Thanks to all who helped get HB 879 out of one committee and into the Rules Committee. It needs to get out of there to the full Georgia House by this Wednesday February 28, 2018.
So please contact your Georgia state legislators to ask them to back both bills that will help keep coal ash off our lands and out of our waters.
Here’s an easy way to send email to your Georgia statehouse Representative and Senator.
There’s more about the bills below. Continue reading
This weekend in Cedar Key, a meeting of the organizing Committee for the First Annual Suwannee Riverkeeper Songwriting Contest. And we’re going to hold the actual contest in Cedar Key; stay tuned for details.
When: 1PM Sunday, February 25, 2018
Where: 83 West, 310 Dock St, Cedar Key, FL 32625
What: WWALS Songwriting Committee meeting to plan the Suwannee Riverkeeper Songwriting Contest. You do not have to be a Committee member to come to the meeting, but if you want to be on the internal forums where decisions are also made, you can apply to join the Committee.
Event: facebook
Photo: Ken E., Yelp review of 83 West.
Decisions so far include:
When: June 2018.
Where: Cedar Key, Florida.
What to submit: Lyrics and sound (mp3) about any river, creek, spring, sink, swamp, or pond in the Suwannee River Basin (except not the Santa Fe River nor creeks, sinks, etc. on it, because it has its own contest). Nature, people, or events, are all good.
The Committee at the Crossroads, Feb. 18, 2018.
We could use some musicians on the committee.
The Committee decided to invite submissions from every genre on this extensive music genres list, from Art Punk to Zydeco. Hip hop, K-pop, rock, reggae, R&B, and solo cello classical are all invited, among many others, including of course folk and country. You can even sing a capella, and if you’re really brave, maybe recite poetry. But remember that while lyrics are the most important aspect, this is a songwriting contest, so playing an instrument would be good.
What not to submit: Avoid politics, religion, or flamingos. While we’d be hard put to reject Robert Johnson’s Crossroads (if it mentioned one of our rivers), it is just a tad religious. While Butch Hancock’s Give Them Water is a great a capella song, it is more than a bit political. And please don’t just cover somebody else’s song: while Ray Charles’ Swanee River Rock is nice, the lyrics were already known.
How to submit: Ready to submit a song? Well, soon, the Committee is still working out the details.
Before the event: Submissions will be narrowed down to half a dozen or so, in two categories: from within the Basin, and from elsewhere.
The event: Finalists will perform live, and judges will decide. Contestants and especially winners will get prizes. Food, song, sunshine, and a fine time.
Do you want to be a judge, or suggest who should be? Let us know.
Format: If the format sounds familiar, that’s because we are shamelessly copying the long-running Our Santa Fe River Songwriting Contest, which we recommend you also attend. The rivers are different, and the winners will get prizes.
We may make format changes because Cedar Key is far to go and people love any reason to stay there for a weekend.
You do need to be present to win. However, you do not have to sing your own song: you can have somebody else do that for you.
Come to the WWALS Songwriting Committee meeting on February 25th and help decide how we will pick some more songs about our rivers!
-jsq, John S. Quarterman, Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®
You can join this fun and work by becoming a WWALS member today!
Join veteran environmentalist Maya van Rossum at the Working Food Community Center in Gainesville as she discusses her new book, The Green Amendment: Securing our Right to a Healthy Environment, followed by Q&A and signing. Come out and meet Maya, pick up a copy of the book, and learn about the future of environmental advocacy.
When: 6-8 PM, Monday, March 26, 2018 (doors open 5:30 PM)
Where:
Working Food Community Center
219 NW 10th Avenue
Gainesville, FL 32601
Event: facebook Continue reading
An expert paddle to start the Alapaha Quest, down the wild and exotic Alapaha River in the balmy south Georgia winter. This trip is not recommended for beginners
When: 9:30 AM Sunday, March 4, 2018
Put In: Sheboggy Landing at US 82, 11004 US Highway 82, Alapaha, GA 31622, east of the town of Alapaha in Berrien County.
Take Out: Rowetown Church Cemetery, 1291 Rowetown Church Road, Alapaha, GA 31622, in Berrien County. Yes, we called ahead and got permission.
Bring: the usual personal flotation device, boat paddles, food, drinking water, warm clothes, and first aid kit. Also trash pickers and trash bags: every WWALS outing is also a cleanup. It will still be hunting season, so also wear hunting orange if you’ve got it.
Price: This outing is free to WWALS members. It costs $10.00 to nonmembers. We recommend you support the work of WWALS by becoming a WWALS member today!
Please contact your Georgia state legislators to ask them to back two bills that will help keep coal ash off our lands and out of our waters.
Mercury from Coal Plant Scherer north of Macon goes up in the air and comes down in our Alapaha River. Coal ash from Tennessee and Florida is in the landfill in Lowndes County, Georgia that is a quarter mile uphill from the Withlacoochee River. Even the landfill owner doesn’t want any more coal ash, because it costs extra to keep it separate from other waste to prevent chemical reactions.
