Tag Archives: Creek

Road widening south of Grand Bay, Lakeland Highway, Lightsey Road to Shiner Pond Road 2023-07-18

Watch out for road work on Lakeland Highway across Grand Bay Creek.

The Public Notice doesn’t say when the work will start on GA 31 aka US 221 aka Lakeland Highway, but you have 30 days from yesterday to comment. I will ask for a copy of the application. Meanwhile, the Public Notice is below, and here is the gist of it (I added the links):

State Route 31 from State Route 7 to State Route 135
(GPS Coordinates: 30.97284, -83.10488; 30.90854, -83.18506)
…
The proposed project will impact the buffer of Open Water (OW) 4, OW 13, and OW 31. The project will add passing lanes at four sites in two interconnected corridors along State Route (SR) 31 in Lanier and Lowndes Counties. The project will impact the state mandated 25-ft buffer within the Suwannee Watershed (HUC 03110202). The disturbance will cover 5,903 square feet and include discharging of fill and clearing and grubbing to widen SR 31, culvert replacement, and the installation of Best Management Practices (BMPs).

GA 31 is commonly known as Lakeland Highway, and also as US 221.

The coordinates supplied actually put the southwest end of the road work just east of Lightsey Road aka CCC Road in Lowndes County, and the northeast end east of Shiner Pond Road aka Spells Road CR 12 in Lanier County.

Map: Lakeland Highway widening in the WWALS map of the Alapaha River Water Trail (ARWT)

OW 4, 13, and 31 presumably are numbered for this particular project. I would guess Continue reading →

Statenville to Sasser Landing, Alapaha River, plus Turket Creek Waterfall 2022-07-09

Paddle with WWALS down the blackwater Alapaha River over some rapids, with side trip to Turket Creek Waterfall.

Jennings Defeat, Turket Creek Waterfall, Statenville Boat Ramp

Bring a rope for each end of your boat, for towing and carrying. Shortly after the GA-FL line are the notorious shoals Jennings Defeat, so named because even the founder of Jennings, Florida, portaged around them. Last time WWALS went through there, only three boats paddled through those shoals. Continue reading →

Trailmarker Tree Trails 2020-11-04

Second of a series of posts from Dr. Ken Sulak, USGS, retired. He is aware that Indian Trailmarker Trees are still speculative. Maybe with enough examples we can all determine whether they are what they seem to be. Please send pictures and locations of any trailmarker trees you may have seen, especially along old trails that crossed the Alapaha, Withlacoochee, Little, Suwannee, or Santa Fe Rivers, such as Old Coffee Road or various versions of El Camino Real.

Old Trails

Thanks for your reply. The trailmarker tree thing is an offshoot of my research on historic settler fords, ferries and bridges. Certainly early settlers traded with Seminoles and followed their trails. This Motte map is one of the few I have encountered that shows trails from GA coming into FL. There has also been more published on the ‘Alachua Trail’ figured in the next map. But that is of less interest to me because folks using that trail were primarily headed to the St. Johns River area—a distinct migration thing from the GA and SC folks headed for ‘Middle Florida’ where the best farm land and ample water was available.
I have been trying to confine my studies and field explorations to that area—but have inevitably gotten involved with what was happening in S GA. I have made several foot and solo kayak trips to the GA/FL border, and up into GA a bit now.
Many coming south from GA crossed into Spanish FL at Warners (Beauforts, Hornes) Ferry over the Withlacoochee, then headed south to Deadman’s Bay (Steinhatchee) to boil down salt water to make several barrels full of salt to take back to GA in wagons. This is one of the several ‘Old Salt Trails’ that later immigrant settlers used. All six of the so-far discovered trailmarker trees fall right on one of the dotted trails in this map

Motte’s 1838 Seminole War map showing trails with dotted lines.

Warners Ferry or Horn’s Ferry was near where the current Horn Bridge is over the Withlacoochee River just upstream of State Line Boat Ramp and the GA-FL line.

I asked Ken a few questions, including: Continue reading →

Searching for Trailmarker Trees 2020-11-02

Here’s the first of a series of posts from Dr. Ken Sulak, USGS, retired, whom you may remember we’ve quoted before about sturgeon jumping in the Suwannee River. He’s got several new pursuits that entwine with Suwannee River Basin rivers, and he’s asking for your assistance. He is aware that Indian Trailmarker Trees are still speculative. Maybe with enough examples we can all determine whether they are what they seem to be.

WWALS riverrats –

While exploring old bridge and ferry sites along the Suwannee River and its tributaries, I have encountered five unmistakable Indian Trailmarker Trees (and Brack Barker has shown me a sixth). I won’t say I discovered these, because some human first shaped each, and thousands of Indians and early settlers used these manmade landmarks to navigate through South Georgia and Florida’s 27 million acres of seemingly endless and trackless primordial Longleaf Pine Forest. Sure, there were Indian trails that the settlers also followed, like the Alachua Trail and the Old Salt Road (plural). But that was not necessarily easy. No welcome to Florida signs back then, no road signs, no road maps, no GPS — although the sun and stars provided compass directions.

