Tag Archives: Dukes Bay Canal

Valdosta Sewage Spill Reports: Jackson Drive, not Street, and Sugar Creek 2025-02-17

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Update 2025-02-22: Ashburn Spill 2025-02-14, Chemours Mine Spill 2025-02-16, Bad Little River 2025-02-17, Bad Withlacoochee River 2025-02-19 2025-02-19.

Valdosta reported the January 14, 2025, sewage spill in the wrong place. It was actually on Jackson Drive, near the Lowndes County Jail, not on Jackson Street, in downtown Valdosta.

[Jackson Drive, not Street, Dukes Bay Canal, Valdosta, GA Sewage Spills, and Sugar Creek]
Jackson Drive, not Street, Dukes Bay Canal, Valdosta, GA Sewage Spills, and Sugar Creek

Thanks to a tip, I asked Valdosta Utilities Director Jason Barnes, who told me they reported the correct GPS coordinates. But GA-EPD does not publish GPS coordinates.

So WWALS sent an open records request asking for, “All sewage spill reports sent from the City of Valdosta to the Georgia Environmental Protection Division (GA-EPD) from December 4, 2024, through February 17, 2025, as well as any and all related correspondence between the City and GA-EPD.”

As usual, we got no correspondence, but we did get the report, which erroneously says Jackson Street, but it does have the GPS coordinates: 30.81102673, -83.27182962. Continue reading →

Valdosta City update on closed city streets after flash flood 2024-11-12

Update 2024-11-16: Withlacoochee River and Two Mile Branch better, Hightower and Sugar Creeks very bad 2024-11-14.

Update 2024-11-14: DOH-Madison Issues Health Advisory Near Withlacoochee River 2024-11-13.

Update 2024-11-14: Plus this from a Valdosta facebook post: “Due to recent severe weather that has caused hazardous conditions, Hightower Street is closed to all traffic between Melissa Drive and West Gordon Street until further notice.”

Valdosta put out a press release yesterday, November 12, 2024, about street closures due to storm damage. Here it is, followed by an update of the WWALS table of roads closed.

[Valdosta streets closed 2024-11-12 after flash flood 2024-11-06 Lowndes County, Georgia]
Valdosta streets closed 2024-11-12 after flash flood 2024-11-06 Lowndes County, Georgia

City of Valdosta Issues Road Closure Advisory for Numerous City Streets Due to Recent Storm Damage

The City of Valdosta advises all residents and commuters to exercise caution as emergency crews respond to storm damage across the area. Due to hazardous conditions resulting from recent severe weather, Country Club Drive is closed to all traffic between Williamsburg Drive and Ramblewood Circle until further notice. River Street near Saunders Park and Cypress Street near the intersection of Price Street are also closed.

Continue reading →

Roads closed after Valdosta flash flood 2024-11-10

Update 2024-11-13: Valdosta City update on closed city streets after flash flood 2024-11-12.

Update 2024-11-12: Valdosta sewage spills contained after flash flood 2024-11-11.

Here’s a list of the roads and streets we have heard were closed after the flash flood of Wednesday, November 6, 2024, with twelve inches of rain and neighborhoods flooded.

[Roads still closed 2024-11-10 after flash flood 2024-11-06 Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia]
Roads still closed 2024-11-10 after flash flood 2024-11-06 Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia

The list is embedded below, or see it in its native googlesheets form:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1umwILXv2v6WVOqy_O3v3GyAmy48miHiWrFZIOsWMipE/edit?usp=sharing

So far as we know, only the locations highlighted in yellow are still closed. Continue reading →

8,400 gallons of sewage into Dukes Bay Canal, Valdosta, GA, due to unknown obstruction 2023-08-28

Update 2023-09-08: Filthy upstream Withlacoochee, clean downstream and Little and Alapaha Rivers 2023-09-07.

