Water Quality Testing | WWALS Watershed Coalition (WWALS) is Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®

Context

Jump to results, or story, where published, the program, or get trained.

Cindy Vedas reeling in a water sample, assisted by Blondie the Suwannee Riverkeeper dog, Franklinville Landing, 2023-06-25.

Smartphone app for water quality. Explanation in blog post.

The water quality testing story thus far:

Scotti and Sara Jay discovered One Mile Branch fish kill, leading to GA-EPD Consent Order 2023-09-23

Sara and Scotti Jay Jones and the GA-EPD Consent Order
WWALS AAS water quality testing training @ SRSP 2023-08-25

Trainees: OSFR VP Kristin Rubin, OSFR President Joanne Tremblay, Reina Lingle, Treva Ellison, Russ Tatum, all WWALS members
Valdosta City Council approved match for a GA-EPD seed grant that WWALS told them about 2023-07-27
“It’s about finding more problems, doing some testing, finding them so they’ll know what to fix so that’s a good thing,” said John [S.] Quarterman, the Suwa[n]nee Riverkeeper with the WWALS Water Coalition. “And I would think that I’m the one that told them about that grant opportunity in the first place so it’s good to see they’re getting some use out of it.”

Suwannee Riverkeeper John S. Quarterman

“Let the public know because you don’t want to be fishing in that creek with that stuff in it,” Quarterman said. “Downstream there’s the the Alapahoochee river and Alapaha river people don’t want to be swimming, paddling, fishing if this is happening.”
Forever chemicals contaminate Withlacoochee River in Georgia and Florida 2022-10-18

Florida results: State Line Boat Ramp and Sullivan Launch
Cattle and hogs: Withlacoochee River water quality status 2021-06-27
Year in review: water quality testing, February 2020-2021
WWALS Summary of FDEP chemical and biological tracers, Withlacoochee and Suwannee Rivers 2020-08-05
Current situation of Water Quality Testing, Suwannee River Basin 2020-08-02
WWALS Honored at Georgia DNR Confluence Conference as Volunteers of the Year 2020-07-29
GA-EPD Enforcement Order for Valdosta wastewater with fine 2020-04-13

Where the results are published:

WWALS composite table of Georgia and Florida results on the Withlacoochee and Suwannee Rivers, plus Okapilco and other creeks, from December 3, 2019, forward, is on the WWALS google drive. Most of our recent WWALS blog posts about testing results are below here under Results. Numerous snapshots of the WWALS composite table have been posted since December 2019 in Valdosta Spills, but Valdosta is not the only source of contamination, and Valdosta ~~has not spilled into the Withlacoochee River~~ spilled again into Onemile Branch and Twomile Branch through Sugar Creek into the Withlacoochee River on July 7, 2021, first time since the one big one in early December 2019. And June 30, 2022, 127,750 gallons into the Withlacoochee River downstream from Sugar Creek. Still, those are much smaller than the previous millions of gallons.
WWALS Water Quality Testing Results for all WWALS testing stations in the Suwannee River Basin in both Georgia and Florida (including the Alapaha, Little, and Santa Fe Rivers, as well as the Withlacoochee and Suwannee) are on the Georgia Adopt-A-Stream website.
City of Valdosta results since December 3, 2019, are on the city’s website as of 2020-02-14 under Water Quality Data.
Florida results since 2016 are online as of 2020-02-28 under Suwannee River Basin Sampling Locations. Includes data from the Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP), Florida Department of Health (FDOH) and county Health Departments, and from Suwannee River Water Management District (SRWMD). Under Sampling Results, click on Sampling Results for Suwannee River Basin Stations 2016- Present. To get the most current table you may have refresh your browser cache first (control-shift-R).
What do these numbers mean? See separate web page.
Rainfall sources. See separate web page.

WWALS Water Quality Testing Program

You can help WWALS test water quality by donating to our water quality testing program.

Suzy Hall with a Petrifilm.
Each bacterial test costs $6 for Petrifilms alone.
WWALS is spending about $40 a day on Petrifilms after the record Valdosta spill.

