A wide-ranging story, which includes springs, the Nutrien phosphate mine, Stephen C. Foster, Ray Charles, Pilgrim’s Pride, WFNF, dairy farms, and Basin Management Action Plans (BMAPs).

For much more about WFNF, see

https://wwals.net/issues/wfnf

First, some pullquotes:

Even blunter was John S. Quarterman, who’s been the Suwannee Riverkeeper for a decade. He told me, “It certainly IS endangered.”

Sheesh! Having your state’s most famous river classified as endangered is like having the governor’s limo towed because it’s a clunker. It reflects badly on all of us — especially whoever sits in the driver’s seat.

…

Way down upon this Florida river, pollution and water withdrawals spell double trouble, –Craig Pittman, 2026-04-23

One of the largest drains on the Suwannee: Jacksonville. Water from the Suwannee is being pumped out of the ground to benefit folks who live nowhere near the river.

The water district has a plan to fix this. But it’ s so controversial, Quarterman said, that all the counties in the Suwannee River basin are opposed to it.

The flaw in the flow

The cover of the American Rivers report on the 10 most endangered rivers in America is an image of the flowing Suwannee.

Smack dab in the middle is a pipeline dumping waste into the river. Quarterman identified the pipeline’s owner as Pilgrim’s Pride, a chicken processing plant in Live Oak.

According to the water management district, the solution to the Suwannee’s dwindling flow lies in building a bigger, longer pipeline, this one stretching all the way to Jacksonville.

Although it’s called “Water First North Florida,” this project does not, in fact, involve water. It involves treated wastewater.

“The project will carry wastewater from Jacksonville, almost 90 miles east of Suwannee, through a pipe to be treated in facilities and natural wetlands before being sent into the aquifer,” WUFT-FM reported in February.

When completed, it would bring 40 million gallons of treated waste a day to inject into the aquifer, boosting the natural flow. One flaw in the flow restoration plan: Lots of unanswered questions.

“Pipes would be constructed to carry the water from across the state, but an exact location where pipes will take the reclaimed water has yet to be determined,” the radio station reported. “The project would take 15 years to complete and cost around $1 billion.”

At this point, you’re probably thinking, “A billion dollars to flush 40 million gallons a day of treated poop water into the aquifer where everyone gets their drinking water? Who would support such an idiotic idea?”

So far, the answer is: Nobody who’d be drinking the water, that’s for sure.

“Almost everyone attending a Suwannee County GOP town hall on Feb. 5 again opposed a plan to recharge the Floridan aquifer with treated Jacksonville wastewater,” WUFT-FM reported after one public meeting.

The Columbia County Observer, covering a different meeting on the project, noted that the crowd saw it as big city folks dumping their poopy problems on good country people. That’s why they say no to the flow.

“The Water First North Florida rollout has been a disaster,” the Observer observed.

John S. Quarterman via screen grab “Five county commissions and the town council of Branford thus far have passed letters or resolutions in opposition,” Quarterman wrote in a letter he sent this month to the water district. “The twelve-county River Task Force has also passed such a resolution, as has its parent body, the North Central Florida Regional Planning Council.”

I talked to the chairman of the river task force, Madison County Commissioner Rick Davis. Count him among the opponents of this plan.

“My county was the first one to pass such a resolution,” Davis said. “There’s not been nearly enough research on what the negative effects might be.”

He named a number of harmful chemicals that wouldn’t be scrubbed out by the sewage treatment that the district is proposing.

Commissioner Rick Davis via Madison County “For our environment, our tourism, and our health and safety, this is just the wrong choice,” Davis told me.

Nevertheless, the water district — with financial assistance of the St. Johns River Water Management District and the city of Jacksonville — is still pursuing its poop water plan.

Water district officials insist it’s the cheapest alternative to help the dwindling water flow. Quarterman and Davis both told me a better solution would be for Jacksonville to build a desalination plant and get its water from the Atlantic Ocean. That way, the city wouldn’t need to pump so much from under the Suwannee.

I like his conclusion:

I hereby propose that whenever the water district board or, for that matter, any local governments convene to debate the future of the Suwannee, they should be required to do so while standing in the river. I doubt you could stand to harm the river while you’re standing in the river.

And to start off every wade-in-the-water session, everyone has to sing the Stephen Foster’s song. I’d require ’em to sing that peppy Ray Charles version.

https://youtu.be/nC-vaI53t_4?si=CG4WBGadMqQNcnda

Swanee River Rock (Talkin’ ‘Bout That River) (Charles) by Ray Charles with The Raelettes, 1957

Craig Pittman, Florida Phoenix, April 23, 2026, Way down upon this Florida river, pollution and water withdrawals spell double trouble
American Rivers just named the famed Suwannee River as one of the 10 most endangered in the U.S.
https://floridaphoenix.com/2026/04/23/way-down-upon-this-florida-river-pollution-and-water-withdrawals-spell-double-trouble/

If you’re an old canoe paddler like me, Florida offers a delightful assortment of rivers to navigate or just plain contemplate. They range from the laidback Blackwater in the Panhandle to the northward-flowing St. Johns to the world-famous “River of Grass” in the Everglades.

But only one is mentioned in our official state song: the Suwannee.

That body of water flows southward from Georgia’s Okefenokee Swamp, working its way through some 250 miles of North Florida wetlands, rapids, and channels, at last cascading into the Gulf of Whatchamacallit. It drains a watershed of more than 11,000 square miles and its flow is fed by more than 300 freshwater springs.

And it just received a rare piece of national recognition. Hooray! I’m so proud, aren’t you? Maybe we should go all out with a celebration.

Wait, what’s that? What’s the recognition?

Oh. The Suwannee was just named one of the 10 most endangered rivers in America.

Guess we better cancel the ticker-tape parade!

The whole story is well worth reading.

WATER FIRST NORTH FLORIDA, 2025-07-08 –SRWMD Staff
PDF

 -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: