Here’s a
map of all rivers in the U.S. by Nelson Minar.
It actually covers the lower 48 states and is pretty impressive at that scale.
Plus you can zoom in.
Here you can see rivers running to the Gulf start all the way up Continue reading
Force main and the new WWTP on line by May!
More extensive overflows than usual last weekend, and now more extensive information about them,
in
the update Tim Carroll promised,
on the City of Valdosta website as
City System Impacted by Severe Storms and Regional Watershed.
It even starts with schedule details, which say they’re
ahead of
the schedule I previously posted.
This report’s table of overflows has start and stop times and amounts, with the Creeks affected.
It still doesn’t say which river basin they go into. Knights Creek flows into Mud Creek, which goes into the Alapahoochee, Alapaha, and Suwannee Rivers. All the others end up in the Withlacoochee and the Suwannee Rivers. And there are still some unanswered questions. But getting the force main and the new WWTP on line by May is a very good development.
The City of Valdosta is ahead of schedule and plans to bring online nearly $60 million in wastewater system improvements next month. The $35 million Force Main project and the $23 million new Withlacoochee Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) are both ahead of schedule, and bringing them both online cannot come a day too soon for the city.
“We are pleased to be in the final stages of construction on both projects. Testing is underway now with full startup expected in late May,” according to Director of Utilities Henry Hicks. “We are also pleased that these projects and other awarded sewer collection system improvement projects underway will resolve all the areas of the city impacted by reoccurring overflows that often follow heavy rains and regional flooding.”
Continue reading
Update 2016-04-05: Here are the details, and force main and new WWTP on line by May.
Valdosta spilled more wastewater over the weekend,
according to Valdosta City Council Tim Carroll, who called just now.
The Withlacoochee River is out of its banks, actually up on the property containing the Withlacoochee Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP), but “according to the experts” not going to threaten the plant. “But lines are underwater”.
Water is not even close to the new WWTP currently under construction, according to Carroll. And the new force main project should deal with much of the manhole overflow problem on the west side of Valdosta in the Withlacoochee basin, for example into Sugar Creek.
On the east and southeast, in the Alapaha basin, Continue reading
Who thought it was a good idea for stormwater to go into Valdosta’s sanitary sewer system?
Whoever it was, the current Valdosta Utilities, Engineering, and especially Stormwater Director have to deal with it, frequently.
Maybe some of the upwards of $300 million Valdosta is spending on force main, new Withlacoochee Wastewater Treatment Plant, etc., will help with this problem.
But none of that will stop rain from falling on Valdosta,
and little of it is directed at the Alapaha River watershed in Valdosta,
where one of this week’s three spills went.
Come see for yourself where Sugar Creek flows into the Withlacoochee River, this Sunday morning, April 3rd, on the extra WWALS Outing from Langdale Park to the Little River Boat Ramp. And come paddle with us on the Alapaha River Saturday morning April 23rd, from Hotchkiss Road in Lanier County to Mayday in Echols County, upstream from where Knights Creek flows into Mud Swamp Creek, which joins Grand Bay Creek to form the Alapahoochee River, which joins the Alapaha River in Florida. And of course both the Withlacoochee and the Alapaha join the Suwannee River. Valdosta says there’s no significant vestige of its wastewater that far downstream. It would be good to have some independent water quality monitoring to be sure.
I notice Section 5 Mud Swamp Creek Basin of Valdosta’s Master Stormwater Management Plan says: Continue reading
Investment firms owned by Bill Gates have bought thousands of
acress of agricultural land in counties in or near WWALS watersheds
in south Georgia and north Florida, all above the Floridan Aquifer,
near the Alapaha, Alapahoochee, Withlacoochee, and Suwannee Rivers,
as part of a nationwide buying spree of a quarter million acres.
Here’s a summary of what we’ve found thus far. Any more recent posts should be found through this search.
These purchases of hundreds and thousands of contiguous acres are all after Bill Gates announced in 2012 he was going to “fix” agriculture in conjunction with Monsanto and Syngenta.
And it’s not just Bill Gates. Continue reading
Alapahoochee River
Alapahoochee River
It was a nice day with current on the Alapaha River from
Statenville to Sasser Landing 15 February 2015,
with a side trip up the Alapahoochee River to the famous Turket Creek Waterfall.
This morning WWALS continues
from Sasser Landing to Jennings Bluff,
plus a walk up the Dead River to the sink where the Alapaha River goes underground. Continue reading
A major feature of coastal plain blackwater rivers is their tea color,
ranging from yellow to red,
from tannins from oak trees.
Pretty close to it is the background color of this paragraph, RGB #FF9933,
or 0 40 80 0 CMYK,
or Pantone Solid Coated 1375 C.
Here are some examples from three of WWALS’ rivers.
Come see for yourself at upcoming WWALS outings, such as:
And how many into Dukes Bay Canal, which also flows into Mud Creek,
to the Alapahoochee River, to the Alapaha River, to the Suwannee River, to the Gulf?
It’s great the Valdosta City Council Thursday will
consider more fixes to wastewater problems in the Withlacoochee River watershed.
But what is Valdosta doing about problems in the Alapaha River watershed?
The three Valdosta overflows into the Alapaha River watershed in February 2015 weren’t the first. How many others have there been?
This report is from 19 March 2014: Continue reading