Beyond sewage spills (which come from more than one place), something else is getting into our springs, rivers, and wells, nitrates from fertilizer, maybe livestock, wildlife, domestic pets, or septic tanks. We want to know when, where, and what, so maybe we can do something about it.

And when there is a spill, the testing required by the permits is very limited, so we want to follow up spills and find out how far they went and what they affected.

So WWALS has started a Water Quality Testing Program.

Report a problem form.
Request a new testing station form.
WWALS water quality testing assurance and quality control 2023-01-06.

Sign up to help test

Sign up to do water quality testing.
WWALS testing trainer Gretchen Quarterman is doing trainings as trainees sign up. If you want to be trained or recertified, sign up.
Be sure to fill out the google form above so we will know how many. Be ready to test regularly after you get trained.
Anybody can take the training, which is free. But to test for WWALS requires being a WWALS member:
https://wwals.net/donations/
Remember to post your results in Georgia Adopt-A-Stream, and we can use them in Swim Guide.
Training: Water Quality Testing 2024-02-10.
We held Florida water quality testing training noon, Monday, January 21, 2019, at Suwannee River State Park. We will be scheduling another Florida training.
We held Georgia water quality testing training 2PM, Saturday, April 27, 2019, at Reed Bingham State Park, after the BIG Little River Paddle Race.
Another recent Georgia Training, Water Quality Testing, Pictures 2018-09-16.

Want the brown flakes to dissolve: Sara Jay testing at Troupville Boat Ramp 2019-01-06.

Test Results

Early test results directly related to Valdosta sewage spills are on the Valdosta Spills web page.

But that’s not the only source of stream contamination. It turns out most of the contamination comes from manure runoff, mostly cattle, some hog.

Most of our recent WWALS blog posts about testing results are here: 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, and Older.

Earlier reports in this series are in the separate web page Valdosta Spills.

Older Test Results

We have collected quite a bit of background water quality test data from Georgia, from Tifton, Lowndes County, and Valdosta. For these older test results, the raw Valdosta data is on the WWALS website.

2018 Valdosta weekly testing data

WWALS used to file a Georgia Open Records Act (GORA) request weekly with Valdosta, and usually getting back on Friday Valdosta’s river testing data from the preceding Wednesday. Here are the recent weeks of that data, in the format they sent and visible below.

Yes, we have suggested to Valdosta that they could put their spreadsheet online just as easily as we can.

And now Valdosta does that; see above.

