What’s upstream on Hutchinson Mill Creek, which joins the Withlacoochee River just upstream (north) of Hagan Bridge on GA 122 in Lowndes County, Georgia?
![[Spillway, Hutchinson Pond, 16:22:31, 31.0554820, -83.3514000]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2020-12-10--hutchinson-mill-pond/20201210_162233.jpg)
Spillway, Hutchinson Pond, 16:22:31, 31.0554820, -83.3514000
Hutchinson Pond, in Cook County on Caulie Harris Road, presumably at the site of Hutchinson Mill Pond. Continue reading
Update 2021-04-16: Clean again: Withlacoochee River 2021-04-15.
No spills, little rain, clean rivers!
![[Chart, clean plates, fruit, Swim Guide]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2021-04-08--wq/many.jpg)
Chart, clean plates, fruit, Swim Guide
Samples by WWALS testers Michael and Jacob Bachrach at Knights Ferry, Nankin, and State Line Boat Ramps came out about as clean as you can get, and actually zero at State Line. Also zero at Cleary Bluff downstream of Allen Ramp by Gus Cleary.
And there was little rain yesterday, and none so far today.
So happy boating, fishing, and swimming this weekend!
But what is this fruit? Continue reading
Update 2022-08-23: 2021 ANNUAL REPORT, Lowndes County Impaired Streams Monitoring 2021-04-07.
Some good news: “Low level mercury levels are well below acute standards at all sampling points.”
Some bad news: “fecal coliform sampling results indicated all sampling points exceeded water quality standards for the June and September sampling events.”
![[Cover, Franks Creek and Mud Creek]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2020-04-07--loco-water-quality-report/many.jpg)
Cover, Franks Creek and Mud Creek
That’s in the 2020 ANNUAL REPORT from Lovell Enginnering Associates to Lowndes County for its Impaired Streams Monitoring project that the Georgia Environmental Protection Division (GA-EPD) required the county to do.
Thanks to Lowndes County Engineer Mike Fletcher for sending this report in response to a WWALS open records request. I don’t know why Lowndes County did not publish this report themselves. Maybe they did, and I just haven’t found it online yet.
Working through this data, so far it seems that Franks Creek, which comes down west of Hahira to the Little River, shows spikes in Fecal coliform after rains. Those spikes usually occur downstream of Hahira’s wastewater treatment facility. Continue reading
Pick from a pair of floating Georgia Rivers Alive cleanups for Earth Day, and bring your boat!
Gretchen Quarterman will lead a floating cleanup on Joree Millpond in Valdosta, Georgia, starting at 913 Millpond Road (PDF flyer for Joree Millpond). You can return whenever you want to, but we expect this boating cleanup to last about two hours. If you have a jon boat and are willing to take a volunteer onto the pond to remove litter, please contact either Gretchen Quarterman (229-834-1945) or Austin Fiveash (229-563-6262). You can also participate in your kayak or canoe. Volunteers will remove litter from along the edge of the pond and from near the spillway. The City of Valdosta is providing a large trash receptacle at the site, thanks to Valdosta Stormwater Manager Angela Bray.
Bobby McKenzie will lead a paddle cleanup from Sugar Creek behind the Salty Snapper off of Gornto Road, down the Withlacoochee River, and a short hop up the Little River to Troupville Boat Ramp. That’s less than 4 river miles, and even with stops for trash collection should take less than three hours. We will leave the bagged trash at that destination, where Lowndes County Public Works will pick it up Monday.
When: Gather 9 AM, launch 9:30 AM, end 12:30 PM, Saturday, April 17, 2021
Millpond put in:
913 Millpond Road, Valdosta, GA, Take Country Club Drive to Mill Pond Road. Turn right and 913 is last house on left before right-only exit onto Jerry Jones Road.
Drop your boat at the water, then park near the street.
Millpond GPS: 30.867375, -83.309558
River paddle put in:
The Salty Snapper parking lot, 1405 Gornto Road, Valdosta, GA.
