Let the sun rise by the sea, down where Sabal Trail would ship LNG.
When: 6PM Tuesday, May 23, 2017
Where:
Hollywood Beach Culture Center
1301 S. Ocean Drive, Hollywood, FL 33019
Event: facebook
Flyer: Follow this link to PDF, and JPG image below.
WWALS was this year’s Watershed Group of the Year at Georgia River Network’s annual River Celebration Awards, presented at Little Ocmulgee State Park, 28 April 2017.
Photo: Joe Cook for GRN
On hand to receive the award were Gretchen Quarterman, WWALS Executive Director, John S. Quarterman, WWALS President and Suwannee Riverkeeper, and Dave Hetzel, WWALS Ambassador. Presenting the award were Dana Skelton, GRN Executive Director and Gwyneth Moody, Director of Programs & Outreach. Continue reading
Apparently Charlie Dean has one more day left on an FDEP permit to build a dock at Nichols Spring on the Withlacoochee (south) River at Lat: 28° 50′ 23.6438″ Lon: -82° 12′ 9.8242″ (28.839901, -82.202729), at SR 44 on CR 251 West, Wildwood, in Sumter County, Florida. The nearest house, maybe his, is at 5927 CR 251W, Lake Panasoffkee, FL 33538.
Possibly this is former Florida State Senator Charlie Dean (R-District 5), who represented parts or all of Baker, Citrus, Columbia, Dixie, Gilchrist, Lafayette, Levy, Marion, Suwannee, and Union Counties, Florida, but curiously not Sumter County.
Found via Continue reading
A primary objective of the WWALS Science Committee is to compile published scientific literature for the Suwannee basin. We are doing this using online search engines including the University of Georgia System Galileo program and Google Scholar. Remarkably, our searches have identified thousands of published scientific papers and reports that link to the keyword, “Suwannee”. Examination of many revealed that they describe research using dissolved organic matter isolated from the Suwannee River near Fargo, GA. This is the material that gives the water its special color.
Photo: Richard T. Bryant, in Pamela P. Holliday, Sherpa Guides, unknown date,
The State of the Swamp: The Suwannee River Sill and DuPont’s Mining Proposal Grab attention and Concern in the Okefenokee
Digging further Continue reading
Apparently that wet area I saw March 20, 2017 at Sabal Trail’s Suwannee River HDD access in Suwannee County was a “depression” they had just logged the previous day. Two more recent ones show up in Sabal Trail’s latest bi-weekly report, along with a couple of earlier ones they still haven’t even attempted to fix. Why should we expect these sinkholes will stop happening if Sabal Trail finishes and takes all their workers back to Houston, leaving us to deal with the damage?
I also wondered what they were up to a bit southeast of that drill site,
beyond the dirt berm where I could only see their heads and hats.
Apparently that was another sinkhole from January at the
Suwannee River HDD in Suwannee County.
Or maybe it was in Hamilton County in Suwannee River State Park;
their description is so sloppy it’s hard to tell.
They also made a sinkhole a couple of thousand feet east of the Withlacoochee River in Hamilton County, and yet another sinkhole near the Santa Fe River HDD. The big winner is Continue reading
You can still comment by tomorrow, Monday, May 8, 2017
on
Georgia Power’s NIMBY plan for the coal ash it generated,
to send it away from Plant Mitchell to local landfills, maybe yours.
Here are WWALS videos of the GA-EPD public hearing Thursday May 4, 2017 in Albany, GA, which we attended at the invitation of our neighbor Flint Riverkeeper Gordon Rogers, who said at the hearing he is lawyered up, and his attorney Chris Bowers of SELC also spoke.
You don’t have to hire an attorney; you can send in written comments by tomorrow, May 8, 2017, according to the the GA-EPD announcement of March 31, 2017: Continue reading
With the Suwannee River low, you can see the effluent coming out of the pipe west of Live Oak, FL. Pilgrim’s Pride just rejected a shareholder resolution to curb water pollution from its operations. And Aviagen is opening a chicken breeding operation in Brooks County, GA, in the watershed of the Withlacoochee River, upstream of the Suwannee.
Pilgrim's Pride, Proud to Dump into Suwannee River? from Merrillee on Vimeo.
“Pilgrim’s Pride discharges over 2 million gallons a day of liquid
poultry wastes in the Suwannee River from a meat rendering facility
located north of Live Oak, FL.”
Thanks to Merrillee Malwitz-Jipson of Sierra Club for .this video, which she showed me, along with many pictures, when she was in Valdosta for the VDT interview with Randy Dowdy about Sabal Trail destroying his farmland.
I asked Merrillee whether Continue reading
“We’ve got loss of production for the future that will take not my lifetime, not my kids’ lifetime, but my kids’ kids’ lifetime to recover from,” Randy Dowdy
Daniel DeMersseman, Valdosta Daily Times, 5 May 2017, Farmer: Sabal Trail devastated farm,
QUITMAN — A Brooks County farmer said Wednesday the controversial Sabal Trail natural gas pipeline has ruined his farmland.
“We’ve got loss of production for the future that will take not my lifetime, not my kids’ lifetime, but my kids’ kids’ lifetime to recover from,” Randy Dowdy, interviewed by Daniel DeMersseman, Valdosta Daily Times.Randy Dowdy is a major corn and soybean producer. In fact, he holds a world’s record for soybean production and a U.S. record for corn production but now he says his award-winning farm is in jeopardy.
Daniel Demersseman (VDT), Randy Dowdy (farmer), photo by John S. Quarterman for WWALS Watershed CoalitionEnvironmentalists held a press conference this week alongside Dowdy to say their worst fears about the pipeline have been realized.
“Sabal Trail gouged its pipeline through Continue reading
We got smoked here in western Lowndes County yesterday and this morning 60 miles from the West Mims fire as it went up to 107,846 acres in and around the Okefenokee NWR. Many of the fire-fighting numbers went down since last post: remember, the goal is not to put the fire out, rather to contain it. As I write, a big storm just went over here heading that way, so maybe mother nature will take a hand today.
The Valdosta Daily Times has been covering this fire right along, most recently by Terry Richards, VDT, 2 May 2017, Rain barely felt at massive swamp fire,
FARGO — A mild rainfall Monday had little to no impact on the West Mims Fire burning through the Okefenokee Swamp, according to a firefighter.
The blaze, which had burned more than 100,000 acres by Tuesday afternoon, received about a tenth of an inch of rain from a weak cold front that moved through South Georgia Monday.
“It didn’t help,” said Leland Bass, a firefighter and public information officer for the Georgia Forestry Commission.
Maybe they’ll get more rain in the swamp today. Continue reading
Tom Potter, WWALS, Merrillee Malwitz-Jipson, Sierra Club; Daniel DeMersseman, Valdosta Daily Times; Randy Dowdy, the farmer whose fields were destroyed by Sabal Trail
The VDT story.
-jsq, John S. Quarterman, Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®
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