Video: Jay Jourden singing Save Our Suwannee at SuwRK Songwriting Contest

Jay Jourden sang “Save Our Suwannee” and won a prize, at the First Annual Suwannee Riverkeeper Songwriting Contest, Saturday, June 23, 2018, at the Salty Snapper, Valdosta, GA.

Jay Jourden (photo by Bret Wagenhorst)

If there’s any song other than Stephen Foster’s that anybody knows about the Suwannee, it’s usually this one, which is a call to action:

The water table’s going down, cricks are running dry….
They say we need more power, there’s more rain in the sky….
But where’s that water going, and who says it’s so..??..
Somebody’s got the answers that we’d all like to know..!!..

Here’s the video: Continue reading →

Suwannee tributaries flooding 2018-08-07

Once again, as during Hurricane Irma, recent rains are causing flooding on Suwannee River tributaries.

The Withlacoochee River at Skipper Bridge and at US 41 (North Valdosta Road) is in Near Flood Stage, as is the Suwannee River at Fargo, and the New River near Lake Butler.

Already in Minor Flooding are Continue reading →

Dave Pharr singing Care For the Waters @ Suwannee Riverkeeper Songwriting Contest 2018-06-23

David B. Pharr sang this Traditional Folk song, “Care For the Waters,” at the First Annual Suwannee Riverkeeper Songwriting Contest, Saturday, June 23, 2018, at the Salty Snapper, Valdosta, GA.

As he sang about the Suwannee and the other rivers: “And you may cross my bridges, But you’ll never get over me.”

Here’s the video: Continue reading →

Alapaha Quest, Rowetown to Willacoochee, Alapaha River, 2018-08-11

Bring a rope in case we need to drag the boats across deadfalls, and expect low-hanging branches, as we experience the wilderness from Rowetown Church Landing to Willacoochee Landing, on the Alapaha River Water Trail, continuing Alapaha Quest.

When: 8 AM, Saturday, August 11, 2018

Put In: Rowetown Church Landing, 1291 Rowetown Church Road, Alapaha, GA 31622, River bank on private road back of cemetery, we have permission.

Take Out: Willacoochee Landing, GA 135, Atkinson County side, 2.8 miles south of Willacoochee, GA, Atkinson County.

Bring: the usual personal flotation device, boat paddles, food, drinking water, warm clothes, and first aid kit, and don’t forget the rope. Also trash pickers and trash bags: every WWALS outing is also a cleanup.

Movie: Under branches (1.0M), in Alapaha deadfalls, by John S. Quarterman, for WWALS.net, 17 January 2015.

Free: This outing is free to WWALS members, and $10 (ten dollars) for non-members. We recommend you support the work of WWALS by becoming a WWALS member today!

Event: Continue reading →

FERC rubberstamps Sabal Trail time extension before filing it 2018-08-03

FERC filed its rubberstamp approval before filing Sabal Trail’s request for more time to finish its Suwannee County connection to FGT’s Jacksonville Expansion Project, which leads to Eagle LNG in Jacksonville, which can export liquid natural gas through Crowley Maritime. There’s no rubberstamp like the FERC rubberstamp.

FERC did delete the last “unpredictable” clause in this Sabal Trail sentence:

This coordination must occur while taking into account existing scheduled gas flows on each party’s respective system during the high demand of the summer cooling season, which makes the certainty by when this can occur unpredictable.

Since high seasonal demand has been touted as an excuse for this pipeline boondoggle, maybe FERC didn’t want to think about summer cooling season, “which makes the certainty by when this can occur unpredictable.”

We already saw last winter Sabal Trail couldn’t keep the gas flowing when it was so cold snow fell on Florida. Now Sabal Trail can’t finish construction because of summer heat.

You know what works find in the summer and winter sun? solar farms such as the one FPL is building right now 25 miles due north or that Duke already built about 55 miles northwest, both in Suwannee County, both by partners in Sabal Trail Transmission, LLC. Neither of those needed a FERC rubberstamp, because they didn’t need eminent domain. Continue reading →

FPL Echo River Solar Energy Facility, Suwannee County, FL

Let me echo a local resident: “I’m just saying where … is Echo River?” FPL’s new solar farm in Suwannee County just north of I-10 east of Live Oak actually straddles Rocky Creek, which runs north across I-10, through this FPL solar farm, and on into the Suwannee River just downstream of I-75.

Jamie Wachter, Suwannee Democrat, and Valdosta Daily Times, 18 May 2018, FPL plans for solar farm off I-10,

LIVE OAK, Fla. — An 800-acre property that once grew timber alongside Interstate 10 in northeastern Suwannee County may soon sprout solar panels.

