Category Archives: Springs

Rescheduled: SRWMD Board due to lack of Quorum 2019-09-18

We recommend Dennis J. Price, Practicing Geologist of Hamilton County, Florida, for the Suwannee River Water Management District (SRWMD) Board.

[Dennis Price explains, 13:50:12, 30.57871, -83.05231]
Dennis Price explains, 13:50:12, 30.5787100, -83.0523100
Photo: John S. Quarterman, January 27, 2018, at the Dead River Sink, off the Alapaha River

Received 11:23 AM this morning via email:

SEPTEMBER 10 GOVERNING BOARD MEETING RESCHEDULED

LIVE OAK, FLA., Sept. 10, 2019 — The Suwannee River Water Management District Governing Board meeting for September 10, 2019 at 3:00 p.m. at the District Headquarters has been rescheduled. The rescheduled meeting will be held on September 18, 2019 at 3:00 p.m. at the District Headquarters.

[Rescinded and Timed Out]
Rescinded and Timed Out

That notice doesn’t say why, but this does. Cindy Swirko, Gainesville Sun, Posted Sep 8, 2019 at 2:50 PM Updated Sep 9, 2019 at 12:00 AM, Suwannee district to discuss budget without full board, Continue reading →

Pilgrim’s Pride and Springsheds, SRWMD Board Packet 2019-09-10

Nestlé is still not on the agenda for the SRWMD Board Meeting, 3PM, Tuesday, September 10, 2019, at SRWMD HQ in Live Oak, FL. Don’t let that stop you from asking SRWMD not to let Nestlé withdraw more water from Ginnie Springs on the Santa Fe River, and maybe they should revisit Nestlé’s permit to withdraw at Madison Blue Spring on the Withlacoochee River.

[Location Map, Pilgrim's Pride Project, 2-121-219095-6]
Location Map, Pilgrim’s Pride Project, 2-121-219095-6

But a water permit involving new wells for Pilgrim’s Pride is on the agenda. Also on the agenda are as are four permits for agricultural withdrawal, two in the Ichetucknee Springshed. Here are the relevant maps from the SRWMD Board Packet. Continue reading →

Suwannee Riverkeeper at Our Santa Fe River Board Meeting 2019-08-28

Thanks, OSFR President Mike Roth, for the invitation. Jim Tatum, OSFR, 31 August 2019, Suwannee RiverKeeper Quarterman is Guest at OSFR Board Meeting,

[Suwannee RiverKeeper Quarterman is Guest at OSFR Board Meeting]
Suwannee RiverKeeper Quarterman is Guest at OSFR Board Meeting; Photo: Jim Tatum for OSFR

Guest speaker at the August OSFR board meeting was Suwannee RiverKeeper John Quarterman from Georgia.

John gave a detailed run-down of the benefits and responsibilities of a riverkeeper, of which there are around 350 scattered around the globe.

What does John do?

Actually he does quite a bit. A brief search ended up on the WaterKeeper Alliance website which had Continue reading →

Nobody needs Nestle water bottles from our river and spring water –Suwannee Riverkeeper on RT.com 2019-08-29

RT carried a surprisingly long objection to Nestlé’s water withdrawals from Suwannee Riverkeeper John S. Quarterman, interviewed via skype from London on Wednesday, posted Thursday.

[No need for water in plastic bottles]
No need for water in plastic bottles

Remember to send your comment to the Suwannee River Water Management District (SRWMD) asking them to deny Nestlé’s request to withdraw more water from the Santa Fe River at Ginnie Springs.

RT, YouTube, 29 August 2019, Nestle seeks to extract millions of liters of water from Florida’s ‘fragile’ Santa Fe river, Continue reading →

No more promiscious issuance of water withdrawal permits to Nestle –Suwannee Riverkeeper in The Independent, U.K. 2019-08-26

“Suwannee Riverkeeper is opposed to continued promiscuous issuance of permits to withdraw water from the Floridan Aquifer, which is already overtaxed and sinking. The Suwannee River Water Management District not only should reject Nestle’s application to withdraw water from the Santa Fe River at Ginnie Springs; it should also revisit Nestle’s permit to withdraw water from the Withlacoochee River at Madison Blue Spring.”

