Tag Archives: BMAP

Suwannee Riverkeeper on Welcome to Florida podcast by Craig Pittman 2025-04-08

BMAP Webinars: Lower and Middle Suwannee and Santa Fe Rivers, Silver and Rainbow Springs 2025-04-10

Six months after the in-person meetings last October, FDEP is holding more BMAP meetings, this time as webinars.

Silver and Rainbow Springs, BMAP Webinars 2025-04-11, Lower and Middle Suwannee & Santa Fe River 2025-04-10

The Basin Management Action Plan (BMAP) documents can be found here:
https://floridadep.gov/dear/water-quality-restoration/content/basin-management-action-plan-documents

I have asked the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) for the agendas for these meetings.

Lower and Middle Suwannee River Basin BMAP Meeting
April 10, 2025
10 a.m. EDT
https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/8387583116283965525

Santa Fe River Basin BMAP Meeting
April 10, 2025
2 p.m EDT
https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/2633110891434594903

Silver Springs and Rainbow Springs BMAP Meeting
April 11, 2025
10 a.m. EDT
https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/6935859431224387930

From the Summary of the Lower and Middle Suwannee River BMAP, page 9: Continue reading →

Pictures: Suwannee River Basin BMAP meeting in Live Oak 2024-10-30

Update 2025-04-03: BMAP Webinars: Lower and Middle Suwannee and Santa Fe Rivers, Silver and Rainbow Springs 2025-04-10.

I got to the Suwannee Basin BMAP meeting late, because I had been at SRWMD HQ talking about water trails. Still, this seemed sparsely attended.

Suwannee River Basin BMAP meeting in Live Oak 2024-10-30 Much like Santa Fe BMAP and no closer to solutions

Other than a few IFAS people, almost everybody there seemed to be the same usual suspects from the Santa Fe BMAP meeting two days before in Lake Butler. So that was an opportunity to talk to many of them without much interruption.

I promised them some comments, which I will send to Chandler B. Keenan <Chandler.B.Keenan@FloridaDEP.gov>

For example, asking why SRWMD made no mention of the Manatee Springs BMAP when issuing an ERP for a road in the area of the big PUD rezoning that Chiefland City Commission approved mostly in flood zones next to Long Pond, in the springshed of Manatee Springs. Continue reading →

Pictures: Santa Fe River BMAP meeting, Lake Butler, FL 2024-10-28

There was better communication than last time, but of course that was a low bar.

You can follow up after that meeting, and the next ones: here are some ideas.
https://wwals.net/?p=66108

The other two BMAP meetings are today (see below).

Santa Fe River BMAP Meeting, Lake Butler, FL 2024-10-28 Better communication than last time

At the Santa Fe BMAP meeting in Lake Butler, none of the people from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) volunteered an answer to the most basic question: how has the situation improved since the BMAPs started?

Thanks to the graph Ryan Smart of the Florida Springs Council (FSC) brought, showing “Changes in pounds of nitrogen at spring vent”, several of them did agree that in fact the situation has gotten worse. Continue reading →

Help fix the broken BMAPs to clean up Florida waters 2024-10-30

Update 2024-11-05: Pictures: Suwannee River Basin BMAP meeting in Live Oak 2024-10-30.

Update 2024-10-30: Pictures: Santa Fe River BMAP meeting, Lake Butler, FL 2024-10-28.

FDEP has announced rescheduled dates for some BMAP meetings after the hurricanes.
https://floridadep.gov/dear/water-quality-restoration/content/bmap-public-meetings

Please go and say why you think the Basin Management Action Plans (BMAPs) are broken. But don’t stop there, or they will just mark down x number of people came, so public outreach was successful.

Here are more things you can do at the meeting and afterwards.

Wear blue, so we can all be seen together, as recommended by Sarah Younger of the Suwannee-St. Johns Group of Sierra Club Florida.

Ask for metrics for improvement since the BMAPs started, such as how much less nitrate leaching from irrigated fertilizer into springs and rivers.

Turn their poster session format into a grassroots town hall. Video your question and their answer. Post your video on social media with a hashtag: #BMAPSantaFe, #BMAPSuwannee, or #BMAPSilverRainbow (see below).

If they say go look at some obscure website, ask them to tell you the metrics now.

If the FDEP person refuses to answer, video that, and post it.

For the Suwannee BMAP, ask them why SRWMD did not mention the Manatee Springs BMAP when it issued an Environmental Resource Permit (ERP) for a road inside the 2,109-acre rezoning area for a development in floodplain.

For the Rainbow BMAP, ask them why SWFWMD did not mention the Rainbow Springs Springshed when it issued an ERP for the sand mine.

Ask them what the BMAPs are doing to get farmers to convert from Monsanto-seed Glysophate-spraying over-fertilized water-sucking over-irrigated agriculture to methods more friendly to Florida’s waters.

Be polite. The specific FDEP employees there are probably just trying to do their job. The problem comes from higher up. See below for what to do about that after the meeting.

