Clean Withlacoochee River 2023-08-24

Update 2023-08-29: 8,400 gallons of sewage into Dukes Bay Canal, Valdosta, GA, due to unknown obstruction 2023-08-28.

No rain for a week means clean Withlacoochee River, and that’s what WWALS testers found for Thursday.

Crawford Creek was too high in E. coli, but Staten Road and US 41 downstream on the Withlacoochee River were clean, with Franklinville Road pretty clean upstream.

Chart, River, Swim Guide Map 2023-08-24

We are still short-handed for WWALS volunteer water quality testers. Maybe you’d like to become one.
https://wwals.net/2018/11/16/sign-up-for-water-quality-testing-training/

Only one new sewage spill has been reported in the Suwannee River Basin in Georgia or Florida: the Valdosta 15,000-gallon spill into Knights Creek on Tuesday. The good news is that that was much less than the four previous spills at the same location.

However, as I told WTXL after one of the previous spills, “There have been a number of things they’ve done better lately, they don’t have as bad or as frequent spills as they used to. The ideal number however is none.”

There was a spot of rain this evening, but probably not enough to wash much contamination into the rivers.

So happy swimming, fishing, and paddling this weekend.

And maybe you’d like to come this Wednesday evening to the Banks Lake Full Blue Supermoon Paddle 2023-08-30.

Chart: Clean Withlacoochee River 2024-08-24
For context and the entire WWALS composite spreadsheet of water quality results, rainfall, and sewage spills, see:
https://wwals.net/issues/testing

The most recent results we have from Valdosta are for Monday upstream (clean) and Wednesday last week downstream (clean).

Thanks to WWALS testers Cindy and David Vedas for testing Franklinville, Staten, and North Valdosta Roads (US 41) on the Withlacoochee River, as well as Crawford Branch.

Thanks to WWALS Testing Trainer and Executive Director Gretchen Quarterman for delivering supplies and for training more testers today at Suwannee River State Park.

I’ve marked Franklinville and US 41 green as the WWALS “beaches” for which we have recent data, on

For unknown reasons, Franklinville is not yet showing up as green, but it should be.

Map: Clean Withlacoochee River, Swim Guide 2023-08-24

Here’s a live Swim Guide Map.

Thanks to Joe Brownlee and Georgia Power for another generous grant for water quality testing equipment and materials.

You or your organization could also donate to the WWALS volunteer water quality testing program.

There are more images below.

-jsq, John S. Quarterman, Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®

You can help with clean, swimmable, fishable, drinkable, water in the 10,000-square-mile Suwannee River Basin in Florida and Georgia by becoming a WWALS member today!
https://wwals.net/donations/

-jsq, John S. Quarterman, Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®

You can help with clean, swimmable, fishable, drinkable, water in the 10,000-square-mile Suwannee River Basin in Florida and Georgia by becoming a WWALS member today!
https://wwals.net/donations/

Short Link:

WWALS Watershed Coalition (WWALS) is Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®

A healthy watershed with clean, swimmable, fishable, drinkable water.

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