Still $20 until midnight tonight: WWALS Boomerang 2019-10-15

Today, October 15, 2019, is the last day for $20 early bird tickets for the WWALS Boomerang Paddle Race from Georgia into Florida and back again. After midnight, the price goes up to $30.

Photo: Jay Blanton of Georgia Photography Fanatic. Everybody still at WWALS Boomerang after the awards, 2018-11-03.

Everything about WWALS Boomerang 2019 is here:
https://wwals.net/pictures/2019-10-26–boomerang/

Continue reading →

WWALS Quarterly Board Meeting 2019-10-20

Announcement
WWALS Quarterly Board Meeting
2 to 4 PM, Sunday, 20 October 2019
South Georgia Regional Library, 2906 Julia Dr, Valdosta, GA 31602
Dial-in Number: (712) 770-5505
Meeting ID: 855-676
facebook event

Addition of Santa Fe River subbasin, WWALS Boomerang Paddle Race, Budget, water quality monitoring, water trails, BIG Little River Paddle Race, Suwannee Riverkeeper Songwriting Contest, Alapaha Quest, outings, festivals, projects and programs, pipelines, LNG export, titanium mines, phosphate mines, Bill of Rights for Nature, and more.

WWALS Banner. Yes, we will be updating it again to insert Santa Fe before Suwannee.

Invited to attend: WWALS members, especially committee members, and the general public.
All WWALS Board Members are expected to attend in person or by telephone.
The more done on the board list, the less time we have to spend in this meeting.

See the WWALS website for board members and committees.

The agenda will be available later.

-jsq, John S. Quarterman, Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®

You can join this fun and work by becoming a WWALS member today!

Titanium mine expansion on SRWMD land SE of Starke, Bradford County, Florida 2019-10-17

Update 2019-10-19: Videos: Chemours titanium mine expansion, Bradford BOCC 2019-10-17.

What is the point of SRWMD buying land if it’s going to let it be strip-mined for titanium?

Bradford County Property Appraiser

Yet that’s what the Bradford County, FL, Commission is considering approving this Thursday evening for Chemours, expanding one of the same mines Chemours and Twin Pines Minerals LLC are under a Florida Consent Order for numerous violations.

We hear that this Chemours expansion application for its Trailridge Mine southeast of Starke includes items like a Master Mining Plan and some of what they intend to do with wastewater, which the Twin Pines Minerals application does not for a similar mine near the Okefenokee Swamp in Charlton County, GA, farther north up Trail Ridge, that ancient beach full of stuff miners want to exploit.

Twin Pines site (north in center top) to Chemours Trailridge Mine (south).
See also proposed HPS II phosphate mine site left of center, and existing Nutrien (PCS) phosphate mine in Hamilton County, FL upper left.
Note Jacksonville on the right in the east and Gainesville bottom center.
The Santa Fe River starts near the subject property, and flows west (left) to the Suwannee River.

We don’t know, because the application is not on Bradford County’s website.

When: 6:30 PM, Thursday, October 17, 2019

Where: BRADFORD COUNTY COURTHOUSE, 945 North Temple Avenue, Starke, Florida 32091

Event: BEF facebook event
WWALS facebook event

Here is the agenda item:

PUBLIC HEARING – Randy Andrews, Zoning Director.
Chemours Company FC, LLC – Thomas O. Ingram of Sodi & Ingram, PLLC and Daniel LeJeune of Kleinfelder, as acting agents for The Chemours Company FC LLC., and Connie Henderson, Representative for The Chemours FC, LLC.

Consider approval of a Special Use application — SU 19-02, for a Special Permit for mining submitted by The Chemours Company FC, LLC on lands owned by the Suwannee River Water Management District.

SRWMD owns 2,213.60 acres from just south of Chemours down to a sort of triangle-shaped 107.49-acre bit north of the Keystone Heights Airport.

WWALS Google map with SRWMD property roughly sketched.

That Airport is also known as Keystone Airpark, 42J, 29.8447500,-82.0475278. The purple-shaded left part of this WWALS google map is the Santa Fe River Basin, and this Chemours mine expansion appears to be entirely within it.

If you want to speak, here are the rules:

Public Comments:

Three (3) minutes per speaker;
Complete and turn in a public comment card to speak before the start of meeting; (COMMENT CARDS WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED AFTER THE MEETING BEGINS)
State your name and address into the record before speaking;
Do not speak from the audience;
Address your questions to the Board, not county staff;
Refrain from demands for an immediate board response;
No boisterous behavior; and
No personal, impertinent or slanderous remarks.

