Thanks to Jay Bushnell for the heads-up on this FDEP notice of February 6, 2018:
Impaired Waters Rule (IWR) Notification
The department announces the availability of the 2018 Strategic Monitoring Plans. These plans represent the water quality and biological monitoring needs identified by the department in preparation for basin assessments as part of the watershed management approach.
The Watershed Assessment Section developed Continue reading
Thanks to Anna White Hodges for the tip about this video from the second day of the November 10-11, 2017, Sierra Club Conference in Cedar Key, Florida.
The first day was mostly about sea level rise. I had to leave after that, because Continue reading
One of our goals Wednesday in Tallahassee was accomplished: the fracking ban is moving in the Florida statehouse! You can help: call your Florida state Representative or Senator and ask them to vote for the fracking bills. If you don’t know who they are, you can use Florida’s Find Your Legislators.
Photo: John S. Quarterman for WWALS, Tallahassee, 2018-01-31. Do Gale Dickert and these people look like they’re going to give up easily?
Monday SB 462 was uananimously approved by the Senate Environmental Preservation and Conservation Committee, thank you Committee Chair Senator Rob Bradley, whom many people intensively lobbied last Wednesday to schedule a vote in that committee. The indefatigable Continue reading
Singing Cedar Key in the summer? How many songs can you name about the Suwannee River, or the Withlacoochee, Alapaha, Alapahoochee, Little (which one?), Grand Bay, Banks Lake, the Okefenokee Swamp, Suwannacoochee Spring, Manatee Springs, or the Dead River Sink? Most people know only one song for all of that. Come on, songwriters, let’s hear more! WWALS members, come help organize the first Suwannee Riverkeeper Songwriting Contest!
Update 2018-02-03: And you can join us afterwards for 5 Holes Cleanup and Site Exploration, at the Suwannee River but by land.
Sheet music cover of “Way Down Upon the Swanee River”. 1935. Color photoprint. State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory. Accessed 1 Feb. 2018.
The WWALS Songwriting Contest Committee held its first meeting Sunday, January 28, 2018 at Crossroads Market & Grill in Hamilton County, Florida, with Eileen Box (Chair), Scotti Jay, Sara Squires, and John S. Quarterman. Numerous logistics were discussed, from submission format and content to venue: so far the leading contender is Cedar Key, in Levy County on the Gulf of Mexico.
When: 1PM, Saturday, February 10, 2018
Where: Crossroads Market & Grill, Inc., 5463 State Rd 6 West, Jasper, FL 32052
What: WWALS Songwriting Committee meeting to plan the Suwannee Riverkeeper Songwriting Contest
Event: facebook, meetup Continue reading
Instead of giving Sabal Trail a five-month extension, FERC should revoke Sabal Trail’s Certificate of Convenience and Necessity, as the U.S. District Court already ordered. Sabal Trail no longer has the customers for 90+% of its gas on which that FERC’s February 2 Order depended, not since Sabal Trail dropped Duke Energy Florida (DEF) from its customer index on New Year’s Day.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson (L) and Polish Foreign Minister Jacek Czaputowicz shake hands during a joint press conference after their meeting in Warsaw on January 27, 2018. / AFP / Wojtek RADWANSKI
It’s time to stop the fossil fuel industry using Sabal Trail as a political tool to undermine the overall energy stability and security of the U.S. southeast for the profit of a few companies from Texas and Canada. Just like the U.S. State Department recommends for Europe, FERC should seek to diversify energy supplies by getting on with solar power onshore and wind power offshore in the Sunshine State, Georgia, and everywhere else.
Photo: John S. Quarterman for WWALS on Southwings flight June 21, 2016, of
site of Sabal Trail Suwannee County M&R Station connecting to Florida Gas Transmission (FGT).
What’s that “one additional M&R facility,” Sabal Trail? Is it the one in Suwannee County to feed your fracked gas through Continue reading
They don’t want to say “we don’t know,” but they don’t know. At least they have a working hypothesis about the collapse of the 2017 peanut crop in much of Florida: it has to do with variations in rainfall.
Bob Kemerait, Southeast Farm Press, 22 January 2018, Peanut collapse: Something happened but it’s not clear exactly why,
…For months, University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences Extension agents led by Anthony Drew, Mace Bauer and Dee Broughton had been sounding the alarm that an unprecedented collapse of the peanut crop was occurring across large areas of Florida’s production region. Symptoms of this collapse included stunted plants, late-season yellowing and leaves with distinctive marginal leaf necrosis. Where most severe, entire fields wilted in the weeks prior to harvest. Abysmal yields, off by as much as 45 percent, forced some to consider their future in farming if solution could not be found.
