We aim to clear a wide and deep enough passage for canoes, kayaks, and jon boats. Sometimes we will clear more if it’s obviously going to just fall back into the passage, or if it will be a problem at a different water level. But we remove only what we must.

We leave most of the rest as habitat for fish, turtles, otters, birds, and other wildlife. Shade, eddies, pools, and general variation in river flow result; all good for wildlife. You may notice that experienced fishers often cast near woody debris for this reason.

WWALS Chainsaw Cleanups clear passage, leaving habitat, 2026-03-23

As a reminder, to join WWALS on any river outing you must listen to the safety lecture and sign the insurance waiver. Every person in a boat, no matter their age or size or experience, must wear a Personal Flotation Device (PFD).

Here are more than 50 examples of WWALS chainsaw cleanups:

https://wwals.net/outings/chainsaw-cleanups/

You can see plenty of habitat beyond where TJ is sawing in this picture.

Movie: TJ sawing and Tish removing brush, 2025:03:04 12:08:52, (28M) 30.8450258, -83.3466131

Here you can see plenty of habitat left, Pictures: Chainsaw Cleanup, Withlacoochee River upstream from Troupville 2025-03-04.

https://wwals.net/?p=67136

Tish Hall clearing brush, 2025:03:04 12:29:27, 30.8449534, -83.3464667

We are aware that Sugar Creek from the Gornto Road bridge to the bottom of the Valdosta City Limits, just below Two Mile Branch, got cleared completely of all vegetation in the creek bed.

https://wwals.net/?p=68981

Cleared stretch, Sugar Creek, Valdosta, GA, 2025:12:04 09:52:39, –Juston Stone 30.8608861, -83.3176861

There was some reason for that on that trash-infested Valdosta creek.

But that wasn’t WWALS, and there is no such reason on the Withlacoochee or other rivers to completely clear the riverbed.

On the rivers WWALS clears passage.

Please note that passage is not navigability. None of the Suwannee River Basin rivers in Georgia are navigable according to Georgia law; see below.

Passage

The issue is passage. See Fishing, boating passage, and navigability in Georgia waters 2023-10-12:

https://wwals.net/?p=63282

Withlacoochee and Little River Water Trail (WLRWT), 2024-10-02 –WWALS
PDF

This is why most of the water trail resolutions passed by cities and counties include this clause in the Hahira resolution in support of the Withlacoochee and Little River Water Trail:

Section 2: That the public easement of passage established by more than twenty (20) years of regular and open travel by boat on the Little and Withlacoochee River past Hahira is hereby recognized and accepted by the Council on behalf of the citizens of Hahira, and visitors from throughout the State of Georgia and the United States; and

The examples in this post are mostly from the Withlacoochee River, but we also do chainsaw cleanups on the Little, Alapaha, Alapahoochee, and Suwannee Rivers in Georgia.

Sonia, jsq with ropes, TJ sawing Duck and Float Under, Phil Hubbard, Phil Royce, 2023-06-10, 11:57:11, Suwannee River –Shirley Kokidko for WWALS

See also the rest of our water trails:

https://wwals.net/water-trails/

Please note that a water trail is a route on a waterway, usually with designated access points.

A land trail on a river bank is not a water trail.

We have a request for a chainsaw cleanup on an upstream stretch of the Santa Fe River in Florida, where the situation is very different: all the rivers are navigable and the state of Florida owns the riverbed. But most of the Suwannee Basin rivers in Florida are wide enough that no tree can completely block them.

Navigable

As mentioned, none of the Suwannee River Basin rivers in Georgia are navigable according to Georgia law. The Suwannee River is on a federal navigable river list, but it, like all our other rivers, does not match the Georgia 1863 legal definition of navigability, which is about floating goods to market down the river. Logs don’t count: the law explicitly says that. And nobody floated bales of cotton down any of our rivers to market, because of shoals.

The Georgia Department of Natural Resources (GA-DNR) appears to have its own definition of navigability, which seems to be near where they have boat ramps. But that doesn’t change the actual Georgia law.

The Georgia House of Representatives in 2024 declined to make any changes to that law.

https://wwals.net/?p=66654

 -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/

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