That’s what I told a reporter yesterday, and SRWMD does have statutory authority to revoke permits in addition to refusing new ones. You can tell SRWMD these things.

[BLUE SPRING, MADISON COUNTY, FL]
Photo: John S. Quarterman for WWALS. Note “BLUE SPRING, MADISON, COUNTY FL” and “NESTLE WATERS NORTH AMERICA INC., STAMFORD, CT 06902”. Why should a Swiss company with North American headquarters in Connecticut get to take our water for free and pollute our waterways with its plastic bottles?

Lily Puckett, The Independent, 26 August 2019, Nestle attempts to to pump 1.1m gallons of water per day from fragile US spring: The water system has been officially “in recovery” for years, Continue reading →

Nestle water supply @ SRWMD 2019-08-13

Update 2019-08-27: Nestlé’s permit is incomplete, says SRWMD, but go ahead and comment anyway so the objections keep piling up.

Nestlé’s permit request to with draw even more massive amounts of water from Ginnie Springs on the Santa Fe River does not explicitly appear in next Tuesday’s SRWMD board packet.

Nonetheless, you can go ahead and ask SRWMD not to approve that permit: OSFR explains how.

Nestlé has long sucked up water next to Madison Blue Spring on the Suwannee Withlacoochee River, paying nothing per gallon, and now Nestlé has bought the bottler at Ginnie Springs on the Santa Fe River, Seven Springs Water Co., which is applying for a new permit to pay nothing to withdraw even more water for nothing; see Cindy Swirko, Gainesville Sun, 1 August 2019, Permit sought for bottled water from Ginnie Springs. Gilchrist County already approved the permit, but the Suwannee River Water Management District (SRWMD) has not yet.

[Location Map]
Location Map
PDF

This is in Tuesday’s SRWMD packet: Continue reading →

SRWMD explains itself to #PaddleGA2019 2019-06-19

Thanks to Lindsey Garland and Ben Glass for explaining SRWMD springs, rivers, and water withdrawals to 300 new people from all over the world on #PaddleGA2019, at Camp Suwannee, Dowling Park, Suwannee County, Florida.

[About SRWMD]
About SRWMD

The Suwannee River Water Management District (SRWMD) is the largest Continue reading →

Air Force Accidentally Bombs Florida –People.com; Happy Fourth of July!

Maybe Moody AFB forgot the bombs were supposed to burst in air, and the pyrotechnics were meant as Fourth of July fireworks.

A BDU-33, U.S. AIR FORCE PHOTO BY AIRMAN 1ST CLASS EUGENE OLIVER
A BDU-33, U.S. AIR FORCE PHOTO BY AIRMAN 1ST CLASS EUGENE OLIVER

“There is a safety investigation that is ongoing to see what caused it,” an air base spokesperson tells PEOPLE. “We’re also trying to look into any lessons that we can learn from it and mitigate the situation to prevent it from happening in the future.”

The spokesperson says the investigation’s results will be released after it is finished.

That’s according to Char Adams, People.com, 3 July 2019, Air Force Accidentally Bombs Florida in Botched Training Exercise Continue reading →

Moody dummy bomb report from Suwannee Springs –WCTV 2019-07-02

Will Moody AFB find the dummy bombs an A-10C Warthog dropped near Suwannee Springs the other day?

[Sometimes they do and sometimes they don't]
Sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t

Moody AFB said sometimes they search for them, and sometimes they don’t, depending on an ongoing safety examination.

[Location Map]
Location Map

That is as reported by Emma Wheeler, WCTV, 2 July 2019, Moody jet hits bird, drops 3 dummy bombs over N. Florida.

She also interviewed me.

What else is in it? What are the pyrotechnics? What kind of environmental damage could it cause? We don’t really know. We’d like to know.

[Doesn't encourage people to get on the rivers]
Doesn’t encourage people to get on the rivers

Continue reading →