Go to the back of the parking lot to drop off your boat at Sugar Creek.
Sugar Creek GPS:
30.861785, -83.318793
River Paddle Take Out:
Troupville Boat Ramp,
9664 Valdosta Hwy, Valdosta, GA 31602.
Go west on St. Augustine Road across I-75 (exit 18) and cross the Withlacoochee River.
At the light for Val Tech Road, turn left, which takes you down to the boat ramp.
Troupville Boat Ramp GPS:
30.851842, -83.346536.
Safety: All volunteers must sign a WWALS liability release, which makes WWALS insurance cover them, and must wear a life jacket at all times while in boats.
Bring: the usual personal flotation device, boat, paddles, snaks, drinking water, warm clothes, and first aid kit. Also trash pickers and trash bags, and good boots.
Free: This outing is free to everyone, because it is a cleanup.
We recommend you support the work of WWALS by
becoming a WWALS member today!
https://wwals.net/donations/#join
![[Joree Millpond, trash, Withlacoochee River]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2021-04-17--cleanup-joree-millpond-sugar-creek-withlacoochee-river-troupville-boat-ramp/many.jpg)
Joree Millpond, trash, Withlacoochee River
Photos:
Russell Allen McBride.
Update 2022-02-21: For updates on the Valdosta trash situation, see https://wwals.net/issues/trash/.
Turns out the City of Valdosta already has a trash trap on one creek. It’s next to Baytree Road, upstream from Lake Sheri, on what I’m calling Sheri Run. The creek ends up in the Withlacoochee River, just upstream from the I-75 bridge. But, because of the trash trap, most of the trash does not reach Lake Sheri or the river, because it gets caught after it comes down from Valdosta Mall and all the restaurants and stores on St. Augustine Road.
![[Outfall of trash trap, 10:16:37, 30.8471573, -83.3288788]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2020-12-08--sheri-run-lake-sheri/20201208_101636.jpg)
Outfall of trash trap, 10:16:37, 30.8471573, -83.3288788
Ray City has had a long string of wastewater violations, many each year, going back years, at its wastewater treatment plant on Cat Creek, just below Beaverdam Creek, and 8.36 Cat Creek miles upstream from the Withlacoochee River.
![[Catwalk, Outfall, Fecal coliform]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2018-08-30--permits/ray-city/2021-04-05--gora-response/many.jpg)
Catwalk, Outfall, Fecal coliform
Most of them did not involve fecal bacteria, but two did, on monthly average, for December 2018 (see page 57), for August 2017 (see page 73). Curiously, none of these violations ever showed up in GA-EPD’s Sewage Spills Report, nor in its underlying spreadsheet going back to 2015, which is as far back as I have it. We have some idea why not about the January and February 2021 Total Suspended Solids (TSS) overflows, but not about the previous incidents.
In response to a Notice of Violation of September 22, 2020, on November 2, 2020, the City of Ray City told GA-EPD it was “in the process of developing a Corrective Action Plan (CAP) to address the issue of non-compliance with the 85% Minimum BOD removal rate stipulated in our NPDES Permit.“ The City proposed to change its sampling method to deal with “periodic low influent BOD levels”, and also to get on with dealing with the “high volumes of infiltration and inflow“ it says is the cause, including filing an application for a CDBG grant before the end of March 2021.
Thanks to Jay Howell of the EPD Southwest office in Albany for scanning and emailing to me the documents of my Georgia Open Records Act (GORA) request of last week. I asked for all the enforcement actions on Ray City that I found listed on EPA ECHO, (see the previous post) together with related correspondence. documents and emailing them to me yesterday. They are on the WWALS website. Update 2021-04-07: website page labels fixed for this GORA document.
This November 2020 CAP is apparently a new one, after the CAP accepted by GA-EPD on June 19, 2019, and submitted by the City on May 2, 2019: Continue reading
Most of the south end of the Okefenokee Swamp drains west into the Suwannee River.
