Category Archives: Aquifer

The Floridan Aquifer is our main drinking water source under our entire WWALS watershed, east to south Carolina, west through Alabama to Mississippi, and under all of Florida.

Help stop two bad Florida water bills: HB 1149 and SB 1308

Remember the Florida bill with the bad amendment, withdrawn because you called? Well, the bill itself, HB 1149, is bad enough, and near to a vote.

Please sign Margaret Tolbert’s petition against that and another bad bill, HB 1308.

Photo: John S. Quarterman for WWALS, from the Suwannee River, of Saturday crowd at Madison Blue Spring, 2017-06-24.

According to a March 1, 2018, Tampa Bay Times article:

“Cynthia Barnett, the author of three books on water and an environmental fellow in residence at the University of Florida’s Bob Graham Center for Public Service, said the bills are based on a faulty assumption concerning how much water Florida needs for its future growth.

The bills say that Florida will need Continue reading →

Fossil fuels are a far bigger threat than the Russians

Leaks of hazardous materials, explosions, land takings, sinkholes, frac-outs: these are far bigger threats than Texas Rep. Lamar Smith’s Committee report “that states Russian agents were attempting to disrupt U.S. energy markets and using social media to purportedly stir up protests against pipelines such as Sabal Trail,” as a reporter asked me about recently. Smith’s report doesn’t mention that solar and wind power are growing far faster than his favorite, fracked methane gas.

Business Council for Sustainable Energy by Bloomberg New Energy Finance, February 2018, 2018 Sustainable Energy in America.

Elsewhere I already looked behind Lamar Smith’s fossil fuel smoke and mirrors, and found I post more on social media than the tiny Russian numbers that horrify him.

His actual examples are seriously rolling-on-the-floor laughable, such as this: Continue reading →

WWALS at Suwannee Spring Reunion at the Music Park 2018-03-22-25

Come down to the Suwannee River with Suwannee Riverkeeper, listen to music, and talk about the rivers and the aquifer, outings and advocacy, education and fun. If you want to come all four days, we have a deal with camping if you help out at the WWALS booth. If you want to help just one day, we have a way for that, too.

When: March 22-March 25, 2017

Where: Spirit of the Suwannee Music Park
3076 95th Dr, Live Oak, Florida 32060

Event: facebook, meetup

What: Suwannee Spring Reunion, featuring The Infamous Stringdusters, David Bromberg Quartet, Donna the Buffalo, Larry Keel Experience, Dar Williams, Billy Strings, Amy Helm, Jim Lauderdale, Verlon Thompson, Shawn Camp, The Grass is Dead, Rev. Jeff Mosier and Biscuit Tragedy, Jon Stickley Trio, Front Country, Roy Book Binder, Grayson Capps, Ralph Roddenbery, Grandpa’s Cough Medicine, Nikki Talley, Quartermoon, Sloppy Joe, Big Cosmo, Suwannee Spirit Kids, and Tania & Magic Moon Traveling Circus.

It looks like all but four of the acts from last year Continue reading →

Florida fracking ban passes Senate Committee, needs to move in House 2018-02-07

One of our goals Wednesday in Tallahassee was accomplished: the fracking ban is moving in the Florida statehouse! You can help: call your Florida state Representative or Senator and ask them to vote for the fracking bills. If you don’t know who they are, you can use Florida’s Find Your Legislators.

$Gale Dickert, ban fracking, Sen. Montfords office$
Photo: John S. Quarterman for WWALS, Tallahassee, 2018-01-31. Do Gale Dickert and these people look like they’re going to give up easily?

Monday SB 462 was uananimously approved by the Senate Environmental Preservation and Conservation Committee, thank you Committee Chair Senator Rob Bradley, whom many people intensively lobbied last Wednesday to schedule a vote in that committee. The indefatigable Continue reading →

Staten Road to Langdale Park, Withlacoochee River, 2018-03-03

A leisurely five mile paddle in about two and a half hours through a surprisingly wild section of the Withlacoochee River, much of it actually inside Valdosta, the biggest city in the Suwannee River Basin, on the Withlacoochee and Little River Water Trail (WLRWT).

When: 9 AM, Saturday, March 3, 2018

Put In: Staten Road Landing, 4556 Staten Road, Valdosta, GA 31605, Lowndes County, GA. 7.1 miles north of downtown Valdosta. Beware: it’s a long rough dirt road access, then a scramble down the riverbank.

GPS: 30.9328, -83.28227

Take Out: Langdale Park Boat Ramp, 3781 N. Valdosta Rd., Valdosta, GA 31602, Lowndes County, GA.

Free: This outing is Free! And we recommend you support the work of WWALS by becoming a WWALS member today!

Event: facebook, meetup

Map: VALORGIS. White is Valdosta inside grey city limits, yellow is recharge zones for the Floridan Aquifer, green is Langdale Park.

