Paddling down the Withlacoochee River from Nankin to Mozell Spells, the remains of the Valdosta Railway Bridge mark on the right bank the north end of the Four Freedoms Trail, one of the few hiking trails on the Withlacoochee and Little River Water Trail (WLRWT):
Photo: John S. Quarterman for WWALS, 9 July 2016.
The Four Freedoms Trail in Madison County was constructed as a joint effort between Continue reading
Union County, Florida apparently takes its duties to the public seriously, with a series of meetings through the next year about mining (including phosphate mining) in its Comprehensive Plan and Land Development Regulations (LDR). People in Union County and everywhere who don’t want another phosphate mine leaching into groundwater, rivers, and springs and driving away other jobs, please show up at the meetings or write to the Union Board of County Commissioners (BOCC). For example, start by advocating the Commissioners extend their moratorium against phosphate mining.
Jim Tatum of Our Santa Fe River (OSFR) has turned that schedule into an image, and I’ve included it below as text, with a link to Union County’s own PDF.
Today (Tuesday) and Thursday, public workshops about Florida’s newest state park, Gilchrist Blue Springs State Park.
When:
5:30-8PM, Tuesday,
November 28, 2017
Where:
23760 NW 187th Avenue,
High Springs, FL 32643
Santa Fe Room,
Old School Community Center
When:
5:30-8PM, Thursday,
November 30, 2017
Where:
105 NE 11th Avenue,
Trenton, FL 32643
Gilchrist County
Public Library
A COPY OF THE AGENDA MAY BE OBTAINED BY Continue reading
Sent today. See also PDF, and previous posts about what you can do. -jsq
To:
Nick Wiley, Executive Director
Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission
620 South Meridian Street
Tallahassee, FL 32399-1600
850-488-2975
nick.wiley@MyFWC.com
Emily Herschman Davis: 850-617-9577
emily.herschman@MyFWC.com
Colonel Curtis Brown, Chairman
Boating Advisory Committee (BAC)
Curtis.Brown@MyFWC.com
Captain William Griswold, Chairman
Non-Motorized Boat Working Group (NMBWG)
WSGriz@aol.com
Re: Paid permits for non-motorized boats
Dear E.D. Wiley, Chairman Brown, and Chairman Griswold,
As the head of an organization that holds many paddle outings in Florida, I thank you for holding a public meeting tomorrow of the Boating Advisory Council that could finally put to rest the ill-advised idea of charging permit fees for paddle boats or boards. Unfortunately, I will not be able to attend, so I am sending this letter.
Stean Rayer, Ying Wang, Bureau of Economic and Business Research (BEBR), University of Florida, 30 October 2014, Measuring Population Density for Counties in Florida
Thank you, FWC Executive Director Wiley, for saying back in February Continue reading
Remember, you can object to paid paddle boat permits before the Tuesday morning meeting of the Florida Boating Advisory Council (BAC). More below on what you can do, plus still more apparent term limit overruns, paddle boaters represented by a yacht business owner, the last NMBWG meeting, the paydirt of paddlers pay (for marinas), and what that would cost.
After a decade of BAC attempts to charge people for paddling (see yesterday’s installment), in 2015 the BAC decided it needed a sub-group:
“The Non-Motorized Boat Working Group (NMBWG) was created by the Boating Advisory Council at its May 18, 2015 meeting. The purpose of the working group is to address four core areas of non-motorized boating: access, education, safety, and user pay/user benefit.”
It doesn’t take much reading of the NMBWG minutes to infer that the whole goal of this group was not access, education, safety, nor (non-motorized boater) user benefit, but “user pay”.
Yacht Octopus by Peter Sleeckx, 2 December 2006,
CC BY-SA 3.0.
Remember, you can object to paid paddle boat permits before the Tuesday morning meeting of the Boating Advisory Council.
For more than a decade, at least half its lifetime, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC), Boating Advisory Council (BAC) has been trying to find a way to charge permit fees for registration of non-motorized boats. Here’s the story so far, which will make clear there’s no reason to believe such efforts will stop. Also including not one, but two BAC members mysteriously serving longer than state-mandated term limits would seem to allow. Is it really about the children? Or is it about marinas, that paddle boaters don’t use? With a special appearance by the Florida state rep. who sponsored the law that expedited WWALS vs. Sabal Trail & FDEP.
The Boating Advisory Council (BAC) was created Continue reading
One group wouldn’t do it, so its parent may: require paid permits for paddle boats and boards in Florida.
When: 9AM, Tuesday, November 28, 2017
Where:
Mission Inn,
10400 County Road 48,
Howey-in-the-Hills, 34737
That’s a golf club resort halfway between The Villages and Orlando,
rooms $179 to $246 for Monday night.
Who: Boating Advisory Council (BAC) of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC)
Event:
On the agenda
under “Unfinished Business / Updates”:
“Non-Motorized Boat Working Group Recommendations Review — William Griswold”
TripAdvisor, Mission Inn Resort & Club, 10400 County Road 48, Howey in the Hills, FL 34737-3000
How to Comment: Continue reading
Has Sabal Trail been shut down for a week? Its FERC-required online reports seem to say so, while Gulfstream and FGT numbers jumped up that same day. Read to the end for something even more interesting.
2017-11-13, Operationally Available Capacity
While Cap stays about the same 789 million dekatherms per day (MDTH/day), Nom drops from around 186 on November 13th to zero or less on November 14th, and stays zero for a week; still zero this morning.
2017-11-14, Operationally Available Capacity
What’s Nom? Apparently Continue reading
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Hahira, Georgia, November 21, 2017 — Factually incorrect, failing to account for LNG export or solar power, and irresponsible for not finding or creating a method for attributing environmental effects to greenhouse gases, as the DC Circuit Court had instructed the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to do: that’s what nine Riverkeepers called FERC’s Supplementary Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) yesterday; see their letter to FERC. The nine include all the Riverkeepers in the path of Sabal Trail and all parts of the Southeast Market Pipelines Project (SMPP) plus others in all three states invaded by those pipelines, Florida, Georgia, Alabama, plus Oklahoma, where the SMPP instigator, Florida Power & Light (FPL), owns a fracking field, The nine, who support fishable, swimmable, drinkable water, pointed out that all of FPL’s original excuses for Sabal Trail have been proven incorrect, and asked FERC to shut it down.
Sabal Trail in green, Transco and FSC in black, in Sierra Club interactive map of gas pipelines.
The Riverkeepers weren’t buying FERC’s ignorance: Continue reading
The center of the very extensive Twin Rivers State Forest, near the confluence of the Withlacoochee and Suwannee Rivers at Ellaville.
The Florida Wildlife Commission says about Twin Rivers Wildlife Management Area:
Twin Rivers consists of more than 9,000 acres in 14 noncontiguous tracts in Madison, Hamilton, and Suwannee counties. Most of the land is in Continue reading