WWALS and Suwannee Riverkeeper know about this Chemours mine expansion application due to a report by Jim Tatum of Our Santa Fe River (OSFR). OSFR got their information from Bradford Environmental Forum (BEF). Paul Still of BEF says BEF plans to put a copy of the application on the BEF website as soon as they can sort out the logistics of getting a multi-megabyte file uploaded on slow rural broadband links.

This aerial I took on October 5th looks south across the Chemours Maxville Mine (the second one counting south from the state line), with Kingsley Lake in the distance.

Photo: John S. Quarterman for WWALS, on Southwings flight 2019-10-05, pilot Allen Nodorft, Closer, 122702, 12:27:01, 30.1685423, -82.0663337

Those six settling ponds are on the divide between the St. Johns River Basin on the left and the Santa Fe River Basin on the right. So the right-hand side of the picture is in the Santa Fe River Basin. The SRWMD mine of the Bradford County application is in the haze near the horizon.

Do we want more of the Santa Fe River Basin to look like this?

-jsq, John S. Quarterman, Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®

You can join this fun and work by becoming a WWALS member today!

Shirley practicing at Banks Lake 2019-10-12

Shirley Kokidko, taking out at Banks Lake, where we will paddle tonight to see the sun set and the full moon rise. It’s free to WWALS members, and only $10 per person for non-members. Boats will be available at the lake for free rental from NWXpeditions.

Loading boat

Follow the link for details about this evening’s outing. Continue reading →

Pictures: Cleanup, Alapaha River, Lakeland and Pafford’s Landing 2019-10-12

A fun couple of hours and a truckload of #Rivers Alive trash picked up in and around the Alapaha River at Lakeland Boat Ramp and Pafford’s Landing, on the Alapaha River Water Trail, yesterday, October 12, 2019.

Photo: Gretchen Quarterman, WWALS #RiversAlive Alapaha River

Continue reading →

Winner Tumbler for WWALS Boomerang and last call for early bird tickets 2019-10-26

Tuesday, October 15, 2019, is the last day for $20 early bird tickets for the WWALS Boomerang Paddle Race from Georgia into Florida and back again.

If you are one of the many lucky winners, you will get one of these tumblers with the Boomerang logo on it:

Boomerang logo on tumbler

Thanks to Fishing Tackle Outlet on Madison Highway for becoming a sponsor. You or your organization can also sponsor the WWALS Boomerang. Sponsors get their name and logo on a banner, in announcements, and in flyers, with various other perks at different levels of sponsorship.

Everything about WWALS Boomerang 2019 is here:
https://wwals.net/pictures/2019-10-26–boomerang/

Continue reading →

Rights to Clean Water, Air, and Land

Update 2021-06-15: Right to Clean Water, and four more Florida ballot initiatives 2021-05-20.

Update 2021-02: New York State Environmental Rights Amendment for November 2021 ballot: “Each person shall have a right to clean air and water, and a healthful environment.”

Examples

First, here are some examples of why rights of nature would be useful.

Example: a titanium strip mine proposed too near the Okefenokee Swamp

For example, Suwannee Riverkeeper is helping oppose a company that wants to mine titanium within three miles of the Okefenokee Swamp, which is the headwaters of the Suwannee and St. Mary’s Rivers, and above the Floridan Aquifer, from which all of south Georgia and north Florida drinks.

Tribal Grounds west along GA 94 to TPM equipment, 12:38:38.
Photo: John S. Quarterman for WWALS, on Southwings flight, pilot Allen Nodorft, 2019-10-05.

We shouldn’t have to get more than ~~20,000~~ 60,000 comments sent to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers pointing out that the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge contributes far more jobs (700+) and other economic benefits (more than $60 million/year) to the region and to Florida and Georgia than even the wildest promises of the miners (150-200 as in the application? 300? 350, as they told some reporters?), and the mine would risk all that, including boating, fishing, and birding in the Swamp and hunting around it. We should be able to point to the rights of the Swamp, Rivers, and Aquifer, and the miners should have to prove beyond a shadow a doubt that they would not violate them.

