Tag Archives: Clean Water Act

Support the Clean Water Act for our rivers and aquifer

This Fourth of July holiday, you can help promote continued independence of clean water by opposing the EPA’s attempt to repeal the Clean Water Rule and then undermine the Clean Water Act. FLoridians in the seven counties that have asked the EPA to do something about Valdosta’s wastewater: here’s your chance to make sure the EPA can still do anything. Georgians who don’t want coal ash in landfills or industrial waste in our waters: you can help save the Clean Water Act. Everybody in the Suwannee River Basin: the water we drink from the Floridan Aquifer interchanges with surface waters, and we need the EPA to help protect all those waters.

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New hydrology report exposes Sabal Trail pipeline risk to Floridan Aquifer

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Jasper, Florida, July 1st 2016 — Another independent professional geologist reveals more omissions and discrepancies in pipeline company reports and faults in federal oversight of the Sabal Trail pipeline: Figure 7: Locations of the caves and springs mentioned in this study groundflow actually goes the other way, drilling under a river will change water flow in the Floridan Aquifer, and there is very high risk of sinkhole collapse. An indigenous Floridian commissioned this scientific report to protect his mother, the living earth. This geological report provides compelling additional reasons for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) to open a new process to evaluate this and other new information.

Bobby C. Billie, one of the Clan Leaders and Spiritual Leader, Council of the Original Miccosukee Simanolee Nation Aboriginal Peoples, asked professional geologist and hydrologist Peter Schreuder, P.G. to conduct investigations at the proposed Sabal Trail crossing under the Suwannee River from Hamilton County and under U.S. 90 in close proximity to the Falmouth Cave System in Suwannee County.

This Schreuder report concludes about the Floridan Aquifer System (FAS): Continue reading

Hydrogeologic Issues of Concern, HDD under Suwannee River –Peter J. Schreuder 2016-06-23

See press release, New hydrology report exposes Sabal Trail pipeline risk to Floridan Aquifer, and this report is also available in PDF.

Hydrogeologic Issues of Concern

Schreuder, Inc. Water-Resources & Environmental Consultants

Directional Horizontal Drilling (HDD) under the
Suwannee River
At Suwannee River State Park

Hydrogeologic Issues of Concern

In any review of potential environmental consequences related to the use of Horizontal Directional Drilling (HDD), both the geotechnical and scientific communities can be expected to raise serious concerns when such drilling is done around karst areas, and in regions which over lie the Floridan Aquifer System (FAS), which includes the Upper Floridan Aquifer, and the karstic geologic subsurface features at the location proposed in Continue reading

Chattahoochee River Polluter Fined $10 Million

A big win from a Waterkeeper member in Georgia! CRK Press Release 17 August 2015:

Atlanta — US District Court Judge Orinda Evans levied a $10 million penalty on American Sealcoat Manufacturing LLC (Sealcoat) for unlawful discharge of toxic pollutants into the Chattahoochee River near Fulton Industrial Park. The Judge ruled in a Clean Water Act complaint brought by Chattahoochee Riverkeeper (CRK), which discovered and reported the dumping.

CRK filed its lawsuit against Continue reading

EPA Clean Water Rule finalized

I still see EPA’s new Clean Water Rule as a good thing, since it protects drinking water, paddling, and fishing, while opponents remain quite vague about what might be wrong with it.

After last year’s comment period, U.S. EPA has posted a prepublication version of its final Clean Water Rule.

Katie Shepherd, L.A. Times, 27 May 2015, Under new EPA rule, Clean Water Act protections will cover all active tributaries, Continue reading

Proposed EPA Water rule

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

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