UGA Professors Jaivime Evaristo (isotope data) and Todd Rasmussen (water levels) review
two lines of evidence that the Okefenokee Swamp leaks through the underlying limestone into the Upper Floridan Aquifer, and nearby water withdrawals draw more down.
This WWALS Webinar by zoom at noon will explain their recent scientific paper on this subject.
This paper is more incentive to pass Georgia House Bill 561 to protect the Okefenokee Swamp from mining, at least on its east side.
Georgians, please ask your statehouse delegation to pass HB 561.
Floridians, please ask your Georgia friends and relatives to do the same.
Here’s how to contact Georgia Statehouse members:
But not droughty enough for SRWMD to declare even a voluntary Drought Warning,
according to the Drought Workshop after the Board meeting.
I have sent in a FOIA request for the Workshop slides.
Both meetings are in the SRWMD YouTube post for 2025-12-09.
Meanwhile, here is the SRWMD Hydrologic Conditions Report for November 2025,
plus some related information.
Such as SRWMD actually does have “Year-Round Lawn & Landscape Irrigation Measures,” but nobody seems to know about them.
And that page does not seem to include agricultural, mining, or water bottling water use. Continue reading →
Veronica Kelly-Summers, a dedicated Visitor Services Manager with
Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge,
talked about the Okefenokee Swamp, its history, significance, places to go, things to do, and what’s next,
in this largest and best-preserved freshwater wetland in the U.S.
The Swamp is the headwaters of two rivers: the St. Marys that forms the border between Georgia and Florida,
and the Suwannee, which flows through Georgia and the Florida state song.
Here is the WWALS video of Veronica’s webinar, from noon-1 PM, Thursday, September 11, 2025:
https://youtu.be/pvLU8wPLsZc
The WWALS
campout at Floyd’s Island
in the middle of the Okefenokee Swamp
has unfortunately been cancelled due to low water.
So you can watch Veronica’s presentation instead.
WWALS Board Member Janet Martin gave a brief introduction.
In questions and answers at the end,
Veronica elaborated on what it means
for the Okefenokee NWR to become a World Heritage Site:
more visibility, more visitors, but no additional federal funding.
Veronica Kelly-Summers is a dedicated Visitor Services Manager with
over 15 years of experience in protecting natural resources and
connecting people with nature. She holds a bachelor’s and master’s
degree in forestry from Southern Illinois University with a focus on
forest recreation and wildlife habitat management. Her career with
the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has taken her to eight national
wildlife refuges from the woods and swamps of southern Illinois to
the Loess Bluffs of Iowa and Missouri, the Florida Everglades, and
she’s now stationed at Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge in
Georgia. She works closely with staff and partners to provide
leadership and strategic direction for the Visitor Services program
including managing visitor facilities and recreational opportunities
for camping, boating, interpretation, environmental education,
special events, outreach, hunting, fishing, managing volunteers, and
much more. When not at work, she enjoys spending time with her
husband, Jacob, and their pets, a yellow lab named Charlie and a
spicy tuxedo cat named Tino.
Received yesterday, a comment against the huge borrow pit proposed in a horse area, uphill from the Crystal River, in Citrus County, Florida,
to build another segment of the unnecessary Suncoast Parkway toll road.
That segment 3A would be another stop towards continuing up across the
Suwannee River and other sensitive wetlands all the way to the GA-FL line towards
Thomasville, Georgia.
Hurricane evacuation is the usual excuse for this toll road,
but solar panels and batteries for houses and businesses would cost less
and would mean many people would not have to evacuate and would not be
without power for weeks as happens now after every hurricane.
You can also send a public comment, to:
PublicMail.CESAJ-CC@usace.army.mil
Formal Public Comment and Request for Clean Water Act §404(q) Review
November 6, 2025
Dear Regulatory Division:
Please find attached the Formal Public Comment “A permit that Never
Existed” Statement for the Record submitted by the Stop the Sand
Mine Committee regarding the proposed Suncoast Parkway 2 Segment 3A
(FPID 442764-2), and the related Southworth sand mine property
purchase now being pursued by FDOT using public tax dollars.
WWALS will never have the direct economic effect that many of the other projects described to the five Georgia State Senators this week.
But many of our activities require very little economic input,
such as water trails, outings, and even the future Troupville Nature Park and River Camp.
And some solutions for things we oppose would have outsized effects.
The Citrus County Commissioners approved authorizing seven named staff members
to sign permit applications and inspection reports on behalf of the county,
with no mention of any further approval by the Commissioners.
This authorization is for each of FDOT, FDEP, and SWFWMD,
which are exactly the three Florida state agencies that are involved
in permitting the huge borrow pit next to
the Suncoast Parkway Phase 3A Extension in Citrus County.
I’ve never seen this before, and
I go to many county commission meetings in Florida and Georgia,
and I watch more counties online.
It’s common for counties to put specific items on their agenda
to authorize a specific staff member to sign a specific document,
but I’ve never seen a blanket authorization like this,
especially not for seven different staff for three different agencies.
Further, the listing in the Consent Agenda does not match the actual
authorizations later in the board packet,
and those authorizations seem to extend the authorization to the actual permits,
not just applications.
This is upstream from Crystal River, south of the Withlacoochee
(South) River that flows into the Gulf of Mexico.
Local opponents are rightly concerned about local issues.
WWALS is also concerned that this would be another step towards
running the Suncoast Parkway north across the Suwannee River.
On its Consent Agenda for September 23, 2025, the Citrus Board of County Commissioners approved item C.12: Continue reading →
The plot thickens for the proposed sand mine next to the
Suncoast Parkway Phase 3A Extension in Citrus County.
