Bad Creeks and Withlacoochee River 2023-01-06 | WWALS Watershed Coalition (WWALS) is Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®

Update 2023-01-13: Clean Rivers 2023-01-12.

WWALS found very bad results in Friday samples of upstream creeks and river sites.

Worse than the Thursday river test results.

Except Troupville Boat Ramp on the Little River is back well within limits.

If I were you, I would still avoid the Withlacoochee River for a few days, at least as far down as the Little River Confluence.

Chart, Rivers, Swim Guide

Beaverdam Creek showed too high E. coli at Main Street (US 129), but green again at Park Street. What’s between Ramblinwood Road and Main Street to produce that contamination?

Beatty Branch showed mysteriously too high at Bemiss Road: mysterious because there’s no agriculture above there. But it showed much higher at Beatty Road, just below the wastewater plant. The Testing Committee just bumped that last number up to 5,233 cfu/100 mL. That’s five times the alert limit of 1,000. Beatty Branch at Cat Creek Road was still higher than 1,000.

Cat Creek, surprisingly, was within limits except at Cat Creek Road. What is between GA 122 and Cat Creek road to cause higher numbers?

The Withlacoochee River read 500, higher than the 410 one-time sample limit.

Cat Creek comes in just below Franklinville, and the numbers jump up on the river, to 566 at Staten Road. But the number doubles at US 41, up to 1,200. What is between Staten Road and US 41 to cause the numbers to double? Well, there is Cherry Creek. And some horse farms. And possibly wild hogs.

Langdale Park with 1,200 typically shows somewhat higher than US 41.

Then we have the real “winner”: Sugar Creek, with far too many colonies to count. Some of that may be horse manure. But the sample site is at the top edge of the horse pasture. And Sugar Creek is downstream from both the previous fish kill on One Mile Branch at VSU, and the notoriously leaky Wainwright Drive manhole. So it will take some DNA tests to resolve this one.

Illustrating that low creek flow has limited effect on a higher-flow river, The Withlacoochee just above I-75 showed 2,533, which is double the number at Langdale Park, presumably largely due to Sugar Creek contamination. But only double, not TNTC, at I-75.

At GA 133, the reading was slightly lower at 1,800, but still way too high. I’m glad I was wearing gloves.

Chart: bad creeks and Withlacoochee River 2023-01-06
For context and the entire WWALS composite spreadsheet of water quality results, rainfall, and sewage spills, see:
https://wwals.net/issues/testing

Thanks to Elizabeth Brunner for her six creek test sites on Beaverdam Creek in Ray City, Beatty Branch down from Moody Air Force Base, and Cat Creek connecting with the Withlacoochee River just below Franklinville Road.

Thanks to John S. Quarterman for testing six Withlacoochee River sites, plus Sugar Creek and Troupville Boat Ramp on the Little River.

Thanks to Suzy Hall for herding the testing cats. Thanks to WWALS E.D. Gretchen Quarterman for training the testers and ordering and delivering testing supplies.

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