We start in Lowndes County, cross over the county’s expanded sewer and water lines at Bay Branch (those lines head for Stafford-Wright Road). Then the City of Valdosta is on our left briefly before back to county both sides, and Sermons Branch (is that its real name?). Into a Floridan Aquifer recharge zone, passing on our right the Shadrick Sink, notorious for Continue reading →

A Resolution Against Phosphate Mines in Florida –Florida Waterkeepers 2017-12-18

Update 2018-12-30: The new organization WATERKEEPERS Florida, as one of its first acts, on December 19, 2018, signed the Resolution Against Phosphate Mines in Florida, thus committing all thirteen of its member organizations.

Update 2018-11-13: Miami Waterkeeper has signed, bringing it to a round dozen Florida Waterkeepers.

Update 2018-08-18: Calusa Waterkeeper has also signed, bringing it to 11 of the 14 Waterkeepers in Florida. (See also PDF.)

Update 2018-08-01: Five additional signers: Suncoast Waterkeeper, Tampa Bay Waterkeeper, Indian Riverkeeper, St. Marys Riverkeeper, and Collier County Waterkeeper. Seven of us delivered this resolution in person to FDEP Secretary Noah Valenstein.

Delivered via email as PDF to the Union BOCC before their phosphate mine workshop of Monday, December 18, 2017.

A Resolution
Against Phosphate Mines in Florida

WHEREAS, Waterkeeper Alliance Members are obligated and dedicated to protect the water resources, citizens’ interests, and related benefits in their jurisdictions; and

WHEREAS, phosphate mines have been shown to threaten and cause actual harm to these resources, interest, and related benefits; and

WHEREAS, there are several phosphate mine projects in various stages of permitting in local, state, and federal agencies including county and city governments, Water Management Districts (WMDs), Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP), U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE); and

WHEREAS, there seems to be no public list of current phosphate mines and related facitlities, which include at least

Continue reading →

Barber Pool, early 20th century

Update 2024-05-01: Fixed image links and a few typos, and added strip mine too near the Okefenokee swamp.

Floridians worried about springs drying up: it already happened to this one. A sad channel with no flow in Saunders Park once was a large and famous spring-fed pool, remembered by many in Valdosta, Georgia, both those who went there and those who were refused.

The man who built Barber Pool at that spring on River Street, E.R. Barber, was the first Coca-Cola bottler outside of Atlanta, an inventor, and also the builder of the current home of the Valdosta-Lowndes County Chamber of Commerce. The Barber-Pittman House is on the National Register of Historic Places. That big house on the main drag, Ashley Street, just north of downtown Valdosta, was willed to the citizens of Valdoosta by his daughter, Ola Barber-PIttman.

Here’s what Barber Pool looked like in its heyday.

Slide, Spring-fed

Thanks to Continue reading →

Permit-less Sabal Trail pipeline risked by new sinkhole

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

(See also PDF and previous blog post.)

Live Oak, FL, October 5, 2017 — Sabal Trail, operating without a permit, is at risk from a new sinkhole within 60 feet of its 36-inch diameter, high-pressure, fracked methane pipe under Suwannee River State Park (SRSP), between the Suwannee River and the drill site in Hamilton County. Such sinkholes are among the geological risks WWALS warned about that have happened in the fragile karst limestone containing our drinking water in the Floridan Aquifer. We were assured in October 2015 by Sabal Trail and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) that sinkholes and frac-outs would not happen or would be detected and fixed. They keep happening, and Sabal Trail has done nothing about this one. Sabal Trail should not even be continuing operations after the DC Circuit Court vacated its permit six weeks ago.

Suwannee Riverkeeper John S. Quarterman at new sinkhole in Suwannee River State Park, 2017-10-03.
Photo: Christopher J. Mericle, Chair, N. Florida Working Group, Suwannee-St. Johns Group, Sierra Club Florida.

In WWALS vs. Sabal Trail & FDEP (October 2015), FDEP’s one witness, Lisa Prather, said under oath (see https://wwals.net/blog/?p=27799):

“Well, the Suwannee River crossing doesn’t, in fact, have any impacts to an outstanding Florida water, because the directional drill commences in uplands and terminates in uplands. So there are no surface water impacts at that crossing that would affect the outstanding Florida water.”

“Well, any work within, or could have adverse effects on OFW, is considered.In this case, we determine that there would be no impacts to the OFW.”

Suwannee Riverkeeper John S. Quarterman says:

“Email to Ms. Prather’s address now comes back with an error message, while the rest of us are left Continue reading →

SWIM Plan Meeting, Live Oak 2017-10-03

Nitrates, agriculture, and silviculture were already in, and sewage, phosphate mines, and the Floridan Aquifer got added yesterday afternoon in Live Oak in public comments on updates to SRWMD’s SWIM Plans, plus new SRWMD E.D. Hugh Thomas spoke.

Thanks to presenter Tom Singleton, the slides presented are on the WWALS website. Here are a few notes and pictures.

Floridan Aquifer

Merrillee Malwitz-Jipson of Sierra Club Florida noted Continue reading →

HPS II attorney at Union BOCC

Setbacks, he says.

The Commissioners voted unanimously to table the amendments to the Union County Comprehensive Plan, after attorneys for the opponents submitted many suggested modifications and attorneys for the proposed miners asked for more time.

WWALS videos of most of the numerous speakers will follow.

-jsq, John S. Quarterman, Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®

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

WWALS Watershed Coalition (WWALS) is Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®

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