Help fix Florida BMAPs to fix Florida polluted waters 2024-10-28-30

Three meetings are of particular interest. Continue reading →

Packet: Return of the proposed 2,109-acre rezoning for Planned Unit Development in floodplain –City of Chiefland, FL 2024-08-12

The huge PUD proposed next to Long Pond is back on the Chiefland City agenda for 6PM this evening, mostly in a floodplain, and all in the Manatee Springs Protection Area, upstream from the Suwannee River.

It appears unchanged since it was last heard June 24, and since it got pulled from the agenda for July 8.

Agenda and Proposed Planned Land Use for Williams property

Ironically, at the July 22 City Commission meeting, the Tourism Commission rep. proposed a Dark Sky Ordinance. Which would seem to be the opposite of a 2,109-acre Planned Unit Development with a 50-year plan for residential, commercial, industrial, and other uses, in an area now zoned as Agricultural / Rural Residential. Continue reading →

Meeting: Outstanding Florida Springs Basin Management Plans 2024-01-23

Update 2024-01-16: SWFWMD ERP 43046299.000 for 3RT Sand Mine, Levy County, FL 2023-04-19.

Maybe you’d like to ask FDEP some questions about the springsheds of Rainbow Springs, Ichetucknee Springs, or Madison Blue Spring, among many others.

What does it mean for a spring to be declared an Outstanding Florida Water and a Basin Management Plan (BMAP) issued for it if that springshed is not protected from, for example, a sand mine?

OFS Updates Agenda and Rainbow Springs Springshed

Public Notice

Notice: 27937666
Notice of Meeting/Workshop Hearing
Department: DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION
The Florida Department of Environmental Protection announces a public meeting to which all persons are invited.

DATE AND TIME: January 23, 2024 10 AM EDT
PLACE: Webinar: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/240858353506612832
Subject: This is an Outstanding Florida Springs Basin Management Action Plans (BMAP) update meeting to which the public is invited. The BMAPs are the means for implementation of the adopted Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL). The primary purpose of this meeting is to provide information on the nitrogen source inventory loading tool (NSILT) updates, as well as an overview of the 2025 BMAP updates.
Continue reading →

Veto Florida fertilizer preemption

Please ask the Florida Governor to veto the part of the budget bill that could end up with preemption of local fertilizer bans.

You can use this handy Waterkeepers Florida form to do that: https://waterkeepersflorida.good.do/stopthefertilizerpreemption/

Who would benefit by the bill? Phosphate mines.

As everyone knows, fertilizer nitrates leaching through the soil into our springs and rivers is the main cause of the algae blooms that crowd out native vegetation and starve fish and manatees in the Suwannee River Basin. The state’s Basin Management Action Plans (BMAPs) won’t solve that problem. Counties and cities can pass ordinances to address the problem, but not so easily the relevant part of this bill becomes law.

The relevant part of line item 146 of SB 2500 reads: Continue reading →

SRWMD Lands to reject conservation easement offer on Withlacoochee River 2022-12-13

One item on the Lands Committee agenda seems slightly different from business as usual at the $68 million-annual-budget Suwannee River Water Management District (SRWMD).

Agenda and Stafford Tract, SRWMD Lands, 2022-12-13

As near as I can tell, even though this offer checks almost all the boxes, SRWMD doesn’t want to deal with it because it adjoins Suwannee River State Park (SRSP), while it’s across the Withlacoochee River from the SRWMD-owned land in the Twin Rivers State Forest Ellaville Tract. So SRWMD has sent the landowner to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP).

If you want to attend, it’s Tuesday December 13, 2022, at District Headquarters, or via gotowebinar. The Board meets at 9AM, and the Lands Committee meets afterwards, usually around noon. Continue reading →

FDEP BMAPs update webinar 2021-07-14

I plan to attend, and I suggest others do, as well.

Here’s a monitoring gap: if Valdosta, Georgia, can test water quality three times a week on forty river miles to the GA-FL line, the great state of Florida can do the rest all the way to the Gulf.

And here’s a modeling gap: where’s the comparison of simply limiting water withdrawal permits compared to that SRWMD proposed double pipeline from the Suwannee River to Ichetucknee Headspring?

Invitation

The cover letter says you can avoid Microsoft Teams by calling in:

Or call in (audio only): 1-469-305-1028
Phone Conference ID: 882 637 651#

Here’s the agenda.

Outstanding Florida Springs
Basin Management Action Plans (BMAPs) Update
Via Webinar
July 14, 2021
1:00 p.m.
Microsoft Teams link: Click here to join the meeting

Welcome / Introductions
Updates / Next Steps
Onsite Sewage Program Updates
Senate Bill 712 / Clean Waterways Act Updates
Monitoring Gaps
Funding Updates
DEP Activities and Updates

-jsq, John S. Quarterman, Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®

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WWALS Watershed Coalition (WWALS) is Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®

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