During the latter third of the season, Continue reading
See also: Nutrien (PCS Phosphate mine) 5-year permit renewal 2018-03-16.
Update 2018-01-25: Fixed Attorney Scott Shirley’s attribution.
Hamilton County did due diligence by hiring a consultant to review the PCS phosphate mine’s record and permit applications. The Mericles and me were the only non-county non-PCS people who spoke, but the Planning and Zoning Board interacted quite a bit last night at the public hearings. Both the motions they passed recommended approval of the permits, but the second motion included taking into account the points raised by the public, such as better public access to permit materials and review of the mining company’s water quality data.
Photo: John S. Quarterman for WWALS,
Left to right:
Deanna Mericle,
Consultant Gregory M. Hitz,
County Attorney Cliff Adams,
Planning and Zoning Board:
A.L. Milner(?),
Eddie Wynn,
Megan Carter,
Jim Tompkins,
Harrell Tyree,
Riley L. Anderson,
for PCS: Attorney Scott Shirley, Danny Johnson.
County Attorney Cliff Adams took notes throughout, and there was a sound recording.
The public consisted of Continue reading
Update 2018-11-21: Pictures.
Rescheduled due to low water, this time moved and mutated into a hike to the Dead River Sink, starting in the middle of the Alapaha Quest.
Practicing Geologist and WWALS member Dennis James Price will once again lead us through this impressive geological phenomenon. It is an eye opener that will perfectly illustrate the karst topography that is typical for quite a bit of the area where many of our rivers flow. When you see the exposed limestone along the river banks you see the porous rock. However when you see a hole that is capable of swallowing the entire Alapaha for most of the year…. it’s impressive.
When: High noon, Saturday, January 27, 2018
Put In: Meet at Jennings Bluff Launch. From Jennings, Hamilton County, FL, travel south on US 41 to NW 25 Lane; turn left; travel east to NW 82 Court and the entrance into the Suwannee River Water Management District’s Jennings Bluff tract; turn left and follow road to canoe launch.
GPS: 30.567172, -83.039189 (for the entrance to Jennings Bluff Tract)
Take Out: Same.
Bring: Cold weather gear, hiking shoes, and clothes resistant to thorny bushes. No boat needed. Also trash pickers and trash bags: every WWALS outing is also a cleanup.
Join: This outing is Free to WWALS members. Non-members: $10/person. We recommend you support the work of WWALS by becoming a WWALS member today!
Picture by John S. Quarterman for WWALS,
Into the Dead River Sink, June 14, 2015.
Shuttle: None.
Once you get to Suwannee River Water management District (SRWMD)’s Jennings Bluff Tract, Continue reading
Sabal Trail ramped up the last couple of days, to 196 thousand Dekatherms/day (MDTH/day) today. Most of that they’re shipping out to Gulfstream at Osceola. with a bit through FSC to FPL’s Martin County power plant, and the rest somewhere.
Why now? During the last cold spell, they spiked briefly in the first week of January, but dropped back to zero while there was snow on the ground in Florida.
So what are they up to now?
From the various pipeline’s FERC-required daily postings, Gulfstream shows Continue reading
See also: Pictures: PCS Phosphate mine permit Public Hearings, Jasper, FL 2018-01-23.
While residents of Union and Bradford Counties, Florida try to fight off the proposed HPS II phosphate mine on the New and Santa Fe Rivers, Hamilton County faces renewal and modification of permits for the PCS Phosphate mine, near White Springs and the Suwannee River.
When: 6PM, Tuesday, January 23, 2018
Where:
County Commission Meeting Room, County Courthouse,
207 Northeast First Street, Jasper, Florida
What: North Florida Public Notices, search for PCS Phosphate finds notices for two public hearings the same evening:
Photo: John S. Quarterman for WWALS on
Southwings flight 2016-10-22.
1. 1/11/2018
NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING CONCERNING APPLICATION FOR MODIFICATION TO MASTER MINING PLAN AND SPECIAL PERMIT BY THE PLANNING AND ZONING BOARD OF HAMILTON COUNTY, FLORIDA, NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that, Continue reading