Category Archives: Quality

Reservoirs for control of stormwater –Tim Carroll

Valdosta City Council Tim Carroll spoke about the need for watershed-wide planning to reduce flooding and provide water for agriculture with distributed flood containment reservoirs. He referred to the materials he sent in advance as well as to some additional data about water quality measurements upstream and downstream of selected points. And he sent an update the next day.

Tim Carroll noted that one thing that was clear from the Valdosta City Manager Larry Hanson’s 2010 presentation to the Suwannee-Satilla Water Council about the 2009 flood was that the drainage basin study proposed by that Council (which completed its report and disbanded) still needs to be completed. For that purpose, Hanson had just sent a letter to the Army Corps of Engineers requesting assistance. Apparently they have partial answer, and they’re also talking the state.

Carroll said that with the renewed attention to flooding problems Continue reading

Test wells for arsenic –South Health District

Janet McMahan and Erin Brocovich More than three years after Janet McMahan found toxic levels of arsenic in her well water in Ben Hill County, more than half a year after she told us about it at a WWALS water quality testing training, and four months after Erin Brokovich agreed it was a problem, the Georgia Departnment of Health finally has sounded the alarm. They still left out part of the story, though.

The Valdosta Daily Times carried the story in its paper Saturday edition, but apparenlty never put it online. WTXL’s story Friday by Jade Bulecza, UPDATE: South Georgians urged to test private wells due to arsenic risk, quoted Dr. Grow, head of our local eleven-county South Health District:

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Lead, arsenic, and uranium in water causing cancer –Janet McMahan

Uranium? Yes, really: it comes out of granite rocks up deep water wells in the Georgia Piedmont. The other metals arsenic come from human energy, industrial, and agricultural activities, ranging from fenceposts to Plant Scherer, dirtiest coal plant in the country, emitting mercury, some of which ends up in the Alapaha River. Here’s video of Janet McMahan speaking about this:


Janet McMahan spoke to the group after the
Adopt-A-Stream water quality testing training
taught by Angela Bray and Richard Batten.
Video by Gretchen Quarterman for WWALS Watershed Coalition (WWALS),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 5 August 2012

Janet McMahan adds:

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Adopt-A-Stream water quality testing training with WWALS 2012-08-25

Students getting water from creek for Adopt-A-Stream water quality testing training.

Students getting water from creek for Adopt-A-Stream water quality testing training.

Angela Bray of the Southern Georgia Regional Commission (SGRC), assisted by Richard Battenn of SGRC and Al Browning, taught an Adopt-A-Stream water quality testing workshop Saturday 25 August 2012 in Valdosta.

Here’s a video playlist.

A few highlights:

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