Category Archives: USACE

Fishing Access in Georgia: House Committee Report 2023-12-01

Update 2024-02-28: Navigability in HB 1397 in GA House Natural Resources & Environment Quality Subcommittee 2024-02-26.

Here is the Final Report with Recommendations after four public input meetings and a decision meeting of the Georgia House Study Committee on Fishing Access to Freshwater Resources.

[Chair Rep. James Burchett and GA House Fishing Access Study Committee 2023-11-30, plus fishing, fish, boating, and trash]
Chair Rep. James Burchett and GA House Fishing Access Study Committee 2023-11-30, plus fishing, fish, boating, and trash

Basically, they want to preserve both fishing rights (and private property rights) while preserving boating right of passage. The Study Committee found right of passage tied to navigability, so its key recommendations are to determine and delineate which parts of which rivers and streams are navigable.

If you know Committee Chair Rep. James Burchett or any of the committee members, please contact them asking for maximum navigability while preserving private property rights. Or contact your Georgia state house member.
http://openstates.org/find_your_legislator/ Continue reading →

Vegetative Buffer Encroachment on Mud Swamp Creek for Valdosta Old Clyattville Road Widening 2023-10-19

Valdosta’s widening of Old Clyattville Road will affect a drainage ditch out of the SAFT America battery plant on Gil Harbin Road, which is currently hiring. The drainage ditch goes into Mud Swamp Creek, which joins Grand Bay Creek east of Valdosta to form the Alaphoochee River, which flows into the Alapaha River just across the GA-FL line, and then into the Suwannee River.

The project will require mitigation bank credits, probably from the Cherry Creek Mitigation Bank, half of which was previously denied deannexation by the Valdosta Mayor and Council. The city hired TTL to do most of the application work, and apparently also Lovell Engineering Associates to plan the actual road work.

WWALS did not file any comments with GA-EPD, because we did not find any irregularities in the actual project. We did find some interesting tidbits in the application, such as a historic cemetery, railroad, and archaeological sites.

[Collage of Valdosta application for Vegetative Buffer Encroachment on Mud Swamp Creek for Clyattville Road Widening]
Collage of Valdosta application for Vegetative Buffer Encroachment on Mud Swamp Creek for Clyattville Road Widening

Also, the USGS Hydrologic Unit Code (HUC) boundary for the Upper Mud Swamp (HUC 031103021001) is incorrect. We may contact USGS about that. Continue reading →

Fishing, boating passage, and navigability in Georgia waters 2023-10-12

Update 2023-12-31: Fishing Access in Georgia: House Committee Report 2023-12-01.

What waterways are navigable? How does navigability apply to fishing rights and private ownership of waterways? What about right of passage? How does the Georgia state constitutional Right to Hunt and Fish apply? And what about GA-DNR boat ramps?

[Access, Navigable, Boat Ramps]
Access, Navigable, Boat Ramps

This controversy started with a lawsuit about the Flint River, but it has already spread to other rivers and creeks, and sooner or later will affect the Suwannee River Basin.

The Chair of the Georgia House Study Committee on the subject is Rep. James Burchett, District 176, which includes southwest Coffee, Atkinson, Lanier, and northeast Lowndes Counties, all in the Suwannee River Basin. Plus he is the County Attorney for Brooks County.

If you know him, maybe you’d like to talk to him about the importance of river passage and public fishing rights. As he is reported to have said, “The intention is to find clarity. The property owners and fishermen all want to know, where can we fish and where can we not?”

Continue reading →

Videos: Suwannee-Satilla Regional Water Planning Council in Valdosta 2023-09-27

Yesterday I presented slides about the draft VSU & WWALS GA-EPD Seed Grant application to the Suwannee-Satilla Regional Water Planning Council at their meeting in Valdosta. The slides for that presentation are on the WWALS website.

[Collage @ SSRWPC 27 September 2023]
Collage @ SSRWPC 27 September 2023

The longest item in the agenda was about the Lake Beatrice project. For more about that, see Videos: Lake Beatrice, Alapaha River, GA-EPD Seed Grants @ SSRWPC 2023-03-14.

Also, Cliff Lewis of GA-EPD talked about gradual relaxation of the moratorium on water withdrawals in the Flint River Basin and its effect on mussels.

Here is the agenda: Continue reading →

Agenda: Tifton, GA, meeting, Suwannee-Satilla Regional Water Planning Council 2023-05-24

Update 2023-05-16: Rivers and mining: WWALS comments on Suwannee-Satilla Draft Regional Water Plan 2023-05-15.

We have an agenda for the May 24, 2023, meeting of the Suwannee-Satilla Regional Water Planning Commission (SSRWPC) in Tifton, Georgia.

Note the SRWMD presentation about Minimum Flows and Levels (MFLs), as in the ongoing SRWMD peer review of the Upper and Middle Suwannee River MFLs.