This 2016 aerial map from the Suwannee County Property Appraiser does show Continue reading →

Florida Waterkeepers United visit FDEP 2018-08-01

Seven of the fourteen Florida Waterkeepers visited the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) to express our serious concern and a sense of urgency to protect and restore Florida’s rivers, coast, bays, estuaries, lakes, springs, and aquifer, especially about resiliency after hurricanes, harmful algal blooms, BMAPs, and phosphate mines. I congratulated Noah Valenstein on his meteoric rise: only two and a half years ago he was just starting as head of the Suwannee River Water Management District (SRWMD), and now he’s the head of FDEP.

L-R: Andy Hayslip (Tampa Bay Waterkeeper), Georgia Ackerman (Apalachicola Riverkeeper), Marty Baum (Indian Riverkeeper), Jen Lomberk (Matanzas Riverkeeper), Drew Bartlett (Deputy Secretary for Ecosystem Restoration, FDEP), Whitney Gray (Administrator, Florida Resilient Coastlines, FDEP), Rick Frey (St. Marys Riverkeeper), Lisa Rinaman (St. Johns Riverkeeper), Noah Valenstein (Secretary, FDEP), Shannon Blankinship (Advocacy Director, St. Johns Riverkeeper), John S. Quarterman (hat, Suwannee Riverkeeper), Tom Frick (back, Director, Division of Environmental Restoration, FDEP); Photo: John S. Quarterman for WWALS

Press Release: Florida Waterkeepers Unite at FDEP

Continue reading →

Solar grows in Georgia and Florida

Georgia Power, local electric cooperatives, Duke Energy, FPL: all are spending on solar power. However, Georgia and Florida remain behind New Jersey and Massachusetts in deployed solar megawatts. It’s an election year, and this should be an issue.

FPL is making a big show of solar power in Florida, but are it and sibling utilities actually moving ahead very fast? Jay Koziarz, miami.curbed.com, 30 July 2018, City vote clears path for retractable ‘solar halo’ atop Bayfront Amphitheater: The urban installation will be one of the largest of its kind in the country

Bayfront Park Management Trust

Miami city commissioners have backed a move to construct a Continue reading →

World’s largest phosphate company after 20 years loses to DeSoto County, FL

The bigger they are, the harder they fall. Mosaic Co., market cap $11.5 billion, just lost to DeSoto County, Florida, annual budget $84.3 million. Maybe this will help Bradford County to do the right thing about phosphate mines.

Craig Pittman, Tampa Bay Times, 26 July 2018, Mosaic spent 20 years planning new phosphate mine. DeSoto County has rejected it,

Mosaic Co., the world’s largest phosphate company, has spent two decades lining up a new mine in DeSoto County as part of a broader effort to move its operations south.

Photo: Jim Tatum on Southwings flight for WWALS, 2016-10-22: W across PCS Phosphate Mine, 30.4429360, -82.7851800

But DeSoto County commissioners last week slammed the door in the company’s face, voting 4-1 against rezoning 18,000 acres from agricultural to mining.

A major concern: Continue reading →

BMAP petition letters including from a Florida state springs expert

Unlike FDEP’s BMAP plans, “When a new building code is final in Florida, [Rusty] Payton [CEO, Florida Home Builders Association] said, “there’s always six months between the final rule and the date the rule takes effect.” Because of his organization’s petition for more time to file a protest, none of Florida’s new Basin Management Action Plans (BMAPs) have gone into effect yet, which gives spring and river advocates (and FDEP) more time to try to fix them.

Dinah Voyles Pulver, Daily Commercial, 30 July 2018, Groups protest new Florida springs action plans,

A sweeping effort to adopt action plans to improve water quality in 13 springs systems across the state is on hold after a dozen groups and individuals asked to intervene with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, including one of the department’s own springs experts.

Thomas Greenhalgh, a hydrogeologist with the department’s Florida Geological Survey, is one of two people who asked for an administrative hearing on one of the 13 “basin management action plans” signed by Noah Valenstein in late June.

Thomas Greenhalgh suiting up before releasing dye into the Dead River of the Alapaha River to go into the Dead River Sink, 2016-06-22, Picture by John S. Quarterman for WWALS.

“There are many claims and statements in the BMAP that I believe are inaccurate and unsubstantiated,” wrote Greenhalgh in seeking a state hearing on the plan for the Suwannee River, where he owns property.

He’s not alone.

In addition Continue reading →

WWALS Watershed Coalition (WWALS) is Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®

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