Is that pipe supposed to be wallowing in water?
Is that end supposed to be in the water?
What about the obvious erosion?
Remember Sabal Trail is only burying its 36-inch pipe 36-inches deep most places.
Erosion could expose it and make it even more likely to corrode.
WWALS video playlist and more pictures below. Continue reading
Half a mile wide: Okapilco Creek one week ago on GA 122 between Barney and Pavo, Georgia.
Usually you have to peer down into the woods to see if you can see any water in the creek. After the recent storms, you could see water beside the highway half a mile before you got to the creek bridge.
Op-ed Tallahassee Democrat, today, Sunday 29 January 2017:
Floridians are withdrawing money from banks backing the Sabal “Sinkhole” Trail pipeline, and demonstrating daily from Miami to Jacksonville and Tallahassee, sometimes physically blocking pipeline destruction. Fossil fuel profits do not justify eminent domain takings of local lands nor any risk to our waters. Solar power is cheaper, faster, and far safer.
Image: Electric power generation employment by technology,
U.S. Department of Energy
The solar industry provides more jobs than coal, oil, and natural gas combined. Sabal Trail’s own figures show Continue reading
A hundred and fifty people came to Dunnellon, Florida
to walk and speak for
the most important thing to Florida and south Georgia: water.
Her local school board refused to listen to Megan.
We listened. They should, too.
This event was organized by Our Santa Fe River.
These are just a few android phone pictures and videos I took. Stay tuned for WWALS video of all the speakers.
Videos of the water protectors and of the invading Sabal Trail pipeline. Continue reading
People keep asking me what can be done to prevent this from happening again?
Valdosta has already built an entirely new Withlacoochee Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) uphill out of the flood plain,
and a force main to reroute sewage
around most of the manholes that previously were leaking:
see their extensive writeups on those and other improvements.
This recent event was due to equipment failure at the new WWTP,
and they have the contractors out there redoing that under warranty.
What can you do? Continue reading
The Georgia Water Coalition (of which WWALS is a partner) notes the city of Brunswick, Georgia passed a resolution agaionst coal ash 21 September 2016, and legislation is about to appear in the Georgia House of Representatives. There is already TVA and JEA coal ash in the Pecan Row Landfill in Lowndes County, just outside Valdosta, and in WWALS watersheds other landfills likely to be targetted are in Cook, Tift, Atkinson, Ben Hill, and Crisp Counties (see GWC map), all upstream of the Withlacoochee or Alapaha Rivers, and all upstream of the Suwannee River, all above the Floridan Aquifer from which we all drink. We don’t want the utility company coal ash problem exported to our landfills. The companies that produced this toxic pollutant should be responsible for disposing of it safely at their expense without foisting it on the rest of us.
Coal Ash in Your District — Ash Ponds & Municipal Solid Waste, Published by the GA Water Coalition
See also the GWC position on coal ash.
WWALS recommends all Georgia legislators, especially those in WWALS watersheds, join in to prevent further coal ash contamination. See as an example the PR below by Rep. Jeff Jones of Brunswick, which concludes: Continue reading
Enteric bacteria have been confirmed in the Withlacoochee River,
and in the Suwannee River downstream of the confluence,
say SRWMD and FDEP, while there’s
still no update on the City of Valdosta website
about
the 2.2 million gallons of sewage
Valdosta leaked into the Withlacoochee River and didn’t tell the public about for two days.
Valdosta wasn’t the only city to spill into the Withlacoochee during the recent storms. Tifton did, too, but Valdosta’s spill was more than 230 times bigger than Tifton’s. And city sewage is not the only source of contamination in the rivers: wildlife, agricultural animals, and septic tanks add to it. Baseline monitoring would help disentangle which is which. But nobody is going to believe this contamination this time came from any place but Valdosta.
SRWMD, News Flash, 2017-01-26 (no time given), Health Officials Confirm Wastewater Contamination In The Withlacoochee And Suwannee Rivers,
Madison, Fla. — The Florida Department of Health in Hamilton, Madison and Suwannee today issued a joint health advisory extending the previous advisory for the Withlacoochee River to include a portion of the Suwannee River. The health advisory is now in effect for residents and visitors on the Withlachoochee River and on a portion of the Suwannee River from the point where the two rivers meet, downstream along the border of Madison and Suwannee County to the Lafayette County line just above Dowling Park. The river waters are not safe for contact during recreational use at this time.
Test results from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection water sampling in the area have confirmed high levels of enteric bacteria possibly due to a large spill of untreated sewage reported by the City of Valdosta, Georgia.
People are urged to avoid contact with water in the Withlacoochee River and the impacted areas of the Suwannee River. Water contaminated with wastewater overflow presents several health risks to humans. Untreated human sewage with microbes can cause gastrointestinal issues, disease, infections or rashes.
Anyone who comes in contact with the river water should wash thoroughly, especially hands, and before eating and drinking. Children and older adults, as well as people with weakened immune systems, are particularly vulnerable to disease so every precaution should be taken to avoid contact with river water.
Additional sampling will take place to determine when the river water is safe for recreational use.
Individuals with questions about the spillage should contact Valdosta Environmental Manager Scott Fowler at 229-259-3592 or by email at sfowler@valdostacity.com.
Individual with questions for Florida DEP should contact wastewater coordinator Jim Mayer at the NE District office in Jacksonville at 904-256-1700.
-jsq, John S. Quarterman, Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®
You can join this fun and work by becoming a WWALS member today!
And they followed her down the road, as Sabal Trail’s hardhats usually do
when they see anybody watching their trail of destruction.
This was Wednesday 25 January 2017 on Cool Springs Road, Baconton, GA,
31.306085, -84.008770.
Pictures and video by Sherry Layton Gatewood: they didn’t scare her off, and they haven’t scared off the many other people throughout Florida, Georgia, and Alabama who are watching them like hawks, looking for violations.
Kind of hard to get to your fields to do agriculture with this in the way.