Tag Archives: Dam

Low water at the first gate, Suwannee River Sill, Okefenokee Swamp 2025-11-20

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Looks like you could paddle through the Suwannee River Sill, but it’s not clear how far you would get through the Narrows below Stephen C. Foster State Park Ramp before you got to the Sill.

[Low water, first gate, Suwannee River Sill, Okefenokee Swamp, Thursday, November 20, 2025]
Low water, first gate, Suwannee River Sill, Okefenokee Swamp, Thursday, November 20, 2025

Yesterday Shirley Kokidko checked on water levels in the Suwannee River in the Okefenokee Swamp. She says there is enough water to paddle to Billys Island or Minnies Lake.

Until we get some rain to break this drought, paddling from SCFSP to Griffis Fish Camp will be doubtful.

Here is a video Shirley sent from the First Gate at the Suwannee River Sill, the 4.5-mile-long earthen dam that was supposed to keep water levels up in the Okefenokee Swamp to prevent fires, but did not work.

https://www.facebook.com/Wwalswatershed/videos/854041060433085

https://youtu.be/xrNMTGZtws0 Continue reading →

Open the Okefenokee Gates 2025-11-15

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Update 2025-11-21: Low water at the first gate, Suwannee River Sill, Okefenokee Swamp 2025-11-20.

Actually, the Suwannee River Sill Gates are always open.

This was a facebook comment yesterday, “Open the dam in the swamp.”

It was on this WWALS facebook post: Very low water, Fargo Ramp, Suwannee River 2025-11-12 Video by Shirley Kokidko for WWALS Watershed Coalition, Inc. (WWALS):
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1946665392780126

See also:
https://www.facebook.com/Wwalswatershed/posts/pfbid02p1mXs1UZK6ZhGQe4BeEdAa54E1Ws2Dk5AQmKmRsbqKPc3ATi6SxVyZjXL1U54dHRl
https://wwals.net/?p=68851

I’ve also heard from otherwise very knowledgeable Floridians: “When there are big rains, Georgia opens the Okefenokee gates and floods Florida!”

Nope, that doesn’t happen, either.

[Open the Okefenokee Gates, Suwannee River Sill, Actually always open, Since around 2000]
Open the Okefenokee Gates, Suwannee River Sill, Actually always open, Since around 2000

The Sill itself was an experiment in fire prevention that did not work, and also turned out to be a bad idea, because the Okefenokee Swamp needs fire to regenerate itself.

Here’s video and pictures of the Second and First Gates through the Suwannee River Sill, December 9, 2025 2023 [date corrected]
https://youtube.com/shorts/8LA_PLDqXA0 Continue reading →

Seattle settles salmon river dam case, hails relationship of mutual respect and consultation with Sauk-Suiattle Tribe 2023-05-02

The city of Seattle will include a program for fish passage around its dams on the Skagit River, as part of a settlement with the Sauk-Suiattle Tribe of a case on behalf of the tribe and of salmon that live in the river.

That program was filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) as part of the city’s license renewal request for those hydroelectric dams. These are strange times indeed, when FERC becomes the guarantor of river rights.

[Washington dam removal is controversial but may be the best chance for salmon, earth.com 2019-08-20 https://www.earth.com/news/washington-dam-removal-salmon/]
Washington dam removal is controversial but may be the best chance for salmon, earth.com 2019-08-20

There are at least two ways of approaching such cases on rights: rights of nature itself (fish, rivers, etc.), or rights of humans.

Human rights are the subject of the Florida citizen petition for a state constitutional amendment for Rights to Clean and Healthy Water. Florida registered voters, please sign that petition:
https://www.floridarighttocleanwater.org/

And then please get your friends and relatives to sign it.

This Seattle case used both approaches, according to the Continue reading →

Pictures: Dam, Troupville, Little River, GA 133, 2022-11-03

Update 2022-11-07: a few more dam pictures in here: Troupville River Park Scouting 2022-07-02.

About halfway between Troupville Boat Ramp and the Troup Bridge (the GA 133 Little River Bridge), are these remains of an old dam.

Phillip Williams pointed this out some time back.

Maybe Don Davis can turn up some records of this dam.

[Timbers seen from downstream, 11:05:42, 30.8519297, -83.3472014]
Timbers seen from downstream, 11:05:42, 30.8519297, -83.3472014 in the WWALS Map of the Withlacoochee and Little River Water Trail

Bridge pilings are vertical, not horizontal.

Horizontal timbers would make sense to hold a dam in place. Right next to Troupville would be a good place for a mill, which would need a dam. Continue reading →