The state filed eminent domain proceedings for 50 acres
and the owner settled for $3.1 million plus $543,345 in attorney fees,
plus $112,000 in experts costs.
This is upstream from Crystal River, south of the Withlacoochee (South) River that flows into the Gulf of Mexico.
Local opponents are rightly concerned about local issues.
WWALS is also concerned that this would be another step towards running the Suncoast Parkway north across the Suwannee River.
Southworth settled his eminent domain proceedings with the state.
The state now owns the location of the proposed mine. I heard this
was the case and why they asked to delay the hearing, but I did not
want to put it out without proof (I have a pending records request)
That takes the county out of the process. The state can now move
forward with the sand mine if they choose to do so. They would need
to follow proper permitting procedures from SWFWMD and other
entities.
But county now has no say in what happens to the property.
**update** The eminent domain settlement looks to be for 50 acres
right next to the parkway. The mine application was over 250 acres.
So there may be more coming.
E. coli is the canary in the coal mine for other contaminants in waterways.
For years WWALS has been asking the state of Florida to test frequently in many places on all rivers, to very little response
FDEP did do some testing for chemical and biological tracers, including DNA tests, after Valdosta’s huge December 2019 spill, but that petered out.
While FDEP was doing that, those results helped identify another source of contamination that was not Valdosta.
WWALS did test the Withlacoochee River for PFAS forever chemicals and round some,
although much less than many other rivers, and no higher below the outfall of Valdosta’s Withlacoochee Wastewater Treatment Plant or PCA’s package plant.
FDEP continued with quarterly tests for a while, and put at least its fecal bacteria results online.
But it stopped doing that last year.
The 2020 GA-EPD Consent Order on Valdosta required bacterial testing of the Withlacoochee River over 40 river miles three times a week, for four years.
Once those four years were up, Valdosta dropped back to two locaitons once a week.
USGS ceased financial support for nitrate and pH monitoring in eight Florida springs this year.
It is not clear whether SRWMD picked up the slack.
After SRWMD Chair Virginia Johns took the oath of office due to being reappointed,
the Board at its September 9, 2025, meeting approved the agenda unchanged and then approved the Consent Agenda
with the Nutrien White Springs phosphate mine water use permit still in there, for withdrawal of up to 64.1621 million gallons per day (MGD) of groundwater.
Plus, “The executive director may authorize the use of groundwater for back-up mining/dewatering use in excess of 11.0000 mgd in emergency circumstances.”
This strip mine water use permit was approved despite
the fish kill WWALS notified SRWMD of and despite
frequent violations of the Clean Water Act and the
Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA).
I wonder if the Suwannee River Water Management District (SRWMD) Board or Staff looked at EPA ECHO,
which shows Clean Water Act (CWA) Violations Identified in 5 of 12 quarters and 1 Significant Noncompliance,
as well as Significant Noncompliance in all 12 quarters of
the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA).
It’s true that these EPA ECHO quarters do not seem to include 2025, but such previous results are troubling.
This is for PCS PHOSPHATE WHITE SPRINGS, 15843 SE 78TH PL, WHITE SPRINGS, FL 32096,
which is the permit holder for NPDES permit FL0000655, which is cited in the SRWMD Board packet on page BCS 66: Continue reading →
To:
Virginia H. Johns
Board Chair
virginia.johns@srwmd.org
Suwannee River Water Management District
Cc:
Hugh Thomas
Executive DIrector
Hugh.Thomas@srwmd.org
Dear SRWMD,
Staff seem unaware of a recent fish kill on Swift Creek, one of the
“offsite discharge locations” cited in the Memorandum on
the proposed five-year extension of the Nutrien Water Use Permit
2-047-219878. A fish kill is not a natural system “healthy and
functioning well.”
That alone should be enough reason to remove that item from the
Consent Agenda and to schedule a public hearing on that WUP.
Specifically, on your agenda for Tuesday morning, in this item, Continue reading →
![[Okefenokee Swamp leaks into the Floridan Aquifer, WWALS Webinar 2026-01-15, Prof. Evaristo & Rasmussen]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2026-01-15--okefenokee-into-aquifer-webinar/fbmany.jpg)
![[Okefenokee Swamp by Veronica Kelley-Summers, a WWALS Webinar by Zoom, 2025-09-11]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2025-09-11--okefenokee-swamp-webinar-video/fbmany.jpg)
![[Comment and CWA Request, re Suncoast Parkway 2 Seg 3A --Stop the Sand Mine Committee, 2025-11-06]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2025-11-06--stop-the-sand-mine-comment-suncoast-parkway-seg-2/fbmany.jpg)
![[Video: Senate Study Committee on Georgia Tourism, meeting in Valdosta, 2025-10-15]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2025-10-15--ga-tourism-senate-study-committee-pictures/fbmany.jpg)
![[Authorize selected staff to sign permit applications, etc., for FDOT, FDEP, and SWFWMD --Citrus BOCC 2025-09-23]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2025-09-23--citrus-bocc/fbmany.jpg)
![[Southworth sold Citrus County sand mine site to state of Florida, 2025-08-06]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2025-08-06--southworth-settled-with-state/fbmany.jpg)
![[Need more river testing, and more types of testing, DNA, PFAS, metals, etc., by FDEP and others]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2025-09-13--other-contaminants/fbmany.jpg)
![[Nutrien water withdrawals approved, Consent Agenda unchanged, Letters from WWALS and OSFR ignored --SRWMD 2025-09-09]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2025-09-09--srwmd-nutrien/fbmany.jpg)
![[Please remove Nutrien WUP from Consent Agenda and hold a Public Hearing --WWALS to SRWMD 2025-09-08]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2025-09-08--wwals-srwmd-nutrien-wup-swift-creek/fbmany.jpg)