Agenda, WWALS Quarterly Board Meeting, Live Oak, FL 2017-01-12

If you want to see sausage being made, come to the board meeting at 6PM, before the 7PM Rally.

Draft Agenda
WWALS Quarterly Board Meeting
6 PM Thursday 12 January 2017
The Woman’s Club of Live Oak, 1308 11th Street SW, Live Oak, FL 32064

All WWALS Board Members are expected to attend in person or by telephone.
The more done on the board list, the less time we’ll have to spend on them in this meeting.

All WWALS members, especially committee members, are invited to attend, as is the general public.

Board Members:

Continue reading

SRWMD responds about NFRWSP; come to Alachua Tuesday 2017-01-17

SRWMD did post responses to comments from WWALS and others on the North Florida Regional Water Supply Plan (NFRWSP). A week before the planned NFRWSP adoption, same as for the agenda for the joint SRWMD-SJRWMD meeting next Tuesday in Alachua. After OSFR and WWALS posted critical blog posts, SRWMD Executive Director Noah Valenstein sent us and others an offer to meet this Friday in Live Oak to discuss. While many (including me), thanked him for his collegial offer, nobody took him up on it. See you in Alachua Tuesday (facebook event).

Below are Noah Valenstein’s letter and my response. Continue reading

Live Oak Rivers Rally 7PM tonight in Valdosta Daily Times 2017-01-12

See you tonight at 7PM at the Women’s Club of Live Oak 1308 11th St. SW, Live Oak, FL (facebook event).

Terry Richards, Valdosta Daily Times, 11 January 2017, Sabal Pipeline protest meeting planned

LIVE OAK, Fla. — An environmental group opposing a natural gas pipeline project plans to host a gathering of similarly minded organizations Thursday.

WWALS Watershed Coalition will hold the meeting 7 p.m. at the Women’s Club of Live Oak 1308 11th St. SW, said John Quarterman of WWALS.

Houston-based Spectra Energy Corp. has reported the pipeline will Continue reading

$1.7 million sanitary sewer improvements, Lowndes County Commission 2017-01-10

Tonight at 5:30 PM the Lowndes County Commission will vote on a contract for $130,000 out of $1.734 million for sewer system improvements from a GEFA loan. This includes work at the Land Application Site (LAS), which Lowndes County uses instead of a wastewater treatment plant. The LAS is in the Withlacoochee River watershed. Here is video of discussion of this item from yesterday morning’s Work Session.

6.i. Engineering Services for Sanitary Sewer System Improvements

6 i. Engineering Services for Sanitary Sewer System Improvements

Video. Utilities Director said Carter & Sloope was the same firm who originally designed the Lowndes County Land Application Site. The agenda sheet says, apparently mis-spelling the name:

Continue reading

North Florida Regional Water Supply Plan on agenda for joint SRWMD-SJRWMD meeting 2017-01-17

Update 2017-01-19: Videos: NFRWSP Plan passed at joint SRWMD-SJRWMD Board Meeting 2017-01-17.

Update 2017-01-12: SRWMD did post responses to comments on the NFRWSP: they posted them a week in advance of planned adoption. Come on down to Alachua Tuesday!

Next week in Alachua without further public meetings or response to those who wrote in, SRWMD and SJRWMD plan to approve the North Florida Regional Water Supply Plan (NFRWSP), as the only item on the agenda.

Agenda

When: 11AM Tuesday 17 January 2017

Where: 15100 NW 142nd Terrace, Alachua, FL 32615

Event: facebook

WWALS never got a response to our letter about the NFRWSP, not about less water withdrawal, nor about better modeling and data, nor about more water retention, nor specifically about ditching the Rube Goldberg Falling Creek Aquifer Recharge Project for Dennis Price P.G.’s more cost-effective solution, nor with any mention of participation from farther afield in Florida nor in Georgia, for that matter.

The language of the memorandum accompanying the agenda is rather Orwellian:

The NFRWSP has identified sufficient sources of water to meet the needs of the environment and the projected demands through 2035.

That sounds like the environment is making projected demands. Actually, the maps in the NFRWSP are pretty clear that Jacksonville is making the most demands for water, along with other cities and corporate agriculture, and the plan would take from the environment, mostly from the Suwannee River Basin, to get that water.