Here’s an easy way to send email to your Georgia statehouse Representative and Senator.
There’s more about the bills below. Continue reading
Remember, Stephen C. Foster never saw the Suwannee River before he made it famous in his song. So at its meeting last week, the Songwriting Committee decided to have two categories: submissions from within the Suwannee River Basin, and submissions from anywhere else in the world.
Come on down to the Crossroads Sunday afternoon and help us decide more about the First Annual Suwannee Riverkeeper Songwriting Contest:
When: 1PM Sunday, February 18, 2018
Where: Crossroads Market & Grill, Inc., 5463 State Rd 6 West, Jasper, FL 32052
What: WWALS Songwriting Committee meeting to plan the Suwannee Riverkeeper Songwriting Contest. You do not have to be a Committee member to come to the meeting, but if you want to be on the internal forums where decisions are also made, you can apply to join the Committee.
Decisions and discussions so far include: Continue reading
Two new fallers, an unscheduled creek upstream and confluences of several more downstream, the Withlacoochee River Roundabout, (some around it twice), a nice drizzle, and a fine time was had by 19 paddlers from 2 years old to 70-plus on the balmy winter Withlacoochee River, Sunday, February 11, 2018.
I am worried, though, since Continue reading
FERC just let slip the wolves of sun and wind by enabling the storage that those sunny twenty-first-century “aggregated distributed energy resources” (DER) will use to blow down the straw houses of traditional twentieth-century so-called baseload capacity coal, oil, and nuclear power plants.
FERC Commissioner Robert F. Powelson called out the “participation model” Thursday’s twin orders enable, bypassing many traditional charges by accounting for physical characteristics that do not change over time, recognizing that batteries, sun, and wind power are basically different from old-style dinosaur power plants. Commissioner Neil Chatterjee named Senators Ed Markey and Sheldon Whitehouse as proponents of these new rules, which is very interesting since both have long been proponents of renewable energy, and Sen. Whitehouse called out FERC for failing to implement the DC Circuit Court’s Order on greenhouse gases. Commissioner Cheryl A. LaFleur said “Electric storage is like a ‘Swiss army knife’”. Maybe more like the South Australian storage utility player that has already out-responded natural gas during coal plant outages. Commissioner Richard Glick says sun and wind power “no less than energy storage, have the potential to play a leading role in the electric grid of the future”. None of the Commissioners could bring themselves to say what they all know: sun, wind, water power with storage will be the electric grid of the future. Former FERC Chair Jon Wellinghoff and I were right in 2013: solar power will provide more U.S. electricity than any other source by 2023, on the way to complete conversion of everything to sun, wind, water, and storage by 2050.
Giles Parkinson, Reneweconomy, 23 January 2018,
Tesla big battery moves from show-boating to money-making.
Gavin Bade, UtilityDive, Feb. 15, 2018, FERC issues storage, reliability orders, calls conference on aggregated DERs, Continue reading
“Without the certificate,
they cannot operate.”
—John S. Quarterman
of WWALS
Protesters turned out in St. Pete last year, and now a reporter from Tampa posts an update on double-sad news for Sabal Trail (I’ve added links).
Carmella Guiol, Kate Bradshaw, Creative Loafing Tampa Bay, 15 Feb 2018, The experts were right: Troubles for the Sabal Trail pipeline: They warned us — correctly — about the pipeline’s dangers to the environment. ,
For years, environmentalists warned against constructing the Sabal Trail pipeline. Yet construction wore on, and the controversial natural gas conduit is functional — for now.
Photo: Terrence Smith. TOLD YA SO: In St. Petersburg, protesters railed against the controversial project in 2017.
The 515-mile pipeline snakes from Alabama to central Florida, and when it’s running, it brings natural gas (mined using the process of fracking) to power plants in the Sunshine State, where it generates energy that power companies sell to customers. The $3.5 billion project is a joint venture between Enbridge, NextEra Energy and Duke Energy Corporation, which make up the group Sabal Trail LLC.
The Sierra Club sued over that last one, but despite Continue reading
Yesterday’s Valentine’s Day present from the Georgia House was passing HR 158 with 166 yea and only 1 nay (6 not voting, and 7 excused). Except for district 175, which just finished a Special Election, every Georgia House member from the Suwannee River Basin voted yea. Thank you, Patty Bentley, John Corbett, Buddy Harden, Penny Houston, Dominic LaRiccia, Clay Pirkle, Jay Powell, Ed Rynders, Dexter Sharper, Jason Shaw, Jason Spencer, and Sam Watson!
Onwards to the Georgia Senate. We look forward to every Georgia State Senator from the Suwannee River Basin voting yea. WWALS members and others may want to give them a ring to remind them to do so. Senators Ellis Black (District 8) and Tyler Harper (District 7) please note that local governments in your districts have passed resolutions supporting HR 158.
-jsq, John S. Quarterman, Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®
You can join this fun and work by becoming a WWALS member today!