Category Archives: Health

Another reason to reject TiO2 strip mine near the Okefenokee Swamp: food coloring health issues 2023-06-02

If white paint wasn’t a bad enough reason for a strip mine too near the Okefenokee Swamp, how about food coloring linked to serious health issues?

“Research shows the chemical [titanium dioxide] is likely a neurotoxin and immunotoxin, and can damage the reproductive system, cause birth defects and damage genes.”

[Skittles, TiO2 dragline]
Skittles, TiO2 dragline

Remember: Twin Pines Minerals is proposing to mine titanium dioxide, not titanium metal. And the Okefenokee Swamp is the headwaters of the Suwannee and St. Marys Rivers, exchanging surface water with groundwater down to the Floridan Aquifer, from which we all drink in south Georgia and north Florida.

For ways you can object to the permits for that strip mine, currently before the Georgia Environmental Protection Division (GA-EPD), or to support a bill that would prevent it expanding, see:
https://wwals.net/issues/titanium-mining/

Tom Perkins, The Guardian, June 2, 2023, Health advocates urge US regulators to ban common food coloring additive: Titanium dioxide, found in candy, meat substitutes and packaged cookies, has been linked to a range of serious health issues,

Public health advocates say a common color enhancer added to thousands of US foods is toxic and dangerous, and have formally petitioned federal regulators to ban the chemical’s use.

Though the compound, titanium dioxide, has been widely used for decades and is found in foods like M&Ms, Skittles, Beyond Meat plant-based chicken tenders and Chips Ahoy! cookies, recent science has shown it is also linked to a range of serious health issues and accumulates in the body and organs.

Continue reading →

Suwannee Riverkeeper wants you to get these Florida bills vetoed

Floridians, you can help protect our river, springs, and Floridan Aquifer!

Please use these convenient Waterkeepers Florida forms to ask Florida Governor DeSantis to veto three bad bills:

[Suwannee Riverkeeper wants you! Photo: Shirley Kokidko, Alapahoochee River 2022-07-09]
Suwannee Riverkeeper wants you! Photo: Shirley Kokidko, Alapahoochee River 2022-07-09

Don’t forget to sign the petition for a constitutional amendment referendum on Right to Clean and Healthy Waters:
https://www.floridarighttocleanwater.org/

Georgians and everybody else, you can still send a comment to GA-EPD opposing a titanium dioxide strip mine too near the Okefenokee Swamp:
twinpines.comment@dnr.ga.gov Continue reading →

Infected fish caught on the Alapaha River, Berrien County, Georgia 2023-04-19

Where to report:
https://wwals.net/report/

Update 2023-04-27: Name of the fisherman and the original poster, with link.

These fish pictures are getting shared around, and keep getting sent to Suwannee Riverkeeper. Here’s what the fish disease might be. If you see a fish like this, please stick it on ice and get it biopsied so you can know. Call us, so we can know, and we can help you find a lab.

I have provided some eye bleach for after you look at this picture.

[Infected fish 2023-04-19]
Infected fish 2023-04-19

The fish was caught in the Alapaha River in Berrien County, Georgia.

I’ve heard at least five theories for what is the problem with this fish, from most likely to least: Continue reading →

WWALS calls for city trash reforms –Valdosta Daily Times 2023-03-09

Update 2023-03-29: Valdosta Creek Trash Tour 2023-03-29.

Come to Two Mile Branch Saturday, March 25, 2023, see the trash problem for yourself, and talk to many of the people mentioned in this article.

Malia Thomas, Valdosta Daily Times, March 9, 2023 , Group calls for city trash reforms,

VALDOSTA — In the WWALS Watershed Coalition’s eyes, the city needs to clean up its act.

[Sugar Creek Beach, trash, WaterGoat trash trap, Valdosta Mayor Scott James Matheson, Suwannee Riverkeeper]
Sugar Creek Beach, trash, WaterGoat trash trap, Valdosta Mayor Scott James Matheson, Suwannee Riverkeeper

John Quarterman, Suwannee [R]iverkeeper of WWALS, and Bobby McKenzie, [former] WWALS intern, have expressed concern over trash pile ups in the city’s waterways, particularly in Sugar Creek. Continue reading →

Packet: Six Additional Documents by Morven Solar @ Brooks County Commission 2023-02-06

Here are the six additional document Pine Gate Renewables sent to the Brooks County Commission on the day of the Public Hearing for Morven Solar.

[Six additional documents, Morven Solar 2023-02-06]
Six additional documents, Morven Solar 2023-02-06

Interestingly, none of these documents say Pine Gate would not use herbicides on the project. The Maintenance and Operations document does say Continue reading →

Forever chemical residue can even be in your house lot 2022-11-27

That house you bought may come with forever chemicals, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), which can harm human (and wildlife) health in many ways.

