Category Archives: Politics

Adopted 2015 Goals, WATERKEEPER, Valdosta Wastewater: WWALS Board Videos and Minutes 2015-04-08

In April the WWALS board approved a dozen goals for 2015, reviewed upcoming outings and the since-approved WATERKEEPER® Affiliate application, as well as the Valdosta Wastewater and pipeline situations, and moved ahead on planning for the since-solidified Withlacoochee and Little River Water Trail Committee, while adding to a couple of committees. Here are the Minutes of the 8 April 2015 WWALS Quarterly Board Meeting approved at last night’s Board Meeting, and videos of that April meeting.

Here’s a video playlist:

Adopted 2015 Goals, WATERKEEPER, Valdosta Wastewater:
WWALS Board Videos and Minutes 2015-04-08
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for WWALS Watershed Coalition (WWALS),
IHOP, Adel, Cook County County, Georgia.

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Board and Committee members sought by WWALS Watershed Coalition, a WATERKEEPER® Affiliate

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Board and Committee members sought by WWALS Watershed Coalition, a WATERKEEPER® Affiliate

Hahira, June 20th, 2015 — From paddle races to opposing pipelines to building water trails for recreation, landowner protection, and economy, local nonprofit WWALS Watershed Coalition seeks additional members, committee members, and board members to extend advocacy for the watersheds of the Withlacoochee, Willacoochee, Alapaha, and Little Rivers. Applications are now being accepted online for committee and board members to be elected at the July 8th Annual Meeting in Adel, Georgia, and anyone can pay for a membership at any time.

WWALS Secretary Garry Gentry of Tifton said:

“I have been involved with WWALS since almost the beginning and common sense says we need clean water and good stewardship of our planet to leave as a legacy for the next generation.”

Last month thirty people paddled and won prizes Continue reading →

This sister earth now cries out to us –Pope Francis

Pope Francis makes a religious, ethical, humane, scientific, and practical case for stewardship of this earth and its waters, with moral and ethical bases for “the choices which determine our behaviour”. His case does not require any reader to be Catholic or Christian, as the Pope integrates his faith with the science of an integral ecology. You don’t have to agree with everything he wrote (I don’t) to agree with the gist of it, in the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.:

“all life is interrelated”

Pope Francis’ letter to the world is long but well worth reading in full, and these excerpts I hope will encourage everyone to do that.

ENCYCLICAL LETTER LAUDATO SI’ OF THE HOLY FATHER FRANCIS ON CARE FOR OUR COMMON HOME, 18 June 2015, Vatican City. Continue reading →

Petition GA Gov. Deal to oppose Sabal Trail pipeline

Please sign this petition to Please Ban The Sabal Trail Fracked Gas Pipeline.

Congratulations to Push Back the Pipeline for convincing GA Gov. Deal and Lt. Gov. Cagle to oppose Kinder Morgan’s Palmetto Project and the Georgia Dept. of Transportation to deny KMI a permit.

Now it’s time for the same for the Sabal Trail Pipeline. The permitting process is different, but opposition from the state of Georgia could stop this invader, too.

While Sabal Trail has moved off our Withlacoochee River in Florida, it still wants to cross the Withlacoochee in Georgia at the Continue reading →

WWALS on environmental issues panel in Valdosta at LCDP 2015-06-01

WWALS will be among five organizations discussing environmental issues a the monthly Lowndes County Democratic Party (LCDP) meeting 6PM Monday June 1st 2015, at the Lowndes County Board of Elections, 2808 North Oak Street, Valdosta, GA.

Stopping Valdosta wastewater spills and restarting the Alapaha River Water Trail are among the topics WWALS President John S. Quarterman plans to mention. Solar power, the Sabal Trail pipeline, and fossil fuel divestment will also come up. Anyone can speak from the audience, so please come and join the discussion.

Other panelists, topics, and details in the LCDP post. Please join the facebook event.

