Thursday morning, the day after Hurricane Michael passed by to the west and north of the Suwannee River Basin, only Gopher River and the New River gauge near Lake Butler were in Action Stage.
Does a place that nearly floods even when a hurricane is a hundred miles west of it seem like a good location for the HPS II phosphate mine, in Union and Bradford Counties, Florida ? Continue reading
Thanks to Valdosta Utilities Director Darryl Muse and staff for the Tour of Valdosta wastewater treatment plants Wednesday. Afterwards, I got them to sit down in a conference room and say again the most important points. They said what they had done to prevent future spills like the big ones this year.
Counterclockwise from front: Utilities Director Darryl Muse, Public Information Officer Ashlyn Becton, Environmental Manager Scott Fowler, Mud Creek WTP Superintendent Mud Creek
Stanley K. Martin.
We also elicited Valdosta Utilities’ view on the letter establishing the Middle and Lower Suwannee River and Withlacoochee River Task Force, which was mainly Continue reading
Last week the Committee met by telephone. This week it will meet in person, tomorrow, in Valdosta for the first time.
When: 1PM Wednesday, March 14, 2018
Where:
Michael’s Deli, 1307 N Ashley St, Valdosta, GA 31601-4017
To attend by telephone, contact us for the number.
What: Finishing up contest rules, entry form, scorecards for selecting finalists and winners, sponsor application form, and banners for sponsors. Oh, and a date to start accepting submissions and a budget.
Draft sponsor banners: Which one do you like? Here are five sketches: mix and match what you would like to see flying over sponsor businesses and festival booths.
Many thanks to the Hahira Mayor and Council for passing a resolution in support of the water trail for the rivers that run less than six miles west (the Little River) and east (the Withlacoochee River) of the Hahira Courthouse where they met.
Left to right:
Council Patrick Warren (District 3)
Mayor Pro Tem Kenneth Davis (District 2),
Mayor Bruce Cain,
Empty Chair for City Attorney Rob Plumb,
City Manager Jonathan Sumner,
Council Terry Benjamin (District 1),
Council Mason Barfield (District 4),
City Clerk Lisa Mashburn.
I spoke briefly at their Work Session, Tuesday, January 30, 2018, outlining the Withlacoochee and Little River Water Trail (WLRWT) and the resolution, and I invited them to upcoming WWALS outings. Several of the Council had positive comments.
Council Patrick Warren also mentioned his fear of Continue reading
HR 158 may be scheduled for a vote in the Georgia House as soon as tomorrow. Help dedicate state fees to their intended purposes: please contact your Georgia House Representative or Georgia State Senator (follow the links for contact information) and ask them to pass HR 158. If you don’t know who your Georgia Representative or Senator are, see Georgia My Voter Page.
Hahira is the most recent of six local governments representing the majority of the population in the Suwannee River Basin in Georgia, in five Georgia House districts and two Senate districts, that have passed a resolution supporting Georgia HR 158 against state fee diversions, with five stories and an editorial in the biggest circulation newspaper in the Basin. More local resolutions passed elsewhere in the state, but that ain’t bad for the Suwannee River Basin.
First in a series of Where is the existing water quality data? In Georgia, it’s in Georgia Adopt-A-Stream’s database, online maps, charts, etc. And Adopt-A-Stream is not just for Georgia anymore.
The data record for the Suwannee River Basin is embarrassingly empty.
However, it turns out there’s data in Tennessee, South Carolina, and in Florida way down to Key West. So Georgia Adopt-A-Stream is a candidate for keeping Suwannee Riverkeeper data. Of which there turns out to be quite a bit already for Florida, Continue reading
You can see on these maps that the Suwannee River Basin is massively agricultural, except where it’s forestry or swamp or other wetlands. Thus it’s no wonder that most of the nitrate runoff problem here is due to agriculture, as shown in the Basin Management Action Plans (BMAPs).
WWALS Science Committee Chair Tom Potter points to this Global Croplands map to illustrate the BMAP issues. The question remains of whether agricultural best management practices as advocated in the recent BMAP meetings will be sufficient to deal with the problem, considering they haven’t decreased it in the past decade.
Global Croplands About: Continue reading
Update 2019-02-13: And a version with Landings. See also Water Trails, with more detailed maps and access points.
Nobody seems to have done this, so we did:
a map of the Suwannee River Basin, with the major watersheds and the Estuary
shaded, and all the major rivers, plus many of the creeks.
Bonus: springs!
Click on this link for an interactive google map of the Suwannee River Basin.
The river traces come from USGS and Chris Graham. The watershed boundaries are from USGS. The springs are from the Florida Springs Institute, plus four Georgia springs collected by WWALS.
The eight-digit hydrologic unit codes (HUC8) for the Suwannee River Basin are: Continue reading
Through November 24, 2017, public comment is open about lead in our Georgia watersheds, in a new proposed Total Maximum Daily Load Evaluation.
Georgia EPD, Proposed TMDLs, 29 September 2017, NOTICE OF AVAILABILITY OF REVISED TOTAL MAXIMUM DAILY LOADS FOR WATERS AND POLLUTANTS OF CONCERN IN THE STATE OF GEORGIA, Continue reading
Looks like we may finally see Action stage tomorrow on the Withlacoochee River above Valdosta @ Skipper Bridge Road. This is upstream from Valdosta’s Withlacoochee Wastewater Treatment Plant, so it’s a good thing that didn’t spill during Irma. The Alapaha River at Statenville peaked Tuesday and probably would be a fine ride (what shoals?) today. The New and The Santa Fe Rivers are still flooding, and that’s still raising the Suwannee River all the way to the Gulf, and there’s minor flooding all the way up at Fargo, so another surge of high levels may follow on the Suwannee. The I-75 Santa Fe River bridge never did close.
2017-09-17 Withlacoochee River above Valdosta @ Skipper Bridge Road
The Suwannee River at White Springs peaked Continue reading