Category Archives: Agriculture

Water, Agriculture, and Forestry: public meeting @ VSU by WWALS 2017-03-28

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (PDF)

Valdosta, Georgia; March 23, 2017 — Suwannee Riverkeeper invites you to discuss Water, Agriculture, and Forestry with forestry and agriculture experts and WWALS board and committee members in a public meeting at Valdosta State University.

When: 6-8PM Tuesday March 28, 2017

Where: UC Theater, UC Center, Valdosta State University
1215 N. Patterson St., Valdosta, GA 31698

Event: facebook

Host: WWALS Watershed Coalition
the Waterkeeper® Alliance Member as Suwannee Riverkeeper®

Topics: including but not limited to:

Getting out on the rivers:
- Outings: cleanups and monthly paddles
- Water Trails: signs, landings, and addresses
- Withlacoochee and Little River Water Trail
- Alapaha River Water Trail
Science and practice:
- Geology: erosion and runoff
- Agriculture: pesticides and fertilizer
- Forestry: Best Management Practices
- Botany: Invasive species and native species
- Energy: solar power and pipelines

About: WWALS Watershed Coalition (WWALS) advocates for Continue reading →

Five water items at Lowndes County Commmision + a board appointment @ LCC 2017-02-14

If you care about water and sewage and water quality in wells and rivers, many county commission and city council decisions affect all of those. Here are some examples this week from the Lowndes County Commission (LCC), which represents the most populous county in the Suwannee River Basin, upstream from Florida.

Also, WWALS board member Phil Hubbard was appointed to Continue reading →

Wide-ranging Sabal Trail opposition article by Molly Minta in The Fine Print

Molly Minta, The Fine Print, 5 February 2017, Rise Against the Machine: In 2013, Marion County residents began to receive letters from Sabal Trail Transmission. Now, they’ve made it their mission to save their land, and stop Sabal Trail.

Photo: Molly Minta.
An oak tree is felled by Sabal Trail construction workers.

…
Months before the town considered bankruptcy in 2013, residents of Dunnellon began to receive letters from a company called Sabal Trail Transmission. The letters were an introduction and explained why the company was coming to the area: to build a natural gas pipeline and compressor station. The letters were part of the first step in the process of getting a pipeline approved.

Only landowners within 600 feet of the pipeline received a letter, so not many people in Dunnellon are aware of it. But the ones who are fear it could completely disrupt their way of life.

The pipeline will pass within a mile of the Rainbow River; residents fear Continue reading →

Brooks County Comprehensive Plan Workshop

Sabal Trail pipe and tires standing in water, Cool Springs Road, Baconton, GA 2017-01-25

And they followed her down the road, as Sabal Trail’s hardhats usually do when they see anybody watching their trail of destruction. This was Wednesday 25 January 2017 on Cool Springs Road, Baconton, GA, 31.306085, -84.008770.

Pictures and video by Sherry Layton Gatewood: they didn’t scare her off, and they haven’t scared off the many other people throughout Florida, Georgia, and Alabama who are watching them like hawks, looking for violations.

Kind of hard to get to your fields to do agriculture with this in the way.

Video: Continue reading →

WWALS receives grant for water conservation outreach to farmers and community

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

WWALS receives grant for water conservation outreach to farmers and community (PDF)

Hahira, Georgia; December 27, 2016 — Local water conservation group WWALS Watershed Coalition (WWALS) has received a grant of $6,000 from the Georgia Water Coalition (GWC) to help groups in towns, counties, and countryside to draw the big picture of watershed conservation, as well as to help organize at least one grant from a different source to assist at least one farmer in erosion control.

The award contract of November 11, 2016, says Continue reading →

Sabal Trail Hamilton County Suwannee River HDD

The pipe to go under the Suwannee RIver is laid out, welded, and has pressure test fittings at the Hamilton County side of the Suwannee River, but the drill site itself has nothing but a generator. So it looks like they’re drilling under from the Suwannee County side Here are some pictures and videos taken in Hamilton County near CR 141. Sabal Trail didn’t like that.

This is the site at 30.410381, -83.165874 that you see in the foreground in an aerial picture in a previous post.

Here’s a playlist of WWALS videos, and there are more pictures below. Continue reading →

Less withdrawals, more water retention for North Florida Regional Water Supply Plan: WWALS PR 2016-12-06

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Jasper, Florida, November 6th 2016 — Better modeling and measurement of more water reuse and retention with fewer water withdrawals in both north Florida and south Georgia, WWALS Watershed Coalition (WWALS) recommended yesterday in comments (PDF) on the North Florida Regional Water Supply Plan (NFRWSP). WWALS also opposed the Falling Creek Aquifer Storage project and suggested a replacement, and recommended including threats to the FLoridan Aquifer and the Suwannee, Withlacoochee, and Alapaha Rivers such as pipelines and fracking.

WWALS applauded water supply projects involving reuse or stormwater, especially those in Jacksonvile and Gainesville, two of the sources of the general problem of falling water levels in the Floridan Aquifer. WWALS also applauded the plan to set minimum flow levels on the upper Suwannee River and WWALS expects to be involved with that.

WWALS recommended expanding the original study area, which stopped at the Suwannee River on the west and the Georgia-Florida state line on the north. WWALS president John S. Quarterman explained,

“Our rivers don’t stop because there’s a state line on a map, and there are three second-magnitude springs on the Withlacoochee River in Georgia south of Valdosta, one of them with a more than 4,000-foot cave system, that aren’t taken into account in this draft plan.”

Quarterman elaborated on a much larger concern: Continue reading →

Brooks County Commission Resolution to Support WLRWT 2016-11-07

Unanimously, they passed a resolution to support the Withlacoochee and Little River Water Trail: the Brooks County Commission at their regular meeting of Monday November 7th 2016 (PDF). Thanks to the Commissioners, especially Chairman Myra Exum and Vice-Chairman Joe Wingate, for their warm welcome to WWALS. Thanks to Commissioners and staff, especially County Administrator Justin DeVane, for some very useful suggestions, such as numbering river landings as well as naming them, in the same way that county roads have both names and numbers to make it easier for emergency services.

The picture is of county agent Stephanie Hollifield reminding the Commissioners that Brooks County farmer Randy Dowdy set a world record for soybean yield of Continue reading →

WWALS at Suwannee River Roots Revival 2016-10-15

Music and advocacy on the banks of the iconic Suwannee River!

WWALS outings, rivers, Valdosta wastewater, agricultural runoff, and the issue half the people wanted to talk about was the Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline: nobody wants it.

Thanks to Leeann Drabenstott Culbreath for the great picture of WWALS Treasurer Gretchen Quarterman and Ambassador Dave Hetzel, who engages everybody who walks past. Thanks to WWALS member Bret Huntley for camping overnight last night and setting up this morning. Gretchen took the other pictures of Dave and Bret. WWALS president John S. Quarterman took the one of the Shook Twins on the Amphitheater Stage in Spirit of Suwannee Music Park at Suwannee River Roots Revival on the banks of the Suwannee River.

Come on down to these upcoming WWALS events and outings: Continue reading →

WWALS Watershed Coalition (WWALS) is Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®

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