It appears that the rumored Irwin County datacenter tax pre-payment proposal is vaporware, speculation, hearsay.
The response from the Irwin County Clerk on July 21 was:
“I have received your request. At this time, there are no documents responsive to your request.”
That was in response to my open records request of July 19, 2026: Continue reading
Leisurely Sunset and Full Moon Paddle on Banks Lake, our mini-Okefenokee just west of Lakeland, Georgia.
When: Gather 7 PM, launch 7:30 PM, moonrise 8:20 PM, sunset 8 PM, end 9 PM, Friday, August 28, 2026
Put In: Banks Lake Boat Ramp, 307 Georgia 122, Lakeland, GA 31635, in Lanier County, on the Alapaha River Water Trail (ARWT).
![[Full Sturgeon Moon Paddle, Banks Lake, West of Lakeland, Georgia, 7 PM, Friday, August 28, 2026]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2026-08-28--full-sturgeon-moon-paddle/fbmany.jpg)
Full Sturgeon Moon Paddle, Banks Lake, West of Lakeland, Georgia, 7 PM, Friday, August 28, 2026
Update 2026-07-15: Darsey Mill Branch Deadfall, Alapaha River 2026-07-15.
Shirley Kokidko says her picture is of, “Shawn replanting EMA 21 marker. Many of them are down or missing.”
That’s Shawn O’Connor on the Alapaha River, July 8, 2026.
The sign is supposed to say 21 and the telephone number for Lanier County EMA, but half of it is broken off.
Here’s a video Shirley took:
https://www.facebook.com/reel/1287225203487543
Update 2026-07-17: Withlacoochee River 2026-07-13 and Sugar Creek and Santa Fe River 2026-07-15.
Here’s Heather Brasell’s account of this training:
Gretchen Quarterman trains everyone who tests water quality for the WWALS Watershed Coalition. She just retrained me — an annual requirement to ensure data quality. I test water quality at two sites — the outflow from the Alapaha Wastewater Treatment and at Sheboggy bridge where Highway 82 crosses the Alapaha River. I test for pH dissolved oxygen, conductivity and E.coli (biological). WWALS make the biological data available to the public so they know that their rivers are fishable and swimmable. I’ve been testing for several years and have never had water quality problems.
Photo 2: To test for E.coli (bacterial health concern), we add 1 ml of water onto a petrifilm and incubate it for 24 hours. The blue fuzzy colonies indicate E.coli bacteria (marked on the edge). The red colonies indicate other kinds of coliform bacteria, including ones that are not a health concern. To maintain data quality, we share photos like this with the group so someone else can confirm our counts.
Heather’s most report was July 1, 2026.
For much more about the WWALS volunteer water quality testing program, see:
https://wwals.net/issues/testing/
WWALS uses Georgia Adopt-A-Stream (AAS) methods, but we have testers in north Florida, as well. Maybe you’d like to be one! Continue reading
Update 2026-07-15: Lanier EMA marker 21, Alapaha River –Shirley Kokidko 2026-07-06.
Thanks to Shawn O’Connor and Shirley Kokidko for scouting these five deadfalls Monday on the Alapaha River.
![[Five more deadfalls between Berrien Beach and Lakeland, GA, Alapaha River 2026-07-06]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2026-07-06--berrien-lakeland-alapaha-river/many.jpg)
Five more deadfalls between Berrien Beach and Lakeland, GA, Alapaha River 2026-07-06
As you can see, they are clustered together sort of in the middle between Berrien Beach Boat Ramp and Lakeland Boat Ramp, near the well-known Marshall Deadfall, which was apparently underwater.
The water level on the Alapaha Gauge was falling, from 6.37 feet (213.97 feet NAVD88) at Double Deadfall at 10:08 AM to 6.33 (213.93 NAVD88) at TD Deadfall at 11:49 AM.
That’s in the middle between the WWALS recommendation for Berrien Beach Boat Ramp of don’t paddle above 218.2 or below 209.6.
You can actually see these deadfalls on the satellite images below. According to google-earth-pro, those images were taken April 29, 2026, in the middle of the drought. The Alapaha Gauge on that date was at about 1 foot (207.6 NAVD88).
We will come back to chainsaw passage through them when the level is a bit lower than it was Monday, so they’re above water. Continue reading
We showed maps, pictures, and the EnviroScape to students brought by the Colquitt / Moultrie Boys and Girls Clubs, at the Gaskins Forest Education Center (GFEC) near Alapaha, Georgia.
We also discussed water trails, water quality testing, trash, and how to stop it being produced.
Gretchen Quarterman and her granddaughters Elleanor and Hazel Williams did most of the teaching. They especially like using the EnviroScape to show how watr flowing downhill carries all sorts of things with it.
Thanks to Amanda Rollins of Georgia Forestry Foundation for inviting us again this year.
Thanks to Heather Brasell, as always, for providing the venue. GFEC is near the Alapaha River on the WWALS Alapaha River Water Trail (ARWT). Moultrie is on Okapilco River, as they call Okapilco Creek in Colquitt County. All above the Floridan Aquifer, from which we all drink with straws.
Heather is also a former WWALS Board member and a current WWALS water quality tester.