Trailmarker Trees, How To, and old map

The noted naturalist Herbert Stoddard came to Florida with his family as a small boy in 1893. Florida became a US Territory in 1822, with settlers arriving in droves thereafter. But even as late as 1893, there were few real roads to follow. Stoddard recalls: “Came a long ride in a horse-drawn wagon over bumpy, one-track roads through the longleaf woods … They were crooked as snakes, for every time a pine tree fell across the road, Continue reading →

Mining Ruined Family Field –Charles F. Arwood, 2019-10-23

Another letter in the Charlton County Herald, October 23, 2019, same issue as the letter posted previously. You can send your own letter to the editor or comment to the Army Corps or GA-EPD.

Lawtey, FL, Highland Mine, Chemours, google earth.

Mining Ruined Family Field
Dear Editor,

Let me start out by saying that I have not been a part of any protests that have been going on. I don’t think anyone can foresee if the proposed strip mining will actually harm the swamp. We probably won’t know until many years have passed. Only time will truly tell.

However, I can say that the strip mining by Dupont in Bradford County did do a lot of harm to my Grandfather’s strawberry farm! My Grandfather owned a farm that joined Dupont’s Continue reading →

Moody AFB sewage spill, Mission Lake 2019-08-06

Update 2021-04-02: Moody AFB NPDES Permit No. GA0020001, which affects not only Beatty Branch in the Withlacoochee River Basin, but also Mission Lake and Grand Bay in the Alapaha River Basin, via “Sanitary, groundwater infiltration, runoff, potable water treatment plant, and vehicle maintenance.”

Did you know Moody Air Force Base had two sewage spills this month? Thanks to GA-EPD, we knew about them, and Moody AFB posted news reports on both of them. One went into Mission Lake, upstream from Grand Bay and the Alapaha River. The other went into Beatty Branch, upstream from Cat Creek and the Withlacoochee River.

Building 769 and Mission Lake

23d Wing Public Affairs, News, 7 August 2019, Sewage Spill Notification, Continue reading →

Canoeing from the Little to the Chee by Burt Kornegay 2018-03-24

Received April 6, 2018, posted with permission. -jsq

When I called the Canoe Outpost on the Suwannee River in Florida to ask if they would give me a shuttle up to the Little River at Reed Bingham State Park, in Georgia, the woman on the other end said, “You want to start up there?” I told her my plan was to canoe the Little River from where it left Reed Bingham down to its confluence with the Withlacoochee, then follow the Withlacoochee to the Suwannee. “I’ve worked here 27 years,” she exclaimed, “and this might be the first!”

Photo: Kathy Hubbard of Burt Kornegay arriving at Troupville Boat Ramp, March 24, 2018.

It turns out that, although many paddlers ply the Withlacoochee and the Suwannee with their blades, the adjective “little” in the name Little River means, in part, little paddled.

I’d had this trip in mind for years, and one reason lies in that Continue reading →

FERC requires Sabal Trail report mixing of Randy Dowdy’s subsoil and topsoil

Bad news doubled for the little pipeline that cried wolf: FERC did not file any certificates today for Sabal Trail, and Brooks County farmer Randy Dowdy is vindicated with a letter from FERC demanding a plan from Sabal Trail “within 20 days” (emphasis in the original) for “for investigating the actual extent of the topsoil and subsoil mixing on the Dowdy and Robinson properties and the reported mixing on the Jones property.”

Map: Google, of Sabal Trail pipeline through Randy Dowdy’s soybean fields, next to Little Creek, which runs into Okapilco Creek, into the Withlacoochee River, into the Suwannee, to the Gulf.

That letter refers to an inspection report of November 14, 2017, also filed by FERC today, that documents that “topsoil and subsoil mixing has occurred in agricultural areas during construction of Sabal Trail Transmission, LLC’s (Sabal Trail) Sabal Trail Pipeline Project.”

FERC has thus validated Continue reading →

Earl Wetherington Foot Bridge

Maybe this bridge was named for Earl Wetherington Foot, since it has vehicular traffic. Since I can’t find any mention of such a person, maybe it was named for Earl Wetherington (1925-2013) and once upon a time was a foot bridge. Anyway, it’s on Gornto Road in Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, over Sugar Creek, slightly upstream from the Withlacoochee River.

Bridge, Over Sugar Creek

It was closed in the “700-year” flood of 2013, which followed the “700-year” flood of 2009 (I think it was closed then, too). Continue reading →

Sasser Landing to Jennings Bluff & Dead River Sink 2015-06-14

See three sinks, a waterfall, and a distributary in these videos from the WWALS Outing to Turket Creek Waterfall, the Alapahoochee River, the Alapaha River Sink, and the Dead River Sink, June 14, 2015. A WWALS video playlist follows the links to each video below. Continue reading →

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