Category Archives: Election

Nobody at a Live Oak meeting liked Jacksonville wastewater into the Suwannee Basin 2026-02-05

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Update 2026-02-24: SRWMD at North Central Florida Regional Planning Council 2026-02-26.

A few pullquotes sum it up:

“The entire area JEA serves uses 120 million gallons. Remember that Texas plant, one plant does 100 million gallons. There’s no reason it has to be all in one place,” said Quarterman. “It doesn’t have to take more than a dozen years to come online.”

Around 50 people attended the town hall, with the majority of attendees being older. None of the attendees who spoke out favored the Suwannee River Water Management District’s plan to strengthen the water supply. The main concerns of the project were over where funding would come from, project logistics, and the safety behind drinking recycled water.

“One of my biggest concerns with this project is that it’s introducing contamination that’s extremely expensive to test for, to even know it’s there, much less manage and treat,” said Hailey Hall, a groundwater monitor.

Area resident Ed Lee expressed his dissatisfaction with the plan approved by the Suwannee River Water Management District in November 2025 to address potable water issues. “Nobody has talked anything about money,” said Ed Lee. “Today you’re talking $1 billion. What the hell do you think it’s gonna cost with the time it gets there? It’ll be $15 billion.”

The article has more.

[Nobody liked Jacksonville wastewater into the Suwannee Basin at a Live Oak meeting 2026-02-05, News by WUFT 2026-02-19]
Nobody liked Jacksonville wastewater into the Suwannee Basin at a Live Oak meeting 2026-02-05, News by WUFT 2026-02-19

Jessica Wilkinson, WUFT, February 19, 2026, Suwannee County residents unhappy with a $1 billion dollar water supply plan,

LIVE OAK, Fla. — Almost everyone attending a Suwannee County GOP town hall on Feb. 5 again opposed a plan to recharge the Floridan aquifer with treated Jacksonville wastewater.

Continue reading →

Ask Florida statehouse and Water Districts to explain JAX treated wastewater into the Suwannee Basin or to stop it, 2026-01-02

Update 2026-02-17: Consent Order on JEA Buckman Wastewater Treatment Plant –FDEP 2025-09-15.

Update 2026-02-13: Video: Jacksonville Wastewater into Suwannee Basin, WWALS Webinar 2026-02-12.

Update 2026-02-05: Jacksonville Wastewater into Suwannee Basin, WWALS Webinar 2026-02-12.

Do you think a billion dollars to pipe treated wastewater from Jacksonville into the Suwannee Basin is a bad idea?

If so, please ask your statehouse delegation and Water Management District Board to explain why limiting water withdrawals would not be a better idea, or to stop this project.

Everybody is downstream from somebody else. But we don’t need the Suwannee River Basin to be downstream from Jacksonville. Sure, we’re poorer than Jacksonville, but we’re not their sacrifice zone.

Two Water Management Districts say this Water First North Florida project would replenish levels and flows in the Lower Santa Fe and Ichetucknee Rivers, including the Ichetucknee Headspring, by sending water into the Upper Floridan Aquifer through wetlands.

How can this expensive and risky project be the best way to conserve levels and flows in these Outstanding Florida Waters, which are supposed to be worthy of special protection because of their natural attributes?

How can risking the source of our drinking water be a good idea?

[Why is piping treated JAX wastewater into the Suwannee River Basin, better than limiting water withdrawals? Ask FL statehouse and WMD boards]
Why is piping treated JAX wastewater into the Suwannee River Basin, better than limiting water withdrawals? Ask FL statehouse and WMD boards

Here’s how to find your legislators:

https://pluralpolicy.com/find-your-legislator/

Also ask SRWMD to hold a Public Hearing explaining why this project is better and safer than limiting water withdrawals.

Let’s see the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). Including evidence about how much JEA’s Buckman Wastewater Treatment Facility actually removes PFAS forever chemicals, drugs, and artificial sweeteners. Plus single points of failure such as sole-source contractors.

Suwannee River Management District
9225 CR 49
Live Oak, FL 32060
Phone: 386.362.1001
Toll Free: 1.800.226.1066
Hugh Thomas, Executive Director
Hugh.Thomas@SRWMD.org

Also ask your SRWMD Board members:
https://mysuwanneeriver.com/134/Current-Board-Members

The Suwannee River Water Management District (SRWMD) seems to know surprisingly little Continue reading →

Florida Right to Clean Water: get petition signatures for court review 2022-11-10

Update 2023-04-01: Florida Right to Hunt and Fish breezing through legislature towards 2024 ballot 2023-03-27.

