Video: Jacksonville Wastewater into Suwannee Basin, WWALS Webinar 2026-02-12 | WWALS Watershed Coalition (WWALS) is Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®

Thanks to all who participated, this webinar turned into a 45-minute online town hall, after the the two-minute introduction by WWALS Treasurer Sara Squires Jones and the 32-minute slide presentation by Suwannee Riverkeeper John S. Quarterman.

Many questions were asked about s the plan by the Suwannee River Water Management District (SRWMD) and the St. Johns River Water Management District (SJRWMD) to pipe output from the JEA Buckman wastewater treatment plant into wetlands in the Suwannee River Basin, to recharge springs and rivers.

We now know much more about why JEA wants to do this, especially thanks to Joe Squitieri, Rick Lanese, and Hailey Hall.

Here is the zoom video:
https://youtu.be/Df3dJzq2_7Y

Video: Jacksonville Wastewater into Suwannee Basin, WWALS Webinar, online by zoom 2026-02-12

The slides are on the WWALS website in PDF and PowerPoint. The slides are slightly updated to clean up a few glitches and especially to add four slides about what JEA gets out of this project.

Images of each slide are below.

Notes on the Q&A are at the end of this post, and you can see and hear for yourself in the video.

Please remember to Ask for explanations or to stop the projects.

Members of Congress & Statehouse
http://openstates.org/find_your_legislator/

SRWMD and SJRWMD Board
https://www.mysuwanneeriver.com/134/Current-Board-Members
https://www.sjrwmd.com/about/organization/directors/

County Commissioners and City Councils
https://www.fl-counties.com/2025-fac-directory/

Florida Counties Task Force about wastewater
https://wwals.net/?p=68081

Follow the QR code or the link below for a change.org petition you can sign.

https://wwals.net/?p=69143

Ask for explanations or to stop the project
PDF

About the Speaker

Suwannee Riverkeeper John S. Quarterman, 2025-10-15

Suwannee Riverkeeper John S. Quarterman is a native of the Suwannee River Basin. He lives in unincorporated Lowndes County, Georgia, on a few hundred acres of longleaf pine forest that his grandfather bought in 1921, with a cypress swamp and a creek that runs to the Withlacoochee River and on to the Suwannee.

As Suwannee Riverkeeper he spends much time going to meetings, paddling on rivers, and photographing locations in north Florida and south Georgia. He spends even more time paddling a keyboard, advocating for clean water throughout the Suwannee River Basin, including underground water down to the Florida Aquifer from which we all drink, for household use, agriculture, recreation, and industry.

He is a charter WWALS Board member. After a two-year partial term and two three-year full terms (post 4, 2012-2014, 2014-2017, 2017-2020), he was term-limited from the board. He is a former WWALS President, and still Chair of the Public Relations and Watershed Issues Committees.

On December 30, 2016, the WWALS board appointed Quarterman the first Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®, a staff position required as part of the license from Waterkeeper ALLIANCE®. On October 21, 2024, the WWALS Board also appointed him Executive Director.

In a previous life, he did work that in 2025 got him inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame, “His Internet mapping opened the world’s eyes to the scale and possibilities of a truly global network.”

For other WWALS Webinars, see:
https://wwals.net/about/wwals-webinars/

They are usually on the second or third Thursday of the month, from noon to 1PM. After a brief introduction, the speaker has about 45 minutes, with the remaining time for questions and answers and discussion.

They are recorded, so if you miss one, you can see it later on YouTube. Here’s a WWALS video playlist:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKwQ5xfKf-QxWRGrV9iExlyXQIVnzOtPX&si=0Atnjwrm_ikyV-sh

WWALS Webinars are organized by the WWALS Events Committee; maybe you’d like to join that committee and help.

For more WWALS outings and events as they are posted, see the WWALS outings web page, https://wwals.net/outings/. WWALS members also get an upcoming list in the Tannin Times newsletter.

About WWALS

Since June 2012, WWALS Watershed Coalition, Inc. (WWALS) is an IRS 501(c)(3) nonprofit charity working for a healthy watershed with clean, swimmable, fishable, drinkable water.

Mission: WWALS advocates for conservation and stewardship of the surface waters and groundwater of the Suwannee River Basin and Estuary, in south Georgia and north Florida, among them the Withlacoochee, Willacoochee, Alapaha, Little, Santa Fe, and Suwannee River watersheds, through education, awareness, environmental monitoring, and citizen activities.

Our Watershed: The 10,000-square-mile WWALS territory includes the Suwannee River from the Okefenokee Swamp to the Gulf of Mexico, plus the Suwannee River Estuary, and tributaries such as the Withlacoochee and Alapaha Rivers as far north as Cordele in Georgia, as well as parts of the Floridan Aquifer, which is the primary water source for drinking, agriculture, and industry for millions of Georgia and Florida residents.

Suwannee Riverkeeper: Since December 2016, WWALS is the WATERKEEPER® Alliance Member for the Suwannee River Basin and Estuary as Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®, which is a project and a staff position of WWALS focusing on our advocacy.

WWALS members also get an upcoming list in the Tannin Times newsletter.

-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

Wastewater, Rivers, Springs, and Floridan Aquifer, 2026-02-12 –Suwannee Riverkeeper John S. Quarterman