Category Archives: History

Seattle settles salmon river dam case, hails relationship of mutual respect and consultation with Sauk-Suiattle Tribe 2023-05-02

The city of Seattle will include a program for fish passage around its dams on the Skagit River, as part of a settlement with the Sauk-Suiattle Tribe of a case on behalf of the tribe and of salmon that live in the river.

That program was filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) as part of the city’s license renewal request for those hydroelectric dams. These are strange times indeed, when FERC becomes the guarantor of river rights.

Washington dam removal is controversial but may be the best chance for salmon, earth.com 2019-08-20

There are at least two ways of approaching such cases on rights: rights of nature itself (fish, rivers, etc.), or rights of humans.

Human rights are the subject of the Florida citizen petition for a state constitutional amendment for Rights to Clean and Healthy Water. Florida registered voters, please sign that petition:
https://www.floridarighttocleanwater.org/

And then please get your friends and relatives to sign it.

This Seattle case used both approaches, according to the Continue reading →

Correction: Pickleball courts to be on other side of Two Mile Branch from 2007-proposed detention pond 2023-03-07

Update 2023-03-29: Trash still dribbling from 2695 N Ashley St into Two Mile Branch 2023-02-24.

At the cleanup Saturday of Two Mile Branch at Berkeley Drive, Valdosta City Engineer Benjamin O’Dowd poinged out a mistake in the post on Trash in Valdosta Two Mile Branch Watershed Management Plan, November 2007.

The pickleball courts will not actually be at the same location as the detention pond between Roosevelt Drive and Two Mile Branch at Oak Street. Instead, they will be on the other side of Two Mile Branch, next to the tennis courts.

Pickleball Courts Location, Groundbreaking, 2007 Detention Pond

My mistake. I should not have gone by hearsay, even though two people independently told me the location they thought the pickleball courts would be. Thanks to the City Engineer for pointing out my mistake.

Which doesn’t change the main point of the previous post: sixteen years later, none of the four detention ponds on Two Mile Branch in the 2007 implementation schedule have been built, nor have any other trash detention facilities been put on Two Mile Branch at Berkley Drive or Oak Street.

I thank Ben O’Dowd for promising to put trash traps at those locations.

But why were those people who told me that confused?

There’s nothing ambiguous about where the 2007 plan put the Oak Street detention pond: between Two Mile Branch and Roosevelt Drive east of Oak Street. Continue reading →

Trash in Valdosta Two Mile Branch Watershed Management Plan, November 2007

Update 2023-03-27: Correction: Pickleball courts to be on other side of Two Mile Branch from 2007-proposed detention pond 2023-03-07.

The City of Valdosta has planned to do something about trash in Two Mile Branch since at least 2007, as part of a Watershed Management Plan, that appeared to grow out of a GA-EPD action. Most of those planned actions do not seem to have happened, despite a table of projects and an implementation schedule. And despite some of them turning up again as merely “proposed” in a 2010 plan. At least one of them will never happen, because the city has found a source of funds for a completely different project on the same site.

I urge the Georgia Environmental Protection Division (GA-EPD) not to be satisfied with plans.

Actions are what count.

Two Mile Branch: plans are not enough

I commend the City of Valdosta for its plans for a trash trap on Two Mile Branch at Berkley Drive and at Oak Street. There is some reason to believe these actions will happen, thanks to City Engineer Ben O’Dowd.

I urge anyone who can to come to the Two Mile Branch cleanup between those locations, 8-11 AM this Saturday, March 25, 2023:
https://wwals.net/?p=61338

First let’s go back to 2007 to see why plans are not enough: only actions count.

This map includes as BMPs (Best Management Practices) detention ponds on Two Mile Branch at Berkley Drive (15) and above Oak Street (18), the same locations where Valdosta is now planning, sixteen years later, to finally do something. The map even includes additional ponds below St. Johns School (27) and on Canna Drive (18). I see no sign any of these projects actually happened. Continue reading →

All nine Riverkeepers of Georgia oppose the mining permit applications by Twin Pines Minerals too near the Okefenokee Swamp 2023-03-09

I sent this at 4:08 PM today to TwinPines.Comment@dnr.ga.gov:

“Please find attached a letter of opposition by all nine Riverkeepers of Georgia to the mining permit applications by Twin Pines Minerals, LLC.”

See also the letter by Waterkeepers Florida, representing all fifteen Waterkeepers of Florida. It includes links to the letters by Suwannee and St. Marys Waterkeepers.

You can still send in your own comment.

While the comment period on the Mining Land Use Plan nominally closes at 4:30 PM today, that same address has been open for comments for a year or more, and will probably remain open.

Plus GA-EPD has said that if there is a draft permit, they will open another 60-day public comment period.

Meanwhile, all the Waterkeepers of Georgia and Florida oppose that strip mine for white paint, and support the Okefenokee Swamp, the St. Marys and Suwannee Rivers, and the Floridan Aquifer.

The GA Riverkeepers letter

The letter is below in web form, or see it as PDF. Continue reading →

Obituary: Pope Howell of Banks Lake Outdoors 2023-02-17

WWALS will miss Pope Howell.

Bobby McKenzie remarks, “Pope was the one always setting WWALS up for the Full Moon paddles. Jerome (camp host) was a big help too but Pope was usually the main guy especially when starting out the free rentals. Pope really enjoyed talking about the full moon paddle crowds.”