Update 2023-09-03: This spill finally showed up in the GA-EPD Sewage Spills Report on 2023-09-01. I don’t know why it took Monday to Friday to appear. I will inquire.

Slightly less than a major spill, and for once not due to collapsed infrastructure: yes, another Valdosta sewage spill.

This one went into Dukes Bay Canal, then Mud Swamp Creek, the Alapahoochee River, and the Alapaha River.

[Valdosta 819 Bunche Dr. spill and Dukes Bay Canal East in WWALS ARWT map]
Valdosta 819 Bunche Dr. spill and Dukes Bay Canal East in the WWALS map of the Alapaha River Water Trail (ARWT)

Points to Valdosta for getting a press release out the same day as a spill, which I don’t recall ever happening before. Also for a specific street address. And for keeping it below the 10,000 gallons of a major spill.

[Suwannee Riverkeeper John S. Quarterman]
Suwannee Riverkeeper John S. Quarterman

Of course, as I told WTXL TV about a previous Valdosta sewage spill, “There have been a number of things they’ve done better lately, they don’t have as bad or as frequent spills as they used to. The ideal number however is none.”

And neither this spill nor the previous one have yet shown up in the Georgia Environmental Protection Division (GA-EPD) Sewage Spills Report.

Meanwhile, add one to Valdosta’s previous nine sewage spills this year.

Received 4:14 PM yesterday. Continue reading →

Videos: Valdosta trash tour again 2023-05-23

Malia Thomas, reporter for the Valdosta Daily Times, and Suwannee Riverkeeper John S. Quarterman toured many of the same Valdosta trash locations we visited three months earlier. Most of them did not seem what you might call fixed.

[Valdosta Trash Examples 2023-05-23]
Valdosta Trash Examples 2023-05-23

Plus one added stop was most definitely not fixed. Apparently 84 days of $100 a day fines were not enough.

There is some progress on Valdosta’s chronic trash problem, such as the three trash traps (thanks, City Engineer Ben O’Dowd and Stormwater Manager Angela Bray) and the notices sent to parking lot owners by City Marshalls (thanks, Community Protections Manager Anetra Riley), but there is also much more room for improvement. Apparently some of those notices have not had much effect yet, and more trash traps are needed, as well as other measures. See:
https://wwals.net/issues/trash/

Needless to say, WWALS and the usual citizens are still watching and speaking up. Continue reading →

Maps: Valdosta Stormwater Pond Facility Clusters 2023-03-01

These maps show the locations of Valdosta’s Stormwater Pond Facility Clusters previously posted. They provide clues to where trash may be accumulating.

Most of the major creeks in Valdosta are represented, plus some that I didn’t know had names, such as Bunche Street Canal and Knob Hill Canal, as well as some that apparently do not have names.

Most (Sugar Creek, Hightower Creek, Dow Street Canal, One Mile Branch, Two Mile Branch, Three Mile Branch, Knob Hill Canal, Cherry Creek, and Browns Canal) are in the Withlacoochee River Basin.

Others (Knights Creek, Dukes Bay Canal, Bunche Street Canal) are in the Alapaha River Basin.

Several of the maps straddles several watersheds.

[Example Cluster maps]
Example Cluster maps

Below there is a pair of maps for each of the clusters: a map received from Valdosta in response to an open records request, and a map excerpt from one of the WWALS water trail maps.

The rest of the text below is from the document previously posted. Continue reading →

Valdosta sprays Glyphosate on elephant ears 2023-02-19

Update 2023-04-05: Maps: Valdosta Stormwater Pond Facility Clusters 2023-03-01.

The most interesting parts of the response to the open records request I sent to Valdosta about spraying are the summary by Stormwater Manager Angela Bray, and the Stormwater Pond Facility Clusters.

I agree with her first two points, but am confused by her other two.

[ORR Response and Stormwater Pond Facility Clusters]
ORR Response and Stormwater Pond Facility Clusters

This is the main part of the Stormwater Manager’s summary: Continue reading →

Dukes Bay Canal Trash 2023-02-12

Not just for the Withlacoochee River! There’s Valdosta trash in Dukes Bay Canal, which drains to the Alapaha River.