SSRWPC will also be discussing their Lake Beatrice water storage and Alapaha River replenishment scheme, which has assistance from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Don’t wait until the SSRWPC meeting to get your comments in on their Georgia Regional Water Plan by May 15, 2023.

[The attendees: Sheri Almer and Cliff Lewis of GA-EPD, Emory Gawlik and Shayne Wood of GDM Smith, Council Mac McCall, Chair Scott Downing, Foreground Bert Early of Georgia Forestry, Elizabeth Backe of SGRC, Emily Ducker and Sean King of SRWMD --John S. Quarterman Suwannee Riverkeeper]
SSRWPC meeting 2023-03-14.

Received this morning in response to a WWALS request, Cliff Lewis wrote:

Agenda for the upcoming meeting is below. See you then. Continue reading →

No phosphate mine waste into recreational lakes, and more transparency –WWALS to Hamilton County BOCC 2023-04-17

You can send your own comments to the addresses in the WWALS letter. If you prefer to telephone, see https://hamiltoncountyfl.com/board-of-county-commissioners/.

The Public Hearing is tomorrow, Tuesday, April 18, 2023, at 6 PM, at 207 NE First Street Jasper, Florida 32052.

WWALS letter to Hamilton BOCC 2023-04-17

See also PDF.

[Letter and mine]
Letter and mine

Continue reading →

More materials: Hamilton County Planning Commission on Nutrien phosphate mine permit renewal 2023-03-28

Update 2023-04-17: No phosphate mine waste into recreational lakes, and more transparency –WWALS to Hamilton County BOCC 2023-04-17.

See also, from five years ago: Pictures: PCS Phosphate mine permit Public Hearings, Jasper, FL 2018-01-23.

Here are 78 more documents related to the Public Hearing at 6 PM this Tuesday, April 18, 2023, at the Hamilton County Commission in Jasper, Florida, about Nutrien’s phosphate mining permit renewal.

[Mining location, reclamation, flow, and areas]
Mining location, reclamation, flow, and areas

These documents, from a USB stick I picked up from Hamilton County today, are in addition to the documents I posted yesterday.

Ordinarily I would read everything first and post some analysis, but in the interests of time, here are the documents. Continue reading →

Hamilton County Planning Commission wants conditions on Nutrien phosphate mine permit renewal 2023-03-28

Update 2023-04-13: More materials: Hamilton County Planning Commission on Nutrien phosphate mine permit renewal 2023-03-28.

Update 2023-04-12: The County Commission meeting will be April 18th.

The Nutrien Phosphate Mine in Hamilton County, Florida, is up for renewal by the Hamilton Board of County Commissioners on Tuesday, April 28 18, 2023, at 6 PM. There will be a Public Hearing. Since time to speak will be limited, best to send written comments in advance.

The renewal request has already been reviewed by the Planning and Zoning Board (PNZ), on March 28, 2023. PNZ recommends renewal with some conditions.

Private landowners, a number of whose property is inside the mine boundary, object that some of Nutrien’s plans for disposal of waste such as clay will adversely affect those landowners’ businesses as well as wildlife and waters.

Dennis J. Price, P.G., of Hamilton County filed a page of questions.

Bienville Outdoors filed a a request to find other options for settling areas.

Maybe you would like to comment on effects of this mine on the Suwannee River, Swift Creek, the Floridan Aquifer, or public health.

[Private landowners, Clay flows, aerial: Nutrien Phosphate Mine, Hamilton County, FL]
Private landowners, Clay flows, aerial: Nutrien Phosphate Mine, Hamilton County, FL

On the WWALS website are Continue reading →

Titanium strip mine permitting tossed back to GA-EPD 2022-08-23

In case anybody has not heard this bad news: the Army Corps has reverted to its abdication of oversight of the proposed mine sight, throwing the permitting hot potato back to GA-EPD.

Further bad news in Twin Pines’ own press release is that former EPD director Harold Reheis is now advising Twin Pines.

Please continue to ask Georgia officals to stop this strip mine far too close to the Okefenokee Swamp, which is the headwaters of the Suwannee and St Marys Rivers.

And there’s an election going on. Ask each candidate their position on protecting the Okefenokee Swamp, and vote accordingly.

[GA-EPD Permitting Update, aerials of the proposed mine site]
GA-EPD Permitting Update, aerials of the proposed mine site

GEORGIA DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION DIVISION

Twin Pine Minerals, LLC
Second Permitting Update

Continue reading →

Videos: Suwannee Riverkeeper on Scott James radio 2022-07-19

Songwriters, don’t forget to send in your song to the Suwannee Riverkeeper Songwriting Contest by tomorrow, July 20, 2022! Really final deadline this time.

[Movie: Intro: Suwannee Riverkeeper and WWALS Watershed Coalition, Inc.]
Movie: Intro: Suwannee Riverkeeper and WWALS Watershed Coalition, Inc.

Valdosta Mayor Scott James and Suwannee Riverkeeper talked about that and many other topics on his radio show this morning.

Here’s a Continue reading →