Pope Howell, Banks Lake Sunset

Banks Lake Outdoors 2023-02-19

We regret to inform you that longtime employee, Pope Howell, passed away at the end of the week. We hope you will keep his family and friends in your prayers in the coming days. He very much enjoyed talking with the wide variety of people who visit Banks Lake.

Pope Howell. Photo: Banks Lake Outdoors

Obituary for George “Pope” Howell Jr.

Continue reading →

Valdosta promises an upgraded Watergoat; offers no plan for cleaning it out or nearby woods 2023-02-17

Update 2023-02-22: Valdosta will maintain Berkley Drive trash trap 2023-02-22.

Valdosta City Engineer Benjamin O’Dowd says Valdosta has purchased an upgraded Watergoat trash trap, to be installed in approximately March.

It will go in Sugar Creek, he says, and the old one will go into Two Mile Branch below Berkley Drive.

Valdosta promises new Watergoat, Two Mile Branch trash report, Old Watergoat, Two Mile Branch trash

That’s all good. Thanks for doing that, Engineer O’Dowd, and City of Valdosta.

But he did not mention any plan for cleaning out that new trash trap location on Two Mile Branch. Remember, Continue reading →

Withlacoochee River bridges, Brooks and Lowndes Counties, 1906 and 1917

Knight Bridge and Rocky Ford Bridge appear in some century-old maps in Georgia Archives.

Knight Bridge 1917 and remaining posts 2022

At the top left you can see a road going to the site of Spain Ferry.

Another road reaches the river downstream from there. Current aerial maps show that road is still there in the woods, although the path of the river seems to have shifted west somewhat at that point.

Then there’s Knight Bridge, near where Knights Ferry Boat Ramp is now.

Notice that the old road to Knight Bridge jags south before it gets to the river.

In this current map you can see that old road still there in the woods. Continue reading →

HPS II withdraws phosphate mining application from Bradford County, Florida 2023-01-19

After many years of massive opposition, HPS II Thursday withdrew its application for a phosphate mine “without the County taking any formal action on it.”

Letter, Map

Union County, where HPS II also wanted to mine, rejected its application there, changed the Union County Comprehensive Plan to limit mining, and, with the assistance of Alachua County, maintained legal defense against the mine, until HPS II dropped its lawsuit last June.

So it seems safe to finally say the HPS II phosphate mine is dead.

Congratulations to all the opponents, especially Bradford Environmental Forum, Citizens Against Phosphate Mining, Sierra Club, and Our Santa Fe River (OSFR).

Suwannee Riverkeeper has opposed this mine since 2017, because it drains ito the New River and the Santa Fe River in the Suwannee River Basin, above the Floridan Aquifer. Update 2023-01-24: Added detail. Our opposition has included attending demonstrations, speaking at County Commission meetings in Union and Bradford Counties, writing letters to those Commissions, organizing Southwings small plane overflights of the mine site with opposition members from Union County and OSFR, publishing photographs from such overflights, attending coordination meetings as far away as Tampa, and attending nationwide meetings against phosphate mining. See https://wwals.net/issues/phosphate-mining/. In December 2018, the first official action of the newly-formed Waterkeepers Florida was a a Resolution Against Phosphate Mines in Florida.

HPS II withdrawing their rezoning application does raise questions about where phosphate miners will aim next. Continue reading →

Lowndes County buys Troupville land for Nature Park and River Camp 2022-12-30

Suwannee Riverkeeper features in the image the Valdosta Daily Times used with the story.

County acquires Troupeville[sic] land for nature reserve, By Malia Thomas, Valdosta Daily Times, Dec 30, 2022,

VALDOSTA — Lowndes County is doing its part to preserve nature with the purchase of 71.47 acres of land between the Little River Confluence and the Withlacoochee River.

Suwannee Riverkeeper banner at a Troupville cleanup.
Lowndes County Chairman Bill Slaughter is second from right, back row.
WWALS E.D. Gretchen Quarterman is by the left end of the banner.

The county purchased the land from Between the Rivers LLC. for $121,500 with the intention of setting it aside as a nature preserve. The Valdosta-Lowndes Parks and Recreation Authority owns the land between that property and Highway 133.

In her letter to the Georgia Department of Natural Resources Board of Trustees, sixth generation owner and property seller Helen Tapp spoke of Continue reading →

New York landfill court case illustrates right to clean water 2022-12-30

A lawsuit using New York State’s recent Environmental Rights Amendment illustrates what a Right to Clean Water constitutional amendment could do for Florida or Georgia.

Here’s what’s going on in Perinton, NY. Then Joseph Bonasia of Florida Rights of Nature Network provides examples of how Florida’s pending Right to Clean and Healthy Waters (RTCW) could be used to solve similar cases.

In Georgia, an RTCW amendment could perhaps be used to get cities to stop trash from polluting waterways, for example maybe to get Valdosta to enforce its ordinances against landowners letting trash off their property and requiring so many trash cans per number of parking places. That would keep much trash out of creeks such as Hightower Creek, Sugar Creek, and the Withlacoochee River, protecting neighborhood children, wildlife, and the river all the way to Florida.

High Acres Landfill, looms over a neighborhood in Perinton, near Rochester, NY. Residents claim the dump violates their state constitutional right to “clean air, clean air, and a healthful environment.”, Photo: Max Schulte

Gino Fanelli, Rochester City Newspaper, March 28, 2022, Neighbors say Perinton landfill violates their constitutional right to ‘clean air’,

The sour scent of rot hung over Perinton Parkway one early spring day.
Continue reading →

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