This is one reason Suwannee Riverkeeper is so interested in stopping titanium strip mine proposed far too near the southeast corner of the Swamp by Twin Pines Minerals LLC of Alabama.
Please send your comments to Georgia officials asking them to thoroughly review and then reject the five permit applications from the miners:
https://waterkeeper.org/news/help-suwannee-riverkeeper-save-okefenokee-swamp/
![[WWALS map: All Landings in the Suwannee River Basin]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2021-04-04--okefenokee-swamp-south-suwannee-creeks/map-wwals-landings.jpg)
WWALS map:
All Landings in the Suwannee River Basin
Highlighted on the left is the Little Swannee Creek Confluence with the Suwannee River, several miles downstream from Fargo. That creek connects with Breakfast Branch, which comes down out of the Swamp before crossing FL 2 (GA 94). Orange waterways are in the Suwannee River Basin, and red ones are in the St. Marys River Basin, according to USGS, but see below.
Next to the north is Cypress Creek, which has tributaries way out in the Swamp, and flows pretty much straight west, reaching the Suwannee River a couple of miles downstream of Fargo.
Upstream from Fargo, almost halfway to Griffis Fish Camp, is a creek for which USGS has no name. I’m calling it Strange Island Creek, because it comes west out of the Swamp past North Strange Island and Middle Strange Island. It has branches coming south down from Jack Island. Those islands show up Continue reading
Update 2021-04-10: Clean week, Withlacoochee River 2021-04-08.
The rain came gently Wednesday, and the Withlacoochee River was still clean Thursday, April 1, 2021, no joke.
![[Clean results, Withlacoochee River down and up, Swim Guide]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2021-04-01--wq/many.jpg)
Clean results, Withlacoochee River down and up, Swim Guide
Thanks to WWALS testers Michael and Jacob Bachrach for testing Knights Ferry, Nankin, and State Line Boat Ramps, and to Gus Cleary for testing at Cleary Bluff below Allen Ramp. All came out zero or within one E. coli colony of zero. Can’t ask for much better than that.
We have no new results from Madison Health since Thursday a week ago, and nothing new from Valdosta since Monday.
So according to the data we have, all from WWALS, happy boating, swimming, and fishing in the Withlacoochee River this weekend, at least if you don’t mind a bit of chill! Continue reading
Update 2021-04-07: GA-EPD GORA response about Ray City wastewater permit violations 2021-04-05.
The bad news: Ray City, Georgia, had not one, but two wastewater spills this year. The good news: they were both mostly treated effluent, and Fecal coliform levels were well within limits.
![[Process Flow, Spill Report, Map: Ray City, Cat Creek, Withlacoochee River]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2021-03-24--ray-city-spill/many.jpg)
Process Flow, Spill Report, Map: Ray City, Cat Creek, Withlacoochee River
Why was it a spill, then? It exceeded limits of total suspended solids (TSS).
How did we find out about this? Informants (who shall remain nameless unless I confirm they want to be named) told us that Ray City Council minutes for January and February mentioned water quality tests being within GA-EPD limits, but did not say why this was relevant. But this appeared in the Berrien Press on March 24, 2021: Continue reading
Update 2021-04-03: Little Rain, Still Clean, Withlacoochee River 2021-04-01.
WWALS testers Conn and Trudy Cole found the Little and Withlacoochee Rivers still clean at two spots Friday after the WWALS clean results over thirty river mils Thursday. Crooked Creek was dirty Friday as it often is; see below.
![[Filthy Friday before, Swim Guide, Clean last week]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2021-03-26--wq/many.jpg)
Filthy Friday before, Swim Guide, Clean last week
Valdosta upstream Monday and Wednesday data concurs: clean.
There was a bit of rain yesterday (Sunday), but not much, so cleanliness probably continues. Happy boating, swimming, and fishing!
The week before was not so clean after all. Continue reading