Local cave diver Aaron Sirmons took these pictures and videos of the formerly famous Wade Springs of Brooks County, Georgia, between Blue Springs Road and the railroad, west of the Withlacoochee River. He has a letter of permission from the landowner.
Update 2017-05-17: OK, the water’s gotten too low at the original location, so we’re moving downstream to Woods Ferry Tract Launch to Suwannee Springs.
Hands Across the Sand on the Suwannee Saturday! The river is quite low (48.78 feet NAVD on the White Springs gage), but it looks doable from the put-in and take-out. A ranger at Stephen Foster State Park told me paddling from White Springs to Swift Creek would be doable, perhaps with a few dry spots. I’ll also call a local outfitter or two for their opinions.
Meanwhile, bring bug spray (gnats) and a rope (to pull your boat over sand bars), and we’re still on for 9AM Saturday 20 May 2017. See the outing announcement for more details.
Plus: that’s the day of Hands Across the Sand, “Say NO to dirty fuels and YES to clean energy”. WWALS has been saying that for years, so somewhere on the Suwannee we will stop and do Hands Across the Sand against the Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline and for solar power.
Apparently Charlie Dean has one more day left on an FDEP permit to build a dock at Nichols Spring on the Withlacoochee (south) River at Lat: 28° 50′ 23.6438″ Lon: -82° 12′ 9.8242″ (28.839901, -82.202729), at SR 44 on CR 251 West, Wildwood, in Sumter County, Florida. The nearest house, maybe his, is at 5927 CR 251W, Lake Panasoffkee, FL 33538.
Possibly this is former Florida State Senator Charlie Dean (R-District 5), who represented parts or all of Baker, Citrus, Columbia, Dixie, Gilchrist, Lafayette, Levy, Marion, Suwannee, and Union Counties, Florida, but curiously not Sumter County.
Found via Continue reading
Today in Live Oak: what FDEP is doing about water quality and quantity in the Suwannee Basin below the Withlacoochee Confluence.
See the PDF or the transcription below.
Lower and Middle Suwannee River Basin Management Action Plan (BMAP) Meeting
DATE: Thursday, April 13, 2017 TIME: 6:00 PM PLACE: Suwannee River Water Management District
Board Room
9225 CR 49
Live Oak, FL 32060THIS MEETING IS OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
AGENDA Continue reading
No, Ms. Grover, your pipeline is not a job generator for Florida, Georgia, or Alabama, and yes, you’ve slipped your schedule.
“Florida is swarming with protests, like an antbed stirred up by a 600-mile pipeline stick,” John S. Quarterman, president, WWALS Watershed Coalition
You know what would bring economic benefits to the Sunshine State? Solar power, which already employs more people than coal, oil, and natural gas combined, which produced 1 in 20 new jobs last year, and last year solar power produced more new electricity than any other source.
Ms. Grover is paid to picture that fossil-fuel cash-out in the best possible light. Yet once you know the actual facts, it looks more like the Picture of Dorian Gray.
“How sad it is! I shall grow old, and horrible, and dreadful. But
this picture will remain always young. It will never be older than
this particular day of June…. If it were only the other way! If it
were I who was to be always young, and the picture that was to grow
old! For that—for that—I would give everything! Yes,
there is nothing in the whole world I would not give! I would give
my soul for that!”
—Dorian Gray, in The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde
Joseph A. Mann Jr., FloridaBulldog.org, 23 March 2017, With help from investor-Gov. Scott, Sabal Trail natural gas pipeline looks to open in June, Continue reading
3.22 feet on the Skipper Bridge USGS gage 023177483.
You can’t use traditional models for the karst Floridan Aquifer; new and harsher pesticides are expected this summer; but you can help raise native species; and later this month you can go see many of them in Berrien County, plus WWALS monthly outings, the Withlacoochee and Little River Water Trail, and the Alapaha River Water Trail and some WWALS history.
Yeah, coming this summer, and they’re head-scratchers.
All this was at the quarterly WWALS public meeting, this one on Water, Agriculture, and Forestry at Valdosta State University, March 28, 2017.
Here are links to each WWALS video of each talk, with a few notes and a few extra pictures, followed by a WWALS video playlist. Continue reading
These figures tell the story of springsheds in a coastal lowland karst plain such as much of the Suwannee River Basin. Maybe you already know all this, but if you don’t, these pictures may help make sense of Springsheds and Water Withdrawal Permits in the Suwannee River Basin.
A spring is fed from a ground-water basin.
This figure for Florida water withdrawal permits in the Suwannee River springsheds shows by far the largest blue dots for the biggest withdrawal permits in Hamilton County at the location of the PCS Phosphate mine.
Thanks to Continue reading
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (PDF)
Valdosta, Georgia; March 28, 2017 — It’s a full agenda tonight about Water, Agriculture, and Forestry with in a public meeting at Valdosta State University, hosted by WWALS Watershed Coalition.
When:
6-8PM Tuesday March 28, 2017
Where:
UC Theater, UC Center, Valdosta State University
1215 N. Patterson St., Valdosta, GA 31698
Event: facebook
Host:
WWALS Watershed Coalition
the Waterkeeper® Alliance Member as Suwannee Riverkeeper®
Agenda:
Getting out on the rivers (5 minutes each):
Science and practice (15 minutes + 5 minutes Q&A each): Continue reading