In USGS’s web page on Groundwater depletion:
The chart below shows monthly-mean water levels from 1964 to 2003 for a well in Cook County, sourthwest Georgia. The well is used for irrigation and public- supply purposes and offers a good visual representation of long-term groundwat er declines due to excessive pumping. [d]—data for the chart is available.
West-central Florida— Continue reading
There’s a reason
Valdosta’s water wells are 400 feet deep.
Its earlier, shallower wells were sucking up Withlacoochee River water that still leaks into groundwater.
Should we risk a fracked methane pipeline digging under that same river and possibly causing more sinkholes and underground movement of contaminants, some perhaps coming from the pipeline itself or its demands for pressure testing water?
Sustainability of Ground-water Resources, by William M. Alley Thomas E. Reilly O. Lehn Franke, 1 January 1999, U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey – Publisher. In Box E on Page 63:
The Connection Between Surface-Water Quality and Ground-Water Quality in a Karst Aquifer
The Upper Floridan aquifer, which is the sole source of water supply for Valdosta, Georgia, and much of the surrounding area, receives large volumes of direct discharge from the Withlacoochee River through sinkholes in the streambed or off-channel. A highly interconnected conduit system has developed Continue reading
Figure E-1. Estimated percentage of Withlacoochee River water in ground water in the Upper Floridan aquifer, June 1991. (Modified from Plummer and others, 1998.)
Chris Graham took this picture a week ago of the Alapaha River at
US 84, where tomorrow’s WWALS Outing will end up.
Come join us on this gem of a blackwater rural river!
We’re boating the central area of the in-progress
Alapaha River Trail, tomorrow afternoon,
Sunday, August 24st 2014.
Meet up at 1:30 at Hotchkiss Crossing on the Lanier County side.
We will drop the boats off, drive the end point at US 84, on a public right of way, where the road is gravel.
Get on water at 2:00.
We will pass by the location for the new Lowndes County boat ramp and public access point. This is a relatively short paddle, about 1.27 miles, but it could take as long as 2 hours if the water level stays low.
This event is FREE! All we ask is that Continue reading
The same
Floridan Aquifer underlies the Flint River, and our
Withlacoochee, Alapaha, and other rivers, all of Florida, and across south Georgia all the way to the
coast, where Gordon Rogers, Flint Riverkeeper, explained it to
the Georgia Senate’s Long-Term Aquifer Storage and Recovery (ASR)
Study Committee,
4 August 2014 on Jekyll Island.
The ASR idea of pumping treated water into the ground for later retrieval
is a bad idea, as Gordon spelled out.
See especially this part in Flint Riverkeeper Gordon Rogers’ Comments to the Senate ASR Study Committee,
In central south GA, eastern and coastal GA, Floridan water is thousands of years old, quite pristine, and is so slow to recharge that essentially it does not recharge in comparison to human uses.
Remember,
the Flint River basin where the Georgia legislature
keeps trying to implement ASR is the next one to the west Continue reading
Bigger type than the rest of the page, and in the editorial column position:
Haley Hyatt, who took these pictures, noticed that about how the
Moultrie Observer
printed the
WWALS op-ed Friday 1 August 2014, as
“Much opposition”.
So that’s at least two newspapers so far, the other being the Ocala StarBanner. Continue reading
The Moultrie Observer printed
the WWALS op-ed Friday 1 August 2014;
that’s still not online.
But the Ocala StarBanner has it online, Sunday 3 August 2014,
Water, property rights over pipeline profits.
Several more newspapers are considering it.
-jsq
Chris Mericle’s introducation says this video:
shows some of the springs, sinkholes, and other karst features that lie in close proximity to the proposed Sabal Trail gas pipeline where it crosses the Withlacoochee River in Hamilton and Madison County, Florida.
Including active sinkholes right next to the proposed pipeline route. And a karst window a couple of hundred feet from the pipeline.
Here’s the video:
The video is about the part of the Withlacoochee River where Continue reading
This is a long version of the op-ed sent to many newspapers in WWALS’ watersheds; there is also a short version. -jsq
Protesters drove
as far as nine hours to
Leesburg, GA July 10th, where Spectra Energy
lost its eminent domain demand for its Sabal Trail
36-inch, hundred-foot right-of-way natural gas pipeline,
and local landowners countersued.
Spectra hobbled back to Houston, Texas bound by strict conditions for
surveying that one Mitchell County property,
and bound to haunt south Georgia again for a trespass jury trial.
The ensuing flurry of newspaper op-eds by Spectra’s Andrea Grover plus a page-long Sabal Trail interview in the Valdosta Daily Times (VDT), didn’t mention numerous Sabal Trail downsides. Continue reading
This is an op-ed submission sent to many newspapers in WWALS’ watersheds and beyond. There is also a longer version. -jsq
Protesters drove
up to nine hours to
Leesburg, GA July 10th, where Spectra Energy
lost an eminent domain demand for its Sabal Trail
36-inch, hundred-foot right-of-way natural gas pipeline,
and local landowners countersued.
Spectra hobbled back to Houston, Texas, bound by strict conditions for
surveying that one property,
and bound to haunt south Georgia again for a trespass jury trial.
Spectra
bragged in op-eds about 50 public meetings,
never mentioning overwhelming public opposition
in
Moultrie,
Valdosta,
Clyattville,
Madison and elsewhere to
that gash through our fields, forests, and wetlands,
and
under our Withlacoochee River twice.
Sabal Trail’s air quality permit application with Georgia’s Environmental Protection Division met immediate Continue reading
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency proposes some new rules to
clarify Clean Water Act protection.
Some people and organizations have concerns about that,
and the EPA has now responded to those concerns.
Comment periods are still open for you to provide input directly to EPA
about the proposed rule.
Here’s the EPA’s Waters of the United States Proposed Rule. EPA says clarification of the Clean Water Act was requested by a broad range of state, tribal, and local government agencies and elected officials and NGOs, ranging from AASHTO to the National Association of State Foresters. One of the two examples EPA cites of state enforcement problems is on the Flint River in Georgia:
Recreation in Lake Blackshear, Georgia
Continue reading