’s hope Georgia never gets that bad, it’s good to start paying attention to it now.

Harmful Algal Bloom Swimming Advisories

I thanked them for the Recreational redesignations.

Waterbodies Being Changed in 391-3-6-.03(14) to Include Recreation

And I said we’ll be back next year.

Triennial Review Timeline

We got the slides from the GA-EPD Water Quality Standards web page, which also contains much previous material. The slides are also on the WWALS website.

See also:

• More Recreational redesignation of waterbodies still possible –GA-EPD 2021-09-01
• Parts of Alapaha, Withlacoochee Rivers to be Recreational –GA-EPD 2021-08-11
• Upgrade Suwannee River Basin rivers to Recreational –WWALS to GA-EPD 2021-06-30
• Valdosta Mayor supports Recreational redesignation of rivers 2021-06-30
• Atkinson County supports Recreational redesignation, Alapaha River 2021-06-23
• WWALS Watershed Coalition thanks Atkinson Commission for support –WFXL TV 2021-07-09
• Calling for pictures of swimming, diving, rapids, tubing, water skiing, or surfing, Suwannee River Basin, Georgia
• Redesignating waterways as Recreational –GA-EPD Triennial Review Meeting 2021-02-02
• Cost of reclassifying Georgia rivers from Fishing to Recreational in Triennial Review of Water Quality Standards
• Help upgrade our Suwannee River Basins in Georgia

 -jsq, John S. Quarterman, Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®

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

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