Withlachoochee River Upstream @ North Valdosta Road	D.O.	TEMP	pH	Fecal Coliform	E-COLI	Withlachoochee River Midway Point @ Hwy 133 West	D.O.	TEMP	pH	Fecal Coliform	E-COLI	Withlachoochee River Downstream @ Highway 84 West	D.O.	TEMP	pH	Fecal Coliform	E-COLI	Little River @ 133 West	D.O.	TEMP	pH	Fecal Coliform	E-COLI	Withlachoochee River Downstream at Madison Florida	D.O.	TEMP	pH	Fecal Coliform	E-COLI	St. Augustine Road Upstream at Mud Creek	D.O.	TEMP	pH	Fecal Coliform	E-COLI	Johnston Road Downstream at Mud Creek	D.O.	TEMP	pH	Fecal Coliform	E-COLI	Hwy 135 Alapahoochee River Jennings Florida	D.O.	TEMP	pH	Fecal Coliform	E-COLI
9/19/2018	5.6 mg/l	28.2	6.5	115/100 ml	115/100 ml	9/19/2018	6.7 mg/l	26.5	6.9	310/100 ml	140/100 ml	9/19/2018	7.3 mg/l	27.1	7.0	90/100 ml	10/100 ml	9/19/2018	6.2 mg/l	27.9	6.4	85/100 ml	80/100 ml	9/19/2018	6.7 mg/l	27.7	6.6	0/100 ml	0/100 ml	9/19/2018	1.7 mg/l	25.4	4.2	0/100 ml	0/100 ml	9/19/2018	6.1 mg/l	26.5	7.2	150/100 ml	140/100 ml	9/19/2018	6.5 mg/l	27.9	6.5	0/100 ml	0/100 ml
9/25/2018	5.5 mg/l	26.8	5.6	225/100 ML	110/100 ML	9/25/2018	5.7 mg/l	26	5.1	415/100 ML	110/100 ML	9/25/2018	4.8 mg/l	27.2	6.8	60/100 ML	10/100 ML	9/25/2018	6.7 mg/l	27.1	5.8	60/100 ML	0/100 ML	9/25/2018	7.0 mg/l	26.0	6.7	20/100 ML	10/100 ML	9/25/2018	1.7 mg/l	25.2	6.3	100/100 ML	10/100 ML	9/25/2018	6.2 mg/l	26.0	5.6	150/100 ML	85/100 ML	9/25/2018	7.0 mg/l	26.0	4.8	210/100 ML	165/100 ml
10/3/2018	5.6 mg/l	24.6	5.2	560/100 ml	100/100 ml	10/3/2018	6.6 mg/l	25.1	5.7	400/100 ml	320/100 ml	10/3/2018	7.0 mg/l	26.1	5.2	40/100 ml	20/100 ml	10/3/2018	6.8 mg/l	24.7	5.6	135/100 ml	30/100 ml	10/3/2018	5.6 mg/l	25.1	5.8	30/100 ml	0/100 ml	10/3/2018	2.2 mg/l	24.3	4.0	20/100 ml	200/100 ml	10/3/2018	6.0 mg/l	24.5	4.0	400/100 ml	240/100 ml	10/3/2018	6.3 mg/l	25.3	5.5	100/100 ml	140/100 ml
10/9/2018	6.4 mg/l	23.3	6.3	685/100 ml	120/100 ml	10/9/2018	6.2 mg/l	23.1	6.2	300/100 ml	90/100 ml	10/9/2018	6.5 mg/l	23.1	6.5	40/100 ml	0/100 ml	10/9/2018	6.6 mg/l	24.1	6.4	610/100 ml	20/100 ml	10/9/2018	6.1 mg/l	24.1	6.1	10/100 ml	10/100 ml	10/9/2018	5.1 mg/l	23.9	5.6	140/100 ml	215/100 ml	10/9/2018	6.7 mg/l	24.2	4.0	165/100 ml	80/100 ml	10/9/2018	6.5 mg/l	24.3	5.9	355/100 ml	125/100 ml
10/17/2018	6.0 mg/l	27.3	5.8	195/100 ml	55/100 ml	10/17/2018	6.4 mg/l	26.4	5.0	200/100 ml	70/100 ml	10/17/2018	6.5 mg/l	26.5	4.8	70/100 ml	10/100 ml	10/17/2018	6.7 mg/l	26.2	6.2	195/100 ml	55/100 ml	10/17/2018	5.9 mg/l	29.1	4.1	60/100 ml	20/100 ml	10/17/2018	2.2 mg/l	24.8	3.8	10/100 ml	10/100 ml	10/17/2018	5.9 mg/l	23.7	6.4	125/100 ml	55/100 ml	10/17/2018	6.1 mg/l	24.9	4.8	430/100 ml	180/100 ml