Our Santa Fe River sums it up pretty well: Continue reading

Stop Sabal Trail Pipeline and Save the Floridian Aquifer on Maine radio

WWALS member Chris Mericle was on a radio show out of Maine last week, along with Shannon Larsen of AncienTrees and Bobby C. Billie of the Council of Original Miccosukee Seminole Nation Aboriginal People.

Sherri Mitchell and Rivera Sun, Love (and Revolution) Radio, 3 January 2017, Stop Sabal Trail Pipeline and Save the Floridian Aquifer, Continue reading

Suwannee Riverkeeper at Hahira Historical Society 2017-01-09

Monday WWALS acting Executive Director Gretchen Quarterman will talk about Front door agriculture and the recent Mott regrant to WWALS for conservation outreach, about the Withlacoochee and Little River Water Trail, and about Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®, at the Hahira Historical Society, a very influential institution between the Little and Withlacoochee Rivers in Lowndes County, Georgia. Come on down and hear how you can be a steward for our waters as a WWALS member, a committee member, or even as a board member.

When: 7PM Monday, Januar 9th, 2017

Where: 102 South Church, Street, Hahira, GA 31632

Event: facebook

I used to go see Dr. Parrott and then Dr. Acree in that building, which is Continue reading

Solar power versus Sabal Trail –Suwannee Riverkeeper in VDT 2017-01-08

Op-ed, Valdosta Daily Times, today, January 8th 2017:

John S. Quarterman, Suwannee Riverkeeper Sabal Trail and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection assured us there would be no problems drilling a 36-inch natural gas pipeline through the fragile karst limestone under the Suwannee River in Florida, yet already Sabal Trail’s pilot hole under the Withlacoochee River in Georgia caused a frac-out of drilling mud into the river and a sinkhole.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers should halt construction and do a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement.

When I happened to fly over the Withlacoochee River frac-out, I also saw Continue reading

Paddle Suwannee Campsites to State Park against Sabal Trail 2016-01-14

Suwannee RIVERKEEPER® invites you on a brief paddle down the Suwannee River from the CR 141 ramp to the Sabal Trail pipeline path, and onwards to Suwannee River State Park (SRSP) Ramp, Ramps and pipeline preceded by speakers at SRSP. The last time we paddled this route we were live on the WCTV 6 o’clock news. Like that time, this is a completely legal nonviolent protest event against the unnecessary, destructive, and hazardous Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline, right now drilling under the Suwannee River.

Bring the usual personal flotation device, boat paddles, food, drinking water, warm clothes, and first aid kit. With bon-bons, of course.

Simultaneously another event NOT organized by WWALS is taking place: Mass Civil Disobedience to Stop the Suwannee River Crossing. If you want to do anything that might not be legal, go to that other, non-WWALS event.

To hear directly from the organizers of the various events, come to Rivers against Sabal Trail in Live Oak 7PM Jan 12 2017 —Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®

The January 14th WWALS Suwannee River paddle is resolutely legal, on the navigable waters of the Outstanding Florida Water, the Suwannee River, or on its banks below the high water mark. There is no perfect guarantee, but this WWALS outing is about as safe legally as you can get.

When: Saturday, January 14th, 2017
10:30 AM deposit boats at CR 141 Ramp (the green map marker). The boats will be watched by a WWALS volunteer.
Shuttle to SRSP by 11AM for speakers there (the blue map marker).
Noon shuttle back to CR 141 Ramp to be on the water by 12:30 PM
to get to the pipeline crossing by 1PM (the red map marker).
Afternoon take out at SRSP and shuttle those who need it back to CR 141 Ramp.

Put In: Continue reading

Sabal Trail in Lowndes County, GA 2016-12-12

Sabal Trail’s 100-foot gouge makes the old pipeline right of way look like nothing, across Lowndes County, Georgia; pictures by John S. Quarterman for WWALS on 12 December 2016, with videos and a google map.

Troy Access signs start on Nankin Road shortly after you come up from Florida.

Rocky Ford Road is the most obvious pipeline crossing. You can see all the way to it from Barrett Coody Road. Continue reading