Category Archives: Agriculture

Videos: Parker Pond water withdrawals, BMAPs, Valdosta, and Testing @ SRWMD 2019-05-14

The deputy went in to see what the ruckus was about. It was Lu Merritt, Mike Roth, Jim Tatum, Mike Kern, and then me, in extensive discussion about a water withdrawal permit request, that Jim Tatum called Words of Truth to the Suwannee River Water Management District (SRWMD) Board.

On the agenda for that Monday, 14 May 2019:

20. Approval of New Water Use Permit 2-001-234425-1, Authorizing a Maximum 0.1462 mgd of Groundwater for Agricultural Use at the Parker Pond Project, Alachua County

I was actually there for this later item:

30. Valdosta Wastewater Update

In interaction with Tom Mirti, I confirmed that FDEP is doing DNA and sucralose (human waste marker) testing monthly at the GA-FL line on the Withlacoochee and Alapaha (not Alapahoochee) Rivers, and at the Withlacoochee Confluence with the Suwannee River. However, SRWMD has no plans for doing complementary weeks.

I found the public relations method research by Katelyn Potter to be fascinating.

Below are links to each WWALS video of each speaker, with some notes, followed by a WWALS video playlist. Continue reading →

Water trails, agriculture, urban goals, pipelines, water quality monitoring –WWALS to GA-EPD 2019-04-26

Attendees from the Suwannee River Basin were the majority at the first public meeting about Georgia EPD’s revisions to its Nonpoint Source Management Plan. Suwannee Riverkeeper John S. Quarterman attended, as did Erica McLelland and Julie Shutters.

Photo: John S. Quarterman for WWALS (yes, I’ve ordered a new camera lens).

At the end of the public comment period, WWALS sent in the letter below (see also PDF), which brings in many issues, focusing them all on water quality testing.

April 26, 2019

Continue reading →

Urge your Georgia state Senator to vote no on HB 545 to preserve rural property rights

Georgia HB 545 restricts property owners from filing a nuisance claim against an industrial agricultural operation. If a Chinese concentrated hog farming operation like those in North Carolina moves in next door, you may have no recourse if this law passes. Smells from pools of animal waste, pesticide drift, or underground contamination of your well water: all these things can travel for miles, and this bill could prevent you from objecting to them.

In Georgia, people are living a “lightmare” from mega-greenhouses owned by an international conglomerate.

HB 545 would prevent property owners from protecting their own property values. Existing law already protects agricultural operations from neighbors who move in next to the farm. This bill favors newly arriving, disruptive industrial agricultural operations over long-established property owners.

Follow this link to send a message today to your Senator and the Governor to VOTE NO on HB 545. Protect rural property rights.

-jsq, John S. Quarterman, Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®

You can join this fun and work by becoming a WWALS member today!

Marion County Comprehensive Plan to reject Coastal Connector? 2019-01-15

Maybe you’d like to show up 2PM tomorrow, Tuesday, January 15, 2019, and encourage the Marion County, FL, BOCC to adopt into the county’s Comprehensive Plan a Resolution they passed June 5, 2018, which would help head off future road boondoggles. The resolution opposes any Coastal Connector highway routes through Marion County.

DRAFT Areas of Opportunity, 4/6/2016

When: 2PM, Tuesday, January 14, 2019

Where: McPherson Governmental Complex,
601 SE 25th Ave., Ocala, FL 34471

What: Item 14.B.4. on the agenda is adopting the resolution into the county’s Comprehensive Plan.

Event: facebook

As juries recently decided about easement for the Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline (which Marion County also opposed), “full compensation” is not the same as “just compensation” for road rights of way, either:

J. It must be recognized that the issue is not simply the payment of “full compensation” to owners of the most valuable equine and agricultural properties in Marion County. Rather, it must be recognized that as a result of any of these corridors, the required right-of-way acquisitions and resulting construction of the proposed facility will not only damage, but may destroy many of these important operations in Marion County, and consequently, negatively impact the economic vitality and long-range growth of Marion County; and

Gouging pipelines or highways through farm or horse land or under rivers destroys what they traverse. No amount of compensation would be sufficient.