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Historic solar financing bill started in GA PSC more than a year ago

Friday the Georgia Senate unanimously voted for a solar financing bill, and WWALS helped with that historic Georgia turn to the sun for power, which will conserve our waters, including helping fight off invading pipelines.

Back in June 2013, Garry Gentry read to the Georgia Public Service Commission the WWALS letter about water and solar power (I also spoke), contributing to the historic GA PSC decision that July to require Georgia Power to add 525 MW of solar power, approximately doubling its request. A decision that catapulted Georgia in one year Continue reading →

Capitol Conservation Day 2015

It’s the annual Georgia Water Coalition Capitol Conservation Day, Wednesday, February 18, 2015.

Save the date for the Georgia Water Coalition’s Capitol Conservation Day on Feb. 18, 2015. While there, you can meet with your state legislators and tell them what you expect them to achieve during the 2015-2016 sessions. Bring your fellow members and other friends with you to support environmental and conservation causes!

The day will begin at 8:00 a.m. with Continue reading →

Not in our county, state, or aquifer: Valdosta votes against Sabal Trail pipeline tonight

Tonight at 5:30 PM the Valdosta City Council will vote on a resolution against the Sabal Trail pipeline they discussed Tuesday at their Work Session. Valdosta added a clause about the Floridan Aquifer to the clauses already in the resolution Lowndes County passed Tuesday evening that Valdosta is supporting. Valdosta’s aquifer clause reads:

WHEREAS, the City of Valdosta has concerns regarding any potential effect the proposed pipeline or its construction might have on the Floridan aquifer, the primary source of the drinking water supply for our City, County and the south Georgia area; and

As VSU Prof. Don Thieme remarked yesterday, Continue reading →

GWC DD#9: Sabal Trail pipeline threatens Withlacoochee River and Floridan Aquifer

Here is the WWALS item #9 in the Georgia Water Coalition Dirty Dozen 2014; I added the links and the illustrations. -jsq

2014’s
Worst Offenses Against
GEORGIA’S WATER

WITHLACOOCHEE RIVER & FLORIDAN AQUIFER
Gas Pipeline Threatens Southwest Georgia Water, Way of Life

INTRODUCTION:
Southwest Georgians are fighting an invader—one every bit
as worrisome as the boll weevil that destroyed cotton harvests in the 1900s, except this one takes farmers’ land as well as crops. Continue reading →

Withlacoochee River & Floridan Aquifer: Gas Pipeline Threatens Southwest Georgia Water, Way of Life, GWC Dirty Dozen

The Withlacoochee River and the Floridan Aquifer affected by the Sabal Trail pipeline is #9 in the Georgia Water Coalition’s Dirty Dozen 2014: A Call to Action, and here’s the press release,

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE October 22, 2014 — Today, Georgia’s leading water coalition named its “Dirty Dozen” for 2014, highlighting 12 of the worst offenses to Georgia’s waters. The annual Dirty Dozen shines a spotlight on threats to Georgia’s water resources as well as the polluters and state policies or failures that ultimately harm—or could harm—Georgia property owners, downstream communities, fish and wildlife, hunters and anglers, and boaters and swimmers.

“The Dirty Dozen is not a list of the most polluted water bodies in Georgia, nor are they ranked in any particular order,” said Joe Cook, Advocacy & Communication Coordinator at the Coosa River Basin Initiative. “It’s a list of problems that exemplify the results of inadequate funding for Georgia’s Environmental Protection Division (EPD), a lack of political will to enforce existing environmental protections, and ultimately misguided water planning and spending priorities that flow from the very top of Georgia’s leadership.”

WWALS submitted #9 of the Dirty Dozen:

9. Withlacoochee River & Floridan Aquifer: Gas Pipeline Threatens Southwest Georgia Water, Way of Life

The Sabal Trail pipeline’s path across Continue reading →

WWALS Watershed Coalition (WWALS) is Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®

A healthy watershed with clean, swimmable, fishable, drinkable water.