Floridians, now’s the time to get the petition through the first hurdle: Florida Supreme Court review by March 1, 2023. 223,000 signatures is doable if enough people help.

If you’re a registered Florida voter, go here and sign the petition:
https://www.floridarighttocleanwater.org/

[Unite for Clean Water flyer]

And join the campaign:
https://www.floridarighttocleanwater.org/uniteforcleanwater

Individuals, groups, businesses, or non-profits: all can help get constitutional protection for our rivers, creeks, springs, sinks and swamps, not to mention drinking water.

More about Right to Clean Water in Florida and Georgia here:
https://wwals.net/issues/right-to-clean-water/

 -jsq, John S. Quarterman, Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®

You can join this fun and work by becoming a WWALS member today!
https://wwals.net/donations/

Please vote for clean water and Yes on Georgia Amendment 1, 2020-11-03 2020-11-01

WWALS members already got our monthly Tannin Times newsletter via email. We’re posting this one, because its second page has many reasons to vote for clean water. Please vote for clean water on Election Day, if you have not already!

Georgians, don’t forget to vote Yes on Amendment 1.

[Tannin Times, WWALS monthly newsletter]
Tannin Times, WWALS monthly newsletter PDF

November 2020 Tannin Times

WWALS Biota November 2020: Remembering biota past

In both Mesoamerican indigenous cultures and European Christian traditions, late autumn is a time when the dead are remembered, as seen in the Dia de los Muertos in Mexico and All Souls Day in many other western countries. It seems fitting, then, as November comes in and autumn is felt across the coastal plain, that we consider biota past.

Continue reading →

Please vote Yes on Georgia Constitutional Amendment 1: dedicate fees to their stated purpose

Update 2020-11-18: Landslide Yes on Georgia Amendment 1 to dedicate trust funds!

Update 2020-10-07: On Steve Nichols radio show, with video.

Don’t you think taxes and fees charged by a state should go to the purposes the state said they would? Well, in Georgia, many such funds have been mostly diverted to the general fund, and then who knows where. You can vote in this election to stop that: vote Yes on Amendment 1.

[Six cities and counties for Amendment 1]
Six cities and counties for Amendment 1: Adel, Hahira, and Valdosta, Atkinson, Lanier, and Lowndes Counties.

For example, the state of Georgia charges a fee on every tire sold, with funds supposed to go to cleaning up old tires and other waste management. Yet more than $50 million of those funds have been diverted to other purposes. It’s not just tires. Other examples of diverted funds include ones for indigent defense and judicial programs, peace officer training, and teen driver training.

There is no organized opposition to Amendment 1. Pretty much the only opposition stated during passage of the authorizing bill was about being able to use funds during an emergency. The bill explicitly allows that. The bill passed the Georgia Senate unanimously and the House with only one vote against.

Organized support for Amendment 1 includes six cities and counties in the Suwannee River Basin: the cities of Hahira, Valdosta, Adel, and Atkinson, Lanier, and Lowndes Counties, each of which passed a resolution in January 2019 in support of the bill that authorized putting Amendment 1 on the ballot for 2020. Also, the Valdosta Daily Times supported it in an editorial. WWALS supports Amendment 1, as do, so far as we know, all the Riverkeepers of Georgia.

Amendment 1 on the ballot

This is how Amendment 1 appears on the ballot:

Shall the Constitution of Georgia be amended so as to authorize the General Assembly to dedicate revenues derived from fees or taxes to the public purpose for which such fees or taxes were intended?

( ) YES

( ) NO

Please vote YES.

Addition to Georgia law

Below is the text that Amendment 1, when approved, will add to subparagraph (r)(1) to paragraph VI in section 9 of Article III of the Georgia state constitution: Continue reading →

Again: Florida Counties meet Valdosta about sewage in rivers and wells 2019-07-10

Update 2019-07-11: WWALS Videos.

Update 2019-07-10: The agenda.

Like three months ago, the dozen downstream Florida counties will meet with Valdosta again tomorrow. It’s a public meeting and anyone may attend. Presumably, like last time, anyone may ask questions.

When: 6PM, Wednesday, July 10, 2019

Where: General Purpose Room,
Valdosta City Hall Annex,
300 North Lee Street, Valdosta, GA 31601

Event: facebook

[Movie: 10% completion of 162 years? --Tom Mirti, SRWMD]
Movie: 10% completion of 162 years? –Tom Mirti, SRWMD

We already knew about this from Continue reading →