If you’re nearby, this would be good opportunity to stand up for water, environment, and property rights.

Janet Barrow Letter

WWALS member Janet Barrow sent them this letter. EAR is Continue reading →

Waterkeepers Florida signs Resolution Against Phosphate Mines in Florida 2018-12-19

In one of its first actions at its first official board meeting, WATERKEEPERS(R) FLORIDA voted to sign the Resolution Against Phosphate Mines in Florida, December 19, 2018.

This opposition throughout Florida to phosphate mines anywhere in the state is especially timely, with public hearings and a vote coming up ~~in January~~ soon in Bradford County on the HPS II phosphate mine application.

A dozen of its thirteen members had already signed for their individual organizations. According to its bylaws, all members of WATERKEEPERS Florida are now signed on with the organization. Besides, the thirteenth member, Continue reading →

State geologist Greenhalgh says BMPs don’t work to solve BMAPs

Someone inside FDEP has been brave enough for years to say the emperor has no clothes regarding contamination in the Suwannee River Basin.

Photo: John S. Quarterman for WWALS, of Thomas Greenhalgh suiting up at the Alapaha Dye Test, 2016-06-22.

Dinah Voyles Pulver, The Daytona-Beach News-Journal, 24 November 2018, State geologist challenging springs action plan raised questions before, Continue reading →

Radioactive well water, coal ash, fertilizer, and Tifton superfund sites 2018-10-29

Best to test for arsenic, and maybe lead, radon, and uranium, in your well and hot water heater water. In March 2013, South Health District and the Georgia Department of Health recommended testing for arsenic. That was three years after Janet McMahan discovered the arsenic problem after her family members and pets got cancer. As we wrote a few months before the Health Departments finally made their recommendation, after Janet got Erin Brockovitch involved, you may also find lead and uranium. The problem has not gone away. Also, you may find radon.

Janet wrote Monday:

This Water is from Well on private property 3 miles from Willacoochee. Sample taken from Water Heater. Lady says she uses all of the hot water when taking a shower each morning. Looking for her Radon Level now.

Janet added:

Radon sample collected at Same Well. Continue reading →

Pictures: Berrien County Harvest Festival 2018-09-29

Except for being a very unseasonable 102 degrees in the shade, it was a very fine day at Berrien County Harvest Festival in Nashville, Georgia, Saturday, 29 September 2018, next to the Withlacoochee River and in a county bordered on the east by the Alapaha and Willacoochee Rivers.

He likes wwals.net so much he wanted to be on it, and now he and she are, shown here with Gretchen Quarterman.

Continue reading →

California court requires higher ag. runoff controls

If California can do it, so can Florida. The petition deadline for FDEP’s Basin Management Action Plans (BMAPs) got pushed back to January 2019, so we shall see.

Sara Rubin, Monterey County Weekly, 20 September 2018, Victory for Monterey Coastkeeper as court rules regulations for ag runoff fall short,

Even California’s water quality law, the Porter-Cologne Act, recognizes the challenge. A 2004 addendum about nonpoint source pollution put it this way: “Current land use management practices that have resulted in nonpoint source pollution have a long and complicated physical, economic and political history… Therefore, it is expected that it will take a significant amount of time for the [regional water boards] to approve or endorse nonpoint source control implementation programs.”

Photo: Nic Coury, “Otter Project Director Steve Shimek stands near the Monterey County Water Resources Agency’s Blanco Drain, which conveys ag runoff exceeding state water quality standards to the Salinas River,” in Court slams Central Coast farm runoff rules as too weak, orders water quality improvements, by Sara Rubin, Monterey County Weekly, 14 August 2015.

That time, according to the Court of Appeal for California’s Third District, has come. A Sept. 18 decision Continue reading →

WWALS at Berrien County Harvest Festival 2018-09-29

Join WWALS back again at the eighth annual Berrien County Harvest Festival in downtown Nashville, Georgia. Music, art show, craft and food venders, featuring The Puppies of Penzance.

When: 9AM – 3PM, Saturday, September 29, 2018

Where: Downtown Courthouse Square, Nashville, GA 31639

Free: No entrance fee.