Tag Archives: Board meeting

Videos: Aquifers, sinkholes, and groundscans –Prof. Don Thieme

We had to move to a larger room, so many attended this groundwater talk at VSU (about 90). Plus a guest appearance by SAVE.

Crowded small room Larger Magnolia Room

Coastal Plain Surficial Deposits, Groundwater Resources, and Recent Subsidence in south Georgia by Prof. Donald M. Thieme @ VSU for WWALS 2013-10-09 Here are Dr. Donald M. Thieme‘s slides in PDF, with his longer title:

Coastal Plain Surficial Deposits, Groundwater Resources, and Recent Subsidence in south Georgia

While we are lucky to have abundant groundwater, both from the Upper Floridan Aquifer 100 feet below us trapped in Eocene limestones and from shallow groundwater with its karst features, nonetheless overpumping has caused falls in the level of the aquifer (about 0.6 feet a year at Valdosta), resulting in rapid loss of shallow groundwater, plus surface water that enters and often contaminates the aquifer through those karst features.

Summary: abundant groundwater from Upper Floridan aquifer and shallow groundwater Summary: Fall in level of upper Floridan aquifer is primary cause for....

Sometimes those karst features subside and manifest as sinkholes like the one that ate Snake Nation Road in Lowndes County and others that can develop slow (many years) or fast (weeks or minutes).

Subsidence Problems in south Georgia and north Florida Snake Nation Road sinkhole

There were also many questions, starting with what water do personal wells reach? Also including a brief history of Valdosta well drilling from artesian to hundreds of feet down, and a sinkhole in a garage in Lowndes County, should local governments require sinkhole insurance (including mention of Moody AFB subsidence and Florida citrus growers pumping so much water it causes sinkholes). I also introduced the WWALS board members present: Gretchen Quarterman (Treasurer and videoing), Bret Wagenhorst (Outings), Heather Brasell (Secretary), Dave Hetzel (President), April Huntley (Director), me (Vice President), and Chris Graham (Member); plus a brief summary of WWALS events and outings. Here’s a video playlist:

Continue reading →

Now at VSU: Aquifers, sinkholes, and ground scans –Don Thieme @ WWALS

Update 2019-04-02: Videos.

Moved to VSU, University Center, Dogwood Room! Prof. Don Thieme of VSU will speak about underground water issues at the October WWALS board meeting in Wednesday October 9th at 7:30 PM in Valdosta. Join the facebook event or come as you are.

Here’s the letter Prof. Thieme and two other VSU professors wrote to the Air Force about sinkholes and subsidence on the proposed Moody Family Housing in Lowndes County, which also turns out to be in an aquifer recharge zone.

Here’s VSU’s campus map and here’s a google map: Continue reading →

Aquifers, sinkholes, and ground scans –Don Thieme @ WWALS

Moved to VSU, University Center, Dogwood Room!
Prof. Don Thieme of VSU will speak about underground water issues at the October WWALS board meeting in Wednesday October 9th at 7:30 PM in Adel at the IHOP, 1200 W 4th Street. Valdosta.

Here’s the letter Prof. Thieme and two other VSU professors wrote to the Air Force about sinkholes and subsidence on the proposed Moody Family Housing in Lowndes County, which also turns out to be in an aquifer recharge zone.

It’s an open board meeting anyone can attend for the business part, as well. Here’s the agenda:

Agenda WWALS Board Meeting
7:30 pm October 9, 2013
IHOP, Adel GA
  1. Call to Order, Welcome and Introductions
  2. Speaker: Don Thieme, VSU geologist. Topic: Aquifers, sinkholes, and ground scans.
  3. Agenda Review: Additions and Changes
  4. Review and Approval of Minutes of September Board Meeting
  5. Future Meetings and Events
    1. Monthly outing (fourth Saturday): October 26, 2013 at Banks Lake near Lakeland.
    2. Monthly board meeting (second Wednesday): November 13 Continue reading →

WWALS board and officer elections

Dear WWALS Watershed Friend,

The WWALS Watershed Coalition has had an excellent first year. We have had many people join to become dues-paying members, many excellent speakers and many excellent outings on our local rivers.

It is my pleasure to let you know that we will have our first annual meeting along with the election of three board members at our July 10th meeting.

If you are a member, you should have received a letter already informing you of the upcoming meeting.

If you aren’t a member yet, you are welcome to attend the annual meeting and become a member.

Our annual meeting will be Continue reading →

Ask Georgia Power to conserve our water –WWALS to GA PSC

Approved 12 June 2013 by unanimous vote of the WWALS board, Dave has mailed a signed copy to the Georgia Public Service Commission, and I will go read it to the PSC Tuesday morning at 10 AM 18 June 2013, at their hearing about

Docket 36498, Georgia Power Company’s 2013 Integrated Resource Plan and Application for Decertification of Various Units
and
Docket 36499, Application for the Certification of Amended Demand Side Management Plan

Y’all come! -jsq

From: WWALS Watershed Coalition, Inc.
3338 Country Club Road #L336
Valdosta, GA 31605
12 June 2013

To: Georgia
Public Service Commission
244 Washington Street, SW
Atlanta GA, 30334-9052

Dear Public Service Commissioners and Staff,

The recent rains have swollen our blackwater rivers, Withlacoochee, Willacoochee, Alapaha, and Little, under our longleaf pines and Spanish-moss-covered oaks, and filled up the tea-colored tannin waters in our frog-singing pocosin cypress swamps here in central South Georgia. But that was only a dent in our protracted drought that ranges from mild to extreme, with projections not much better.

We do not need more traditional big baseload power plants gulping down our river or aquifer water when solar and wind power use far less, and those renewables are now at grid parity with coal, natural gas, and nuclear.

Power plants are thirsty, as the Union of Concerned Scientists pointed out in a 2011 report, “Freshwater Use by U.S. Power Plants: Electricity’s Thirst for a Precious Resource”.

Much of the water used to cool power plants evaporates, and is Continue reading →

George Vellidis Dissolved Oxygen Slides

PDF of Dissolved Oxygen Dynamics in the Upper Suwannee River Basin by Prof. George Vellidis, Crop & Soil Sciences Dept., University of Georgia, Tifton, GA. He used these slides when he discussed the dynamics of dissolved oxygen concentrations in WWALS waterways at the 8 May 2013 WWALS board meeting.

More later.

-jsq