Here is video of a WWALS Webinar she did: The effects of forest management on water quality –Heather Brasell, WWALS Webinar 2024-11-14. Continue reading
Come see the beauty of a sunset and full moon rising across the lake. And there may be bats.
When: Gather 7:30 PM, launch 8 PM, moonrise 8:48 PM, sunset 8:29 PM, end 9:30 PM, Wednesday, July 29, 2026
Put In: Banks Lake Boat Ramp, 307 Georgia 122, Lakeland, GA 31635, in Lanier County, on the Alapaha River Water Trail (ARWT).
![[Full Buck Moon Paddle, Banks Lake 2026-07-29, See the sun set and the moon rise]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2026-07-29--full-buck-moon-paddle/fbmany.jpg)
Full Buck Moon Paddle, Banks Lake 2026-07-29, See the sun set and the moon rise
The Irwin County Data Center Ordinance table rows about which zoning districts can have a Data Center Special Exception have made their way into the composite Irwin County Zoning Ordinance.
For those who are not used to this standard practice in county zoning regulations. The Irwin County composite Zoning Ordinance has a table to show what is permissible in each zoning district. The two rows specified by the data center ordinance got into that table. One of them says you can have a special exception for a data center on agricultural land. Which is s. the county commission later approved. Curiously, the composite zoning ordinance does not include the rest of the data center ordinance. Nor apparently about a dozen other ordinances.
For much more about datacenters, see:
https://wwals.net/issues/datacenters
It’s possible that for the Special Exception for Project Arrowhead that the Irwin County Commission passed on May 20, 2026 to be legal, it first needed the Data Center Ordinance they passed on April 6, 2026.
![[Data Center in Land Use table in Zoning Ordinance --Irwin County 2026-04-06]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2026-04-06--irwin-county-zoning-ordinance/many.jpg)
Data Center in Land Use table in Zoning Ordinance –Irwin County 2026-04-06
Curiously, the actual Data Center Ordinance is not included in the composite Zoning Ordinance that Irwin County sent me on June 29 in response to an open records request of the same day.
The Zoning Ordinance ends with Chapter 16, and the Data Center Ordinance says it is adding Chapter 27. I wonder what are the ordinances in Chapters 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, and 26?
Anyway, here’s what those table rows look like in the Data Center Ordinance: Continue reading
We started at Sasser Landing on the Alapaha River and paddled up the Alapahoochee River, chainsawing passage through several deadfalls, 0.86 river miles up to Devil Shoal, on this May 30, 2026, WWALS river outing.
There was no way to even walk up past Devil Shoal anymore, after Hurricane Helene and numerous other storms. So we turned back, also to get ahead of the predicted thunderstorm.
Of course we stopped at Turket Creek Waterfall, where some dipped in the river and others hiked up the bank.
As we neared Sasser Landing again, our expedition leader Kyle “Bird” Chamberlain summed it up, “We did as much as we could, as long as we could.”
We’ll be back at a later date, to start higher up the Alapahoochee, when the water level gets appropriate again.
Here are some video snippets:
https://www.facebook.com/reel/2099033114344650/
The Local Industrial Development Authority took two Irwin County Commission meetings to approve.
The ordinance says the Authority is limited to the unincorporated parts of Irwin County and that it is to have nine Directors.
For the June 3 meeting where they finally approved that ordinance, we got nothing but a Public Notice: no agenda, no board packet.
But in response to an open records request, we got an extensive board packet for the June 1, 2026, meeting. It also includes a household trash burn ordinance, a solar ordinance, an ordinance limiting appraisals for low-income properties, an employee performance evaluation form, and a job posting for a County Administrator. That last item is not on the agenda, but it is in the packet.
These items are on the WWALS website. Images of each page are below, except I have omitted the 22 blank pages. Continue reading
![[Datacenter deal proposal in Ocilla Star 2026-07-01, no documents responsive, Irwin County Clerk 2026-07-21]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2026-07-01--ocilla-star-datacenter/fbmany.jpg)
![[Shawn O'Connor replanting Lanier EMA marker 21, Alapaha River down from Berrien Beach, --Shirley Kokidko 2026-07-06]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2026-07-06--alapaha-lanier-ema-21/fbmany.jpg)
![[Water Quality Testing Training, AAS Chemical and Biological Monitoring, Trainer: Gretchen Quarterman, Trainee: Heather Brasell 2026-07-10]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2026-07-10--wq-training/many.jpg)
![[Children and Working Forests at Gaskins Forest Education Center, Georgia Forestry Foundation, Colquitt/Moultrie B&G Club 2025-06-06]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2025-06-06--working-forests-gfec-pictures/fbmany.jpg)
![[Pictures: Alapahoochee River Cleanup, Turket Creek Waterfall, Passage Chainsawed from Sasser Landing up to Devil Shoal 2026-05-30]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2026-05-30--alapahoochee-river-cleanup-pictures/many.jpg)
![[Local Industrial Development Authority @ Irwin Co. BOCC 2026-06-01, 2026-06-03, Burn Ordinance, Solar Ordinance, County Administrator job posting]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2026-06-01--irwin-county-bocc-packet/igmany.jpg)