Update 2021-01-22: And then the Army Corps abdicated oversight in late 2020, leaving only the State of Georgia standing between the miners and Swamp with their five permit applications to the Georgia Department of Environmental Protection.

Twin Pines Minerals mine land, maps, Cherokee of Georgia Tribal Grounds, photographs by Southwings pilot Chris Carmel on a flight for Suwannee Riverkeeper, 2021-01-10.

You can help, by asking the Georgia Governor and other elected and appointed officials to reject or at least thoroughly review those permit applications.

Example: the Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline

When the Georgia House of Representatives overwhelmingly refused to grant easements for the Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline to drill under Georgia rivers, Continue reading →

ARWT Sign to Pafford’s Landing: Cleanup this Saturday 2019-10-12

Stay to the left to go to Lanier Boat Ramp first, then come back and take the right fork to Pafford’s Landing for the WWALS and Rivers Alive cleanup this 10 AM this Saturday, October 12, 2019, on the Alapaha River near Lakeland, Georgia. It’s free!

With roads

You can also help pay for these Alapaha River Water Trail road signs Continue reading →

Heavy equipment on TPM titanium mining site near Okefenokee Swamp 2019-10-05

Update 2019-10-10: Looking west from the Cherokee of Georgia Tribal Grounds along GA 94 past sawmill to equipment on mine site, with Okefenokee Swamp beyond. And a Bill of Rights for Nature.

Tribal Grounds west along GA 94 to TPM equipment, 12:38:38.
Photo: John S. Quarterman for WWALS, on Southwings flight, pilot Allen Nodorft, 2019-10-05.

This time it’s true: there is heavy equipment on site Twin Pines Minerals proposes for titanium mining near the Okefenokee Swamp, as of yesterday. It looks like dredging equipment similar to what we saw a few minutes earlier at the Chemours North Maxville Mine in Baker County, Florida. People more familiar with mining equipment, what do you think?

Photo: John S. Quarterman for WWALS, on Southwings flight, pilot Allen Nodorft, Closeup: equipment, 12:41 PM, Saturday, October 5, 2019.

For context, this picture is looking east along GA 94 towards St. George: Continue reading →

Two thirds of SRWMD Board half there 2019-09-18

It was surprisingly interactive meeting, with the Board members repeatedly questioning staff about multiple projects, sometimes taking up points raised from the audience. One Board Member even stopped a project. Yet half the rump board was not visible, being on the telephone, and the Budget Public Hearing may or may not have been legal.

Nestlé Water Withdrawal Permits

At the rescheduled September SRWMD Board meeting, OSFR President Mike Roth questioned the validity of the permitting process for Nestlé’s proposed 1.2 million gallon per day water withdrawal from Ginnie Springs on the Santa Fe River, since the actual application is from Seven Springs, which proposes to sell the water to Nestlé, which is not a use authorized by Florida Statutes.

OSFR President

I seconded that, and added that the SRWMD Board should revisit Nestlé’s permit for water withdrawal at Madison Blue Springs on the Withlacoochee River, since Florida Statutes to authorize them to do that.

You can comment to SRWMD about Nestlé’s permits.

Photo: Jim Tatum for OSFR, of Suwannee Riverkeeper John S. Quarterman

Afterwards, SRWMD’s Tom Mirti told me the $70,000 contract with SRWMD for Nestlé to support springs water quality monitoring is required by the Nestlé permit for Madison Blue Spring, even though it has to be negotiated separately. Apparently yet another open records request is needed.

Invisible and Missing Board Members

Continue reading →

WWALS Watershed Coalition (WWALS) is Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®

A healthy watershed with clean, swimmable, fishable, drinkable water.

Still $20 until midnight tonight: WWALS Boomerang 2019-10-15

WWALS Quarterly Board Meeting 2019-10-20

Titanium mine expansion on SRWMD land SE of Starke, Bradford County, Florida 2019-10-17

Shirley practicing at Banks Lake 2019-10-12

Pictures: Cleanup, Alapaha River, Lakeland and Pafford’s Landing 2019-10-12

Winner Tumbler for WWALS Boomerang and last call for early bird tickets 2019-10-26

Rights to Clean Water, Air, and Land

Examples

Example: a titanium strip mine proposed too near the Okefenokee Swamp

Example: the Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline

ARWT Sign to Pafford’s Landing: Cleanup this Saturday 2019-10-12

Heavy equipment on TPM titanium mining site near Okefenokee Swamp 2019-10-05