10/24/2018	6.0 mg/l	20.4	6.8	20/100 ml	20/100 ml	10/24/2018	6.5 mg/l	20.7	7.0	170/100ml	50/100 ml	10/24/2018	6.5 mg/l	20.9	6.8	10/100 ml	10/100 ml	10/24/2018	6.2 mg/l	20.2	6.7	610/100 ml	75/100 ml	10/24/2018	6.9 mg/l	20.6	7.0	50/100 ml	0/100 ml	10/24/2018	2.5 mg/l	20.4	4.0	200/100 ml	125/100 ml	10/24/2018	6.4 mg/l	20.3	7.1	140/100 ml	150/100 ml	10/24/2018	6.1 mg/l	20.4	6.6	255/100 ml	335/100 ml
10/31/2018	6.9 mg/l	25.1	5.9	180/100 ml	80/100 ml	10/31/2018	6.4 mg/l	25.8	6.5	110/100 ml	55/100 ml	10/31/2018	6.6 mg/l	25.7	6.4	500/100 ml	70/100 ml	10/31/2018	6.7 mg/l	26.1	6.2	3000/100 ml	75/100 ml	10/31/2018	6.8 mg/l	25.3	5.6	2900/100 ml	10/100 ml	10/31/2018	2.8 mg/l	24.1	4.0	500/100 ml	500/100 ml	10/31/2018	7.0 mg/l	24.7	5.7	300/100 ml	245/100 ml	10/31/2018	6.5 mg/l	25.1	5.9	190/100 ml	50/100 ml
11/7/2018	4.9 mg/l	21.8	6.3	20/100 ml	100/100 ml	11/7/2018	7.3 mg/l	20.7	6.3	100/100 ml	20/100 ml	11/7/2018	7.5 mg/l	20.9	6.6	40/100 ml	10/100 ml	11/7/2018	7.2 mg/l	20.5	6.4	700/100 ml	80/100 ml	11/7/2018	6.8 mg/l	22.1	6.8	85/100 ml	70/100 ml	11/7/2018	2.0 mg/l	4.8	4.3	670/100 ml	230/100 ml	11/7/2018	6.5 mg/l	22.5	6.7	2200/100 ml	500/100 ml	11/7/2018	6.5 mg/l	21.9	6.6	280/100 ml	135/100 ml
11/14/2018	6.5 mg/l	17.1	6.3	1100/100 ML	100/100ML	11/14/2018	7.0 mg/l	17.1	5.8	300/100 ML	300/100 ml	11/14/2018	7.0 mg/l	17.3	6.1	230/100ml	110/100ml	11/14/2018	6.7 mg/l	17.4	6.5	230/100ml	40/100ml	11/14/2018	6.7 mg/l	17.4	6.6	700/100ml	400/100ml	11/14/2018	1.9 mg/l	18.2	4.0	1000/100ml	600/100ml	11/14/2018	6.5 mg/l	17.4	6.1	500/100ml	300/100ml	11/14/2018	6.6 mg/l	17.6	6.4	4900/100ml	1000/100ml
11/21/2018	6.5 mg/l	14.9	6.4	130/100 ml	65/100 ml	11/21/2018	6.6 mg/l	15.1	6.8	110/100 ml	50/100 ml	11/21/2018	6.8 mg/l	15.2	7.0	200/100 ml	70/100 ml	11/21/2018	6.8 mg/l	15.3	6.5	230/100 ml	40/100 ml	11/21/2018	6.5 mg/l	15.4	6.1	250/100 ml	155/100 ml	11/21/2018	3.2 mg/l	13.8	4.6	80/100 ml	20/100 ml	11/21/2018	7.6 mg/l	14.7	5.9	300/100 ml	30/100 ml	11/21/2018	6.7 mg/l	15.2	7.0	190/100 ml	100/100 ml
11/28/2018	5.9 mg/l	10.8	6.8	200/100 ml	205/100 ml	11/28/2018	6.3 mg/l	11.1	7.0	185/100 ml	30/100 ml	11/28/2018	6.1 mg/l	10.7	6.9	1300/100 ml	165/100 ml	11/28/2018	5.8 mg/l	10.4	6.6	800/100 ml	335/100 ml	11/28/2018	6.9 mg/l	10.7	6.6	1100/100 ml	1400/100 ml	11/28/2018	2.5 mg/l	8.3	4.4	210/100 ml	200/100 ml	11/28/2018	5.7 mg/l	9.5	6.3	800/100 ml	255/100 ml	11/28/2018	7.1 mg/l	11.2	5.7	2100/100 ml	1300/100 ml