Florida permits shipping sewage sludge from south Florida to north Florida for agricultural fertilizer. It’s not clear how prevalent the same practice is in Georgia. But from fields it can wash into waterways, and subdivisions may be built on fields that had sludge applied.

[Human health, house PFAS sources]
Human health, house PFAS sources

Marina Schauffler, The Main Monitor, November 27, 2022, Forever exposure, forever anxiety: Coping with the inescapable toxicity of PFAS: Found in water, air, soil, food, consumer products and work settings, “forever chemicals” pose risks to both physical health and mental well-being.

At the end of Joy Road in Fairfield, a steep dead-end road climbs a hillside to a scattering of homes with distant mountain views and some of the higher concentrations of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) the state has found to date in groundwater. The neighbors here live under what one resident, Nathan Saunders, called the “cloud of an unknown future,” fearing how PFAS exposure may erode their health.

Continue reading →

Forever chemicals contaminate Withlacoochee River in Georgia and Florida 2022-10-18

Update 2022-12-24: PFAS contamination may be much more widespread than previously known 2022-10-12.

Hahira, GA, October 18, 2022 — A first-of-its kind study by Waterkeeper Alliance found 83% of the waters tested across the country, and 100% of tested waterways in Georgia and Florida, were contaminated by dangerous PFAS chemicals.

“The PFAS levels we found in the Withlacoochee River were lower than most sites in the U.S., but there should not have been any,” said Suwannee Riverkeeper John S. Quarterman. “WWALS is working on ways to do more tests to narrow down likely sources and to see how rain events affect the results.”

[Figure 11: bigger circles indicate more contamination]
Figure 11: bigger circles indicate more contamination

The good news: PFAS levels in four test sites on the Withlacoochee River were among the lowest in the study. Still, there are currently no universal, science-based limits on the various PFAS chemicals and their presence is cause for further investigation. For many PFAS chemicals, the EPA has not set a health advisory limit that would give the public a baseline to determine what amount of PFAS is unhealthy in drinking water. In most cases, the EPA is not doing adequate monitoring for these chemicals, which is why these findings are so relevant and important.

The bad news: Continue reading →

Sunday Trash reporting cleanup, One Mile Branch, Valdosta’s Lee Street detention pond, 2022-10-23

Second chance to learn Click ‘n’ Fix reporting and seeclickfix.com followup at multiple locations in Valdosta. Come to Valdosta’s Lee Street Detention Pond at 2 PM this Sunday, October 23, 2022. Pick up trash and get a Rivers Alive t-shirt!

More people involved will improve public health, quality of life, and eco-tourism, while providing community involvement.

We invite all Valdosta City officials, especially Stormwater Division and Public Works, to come instruct us in how it should be done.

We will start at Valdosta’s Lee Street detention pond (highlighted in the map), where the city recently installed a trash trap it made and later added a net. Since Valdosta from time to time cleans that pond out, there should not be much trash in there.

So we will forage farther afield. In addition to trash, we’re looking for trash cans in parking lots: if they’re not there, they should be according to Valdosta’s own ordinances, so you can report them missing.

[Trash trap, map, Lee St. Detention Pond, Valdosta, GA]
Trash trap, map, Lee St. Detention Pond, Valdosta, GA

Continue reading →

Comment on FERC LNG Export Rulemaking with Florida Physicians for Social Responsibility, 2022-09-20

Update 2022-10-04: WWALS response to FERC on opposition comments of Pivotal LNG about small, inland LNG Rulemaking 2022-10-04.

Florida Physicians for Social Responsibility has invited Suwannee Riverkeeper to talk about the FERC Rulemaking on small, inland, LNG export facilities on the comment deadline day, as FL PSR members and others write comments on that FERC Docket RM22-21.

You do not have to attend this zoom meeting to comment or intervene. Here’s how:
https://wwals.net/?p=59062#tocomment

Please comment or intervene as timely as you can before the comment deadline of 5PM, Tuesday, September 20, 2022. However, a FERC attorney advises us that the Commission usually considers comments filed after the deadline, so if you can’t comment by 5PM, comment anyway.

When: 7 PM – 7:45 PM, Tuesday, September 20, 2022

Register: for zoom

Event: facebook,

[FL PSR & WWALS comment on FERC LNG Export]
FL PSR & WWALS comment on FERC LNG Export

Continue reading →

QUARTERMAN in VDT: Sewage situation better, trash needs work 2022-05-21

John S. Quarterman, Valdosta Daily Times, May 21, 2022, QUARTERMAN: Sewage situation better, trash needs work,

Thanks to Valdosta for no sewage disasters since December 2019. Some manholes still need fixing, such as at Wainwright Drive on One Mile Branch.

But Valdosta’s mayor, council and staff seem to be staying ahead of the sewage situation, for example by buying 37 emergency generators, one for each lift station.

[John S. Quarterman]
John S. Quarterman

Now Valdosta needs to get a grip on its trash problem.

Continue reading →