Valdosta Stormwater Division did remove trash from culverts near Southside Recreation Center, one somebody reported them via Click ‘n’ Fix. Then they declared the problem fixed, archived the tickets, and left trash floating in Dukes Bay Canal.

[Tire, Dukes Bay Canal, Church's, Map]
Tire, Dukes Bay Canal, Church’s, Map

I know Valdosta’s liability insurance does not cover any city employee getting into water. That’s right: Stormwater can’t get in water. But it’s hard to believe they don’t have long-handled nets that would reach halfway across the canal from each side.

Plus, how about find out where the trash is coming from, and stop it at the source? There’s a hint below.

The Oak Street location is in Valdosta City Council District 3, Thomas B. McIntyre, Sr.

The Toombs Street and Bay Street locations are in District 2, Sandra Tooley. Continue reading →

Valdosta Mildred Street Sewage Spill, Alapaha River Basin 2021-01-02

Update 2024-01-28: Mildred Street visited related to Four more Valdosta sewage spills 2023-12-17.

Update 2021-01-05: Sewage Spills: Quitman, Valdosta, Tifton 2021-01-03.

Happy New Year from Valdosta, with a sewage spill at one of its chronic locations, although Valdosta was vague about exactly where and got the creek wrong. I wonder how they plan to fix this flooding that causes sewage spills if they don’t know where the water drains?

On January 2, 2021, the City of Valdosta Utilities Department responded to a call concerning a sanitary sewer overflow at a manhole in the 400 block of Mildred Street, an area that experiences localized flooding during rain events. The sanitary sewer spill was a result of excessive rainfall over a 24 hour period. This amount of rainfall over a short period of time resulted in storm water infiltration and inflow entering the collection system, and causing the manhole to exceed its capacity. Approximately 25,150 gallons of combined storm water and sewage discharged at this location, eventually entering into Dukes Bay.

…Warning signs have been posted at this location as well as downstream to advise the public to avoid any contact with this waterway for the next seven (7) days.

[Sewage Spill, Mildred Street, Valdosta, Alapaha River]
Sewage Spill, Mildred Street, Valdosta, Alapaha River

Although Valdosta’s press release is careful to point out that this spill did not come from the Withlacoochee Wastewater Treetment Plant (WWTP), which is good, the PR does not say where “downstream” is. Dukes Bay Canal goes to Mud Swamp Creek, then the Alapahoochee River, and then reaches the Alapaha River slightly upstream of Sasser Landing, in Hamilton County, Florida. Continue reading →

Looking clean downstream, Withlacoochee River 2020-08-20

Update 2020-08-28: Good downstream, but recurring GA 133, Withlacoochee River 2020-08-27

WWALS testing Thursday got excellent results at State Line Boat Ramp: zero (0) cfu/100 mL E. coli, and only 33 at Nankin and Knights Ferry Boat Ramps. We have nothing new from Valdosta since Monday’s data, and nothing from Florida since Thursday a week ago. But the WWALS data says that so far as we know, the Withlacoochee River is good for boating, fishing, swimming, etc. this weekend.

[Fishing, map, charts, pictures]
Fishing, map, charts, pictures

There was no significant rain, except far up on the Little River at Tifton, and upriver on the Alapaha at Alapaha, Georgia.

[Looking clean, Knights Ferry, Nankin, State Line]
Looking clean, Knights Ferry, Nankin, State Line
For context and the entire WWALS composite spreadsheet of Georgia and Florida water quality testing results and rainfall, see: https://wwals.net/issues/testing/

So apparently nothing nasty washed into the Withlacoochee River, and State Line, Nankin, and Knights Ferry Boat Ramps are green on Swim Guide. I’ve left all the other Withlacoochee and Little River “beaches” Continue reading →