WCTV came to Hagan Bridge Landing at GA 122 on the Withlacoochee River to interview Suwannee Riverkeeper John S. Quarterman about what Madison County and 10 more Florida counties are doing about Valdosta sewage spills into local rivers. Don’t forget the Tour of Valdosta wastewater treatment plants 9:30 AM this morning, Wednesday, October 3, 2018.
Emma Wheeler, WCTV, 2 October 2018, North Florida communities look to solve sewage spills in Valdosta, Continue reading
Update 2018-12-21: GA-EPD has started publishing online each business day a Sewage Spills Report! So that’s item 1 from the Petition. We thank GA-EPD and we await items 2 and 3.
Update 2018-12-14: Now plus a petition individuals can sign.
Update 2018-12-12: Four more Georgia groups make 31: Georgia Women (And Those Who Stand With Us), Atlanta Audubon Society, Chattahoochee Parks Conservancy, and No Ash At All—Wayne County.
![[More Signatures]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2018-10-31--ga-epd-spill-resolution/Resolution-Requesting-GA-EPD-to-timely-publish-spill-reports-0003.jpg)
Florida groups: you can sign on, too, like some already have!
Update 2018-11-15: Three more Georgia groups make 27: GARC, Ogeechee Riverkeeper, and SELC. Plus slides.
Yes, your organization can still sign on for further signature deliveries until we see daily spill updates on the GA-EPD website.
Update 2018-11-12: Four more Georgia groups make 24:
GA-EPD Richard E. Dunn did answer on November 2, 2018, saying they would look into telling everyone when anyone spills. Yes, your organization can still sign on for further signature deliveries until we see daily spill updates on the GA-EPD website.
Update 2018-11-01: Now plus Paddle Florida, for six Florida signers and fourteen Georgia signers. A copy with all twenty signers went today to GA-EPD Director Richard E. Dunn and Assistant Director Lauren M. Curry. Yes, your organization can still sign on for later delivery.
Update 2018-10-30: Three downstream Florida groups ask the state of Georgia to tell everyone when sewage gets into Georgia rivers. To get in the November 1st copy to GA-EPD, sign here by Halloween. Yes, you can still sign on later.
Update 2018-10-18: Two Florida signers makes sixteen so far. You can still sign here to ask GA-EPD to tell us so we’ll know when they happen.
Update 2018-10-17: Fourteen signers so far. And here are the forty spills since last time. You can still sign here to ask GA-EPD to tell us so we’ll know when they happen.
Update 2018-09-03: The WCTV report and the text of the letter establishing the Middle and Lower Suwannee River and Withlacoochee River Task Force.
On WCTV tonight, Emma Wheeler will report about wastewater, Valdosta, and how at least eight downstream counties in Florida are organizing about it. She asked me for suggestions. My suggestions start with: sign a resolution asking GA-EPD to timely publish spill reports, and help WWALS with its new water quality testing program. And the Florida Basin Management Action Plans (BMAPs) could have more effect on the Suwannee River Basin than sewage.
Plus let’s not forget the Tour of Valdosta wastewater treatment plants 9AM tomorrow morning, October 3, the WWALS Troupville Boat Ramp Cleanup October 13, the WWALS Boomerang paddle race November 3 from Langdale Park Boat Ramp to Sugar Creek and back, and 300 of our closest friends coming to the Withlacoochee River mid-June 2019 in Paddle Georgia.
The resolution asks the Georgia Environmental Protection Division (GA-EPD) to do what Florida and Alabama already do: publish pollution spill reports online the same day they receive them, with signup for email notices. The first step in fixing pollution is Continue reading
Pollution spill maps online, up to date, with interactive links to details: Florida is doing it, and so can Georgia.
For more than a year FDEP has been posting spill reports online in a spreadsheet the same day it gets them, with email notice signup (Alabama also does that). FDEP has added a Public Notice of Pollution (PNP) Finder: Last 30 Days, which helps a lot in finding spills in our watersheds.
Did you know there was a Phosphoric Acid spill at White Springs last week, on Continue reading
Here is every spill reported by all the large wastewater permits in the state of Georgia since the beginning of 2015 through this Tuesday, September 18, 2018. It includes spills in the Suwannee River Basin you probably didn’t know about.
If people downstream want to do something about wastewater coming from Georgia, this data suggests two things: insist Georgia publish spill reports online the same day like Florida and Alabama already do. And help fund WWALS water quality testing so we can find out what’s going on and when.
Just spills with a Valdosta address from 2015 on.
WWALS Science Committee Chair Tom Potter extracted and sorted every spill with an address in Valdosta since the beginning of 2015: Spill-Detail-sorted_Valdosta_2015–2018-09-19. See also web version of this data.
I’ve been asking the City of Valdosta for a list of their spills and locations since at least 2015, and I’ve been collecting reports ad hoc since before then. Finally, we have this list, but not from Valdosta. We had to Continue reading
Here is Lowndes County’s (not Valdosta’s) stream monitoring data for a year after its September 23, 2017 raw sewage spill into a ditch that goes to the Withlacoochee River. The data show often worse water quality upstream than downstream. This is a good illustration of why WWALS is starting a water quality testing program.
These graphs are in Water Reporter, where I put the data under the Suwannee Riverkeeper group. The first two graphs are from below the spill, downstream on the Withlacoochee River at GA 133 (St. Augustine Road).
The other graphs show nothing unusual for blackwater tannic acid rivers. This is the interesting graph, Continue reading
Update 2020-04-15: See much longer and more recent version of the Consent Order, in Valdosta Sewer System Standard Operating Procedures 2020-03-05.
Due to tens of millions of dollars spent by Valdosta, we don’t see spills of tens of millions of gallons anymore. The most obvious Valdosta Sanitary System Improvement is the new, uphill, out of the flood plain, Withlacoochee Wasterwater Treatment Plant, pictured here on Scott Fowler’s office wall at Valdosta Utilities:
Withlacoochee WPCP 2016
The old, now-closed, Withlacoochee WTP was the plant that had the biggest problems back in 2009 and 2013. As found on the City of Valdosta website, the 23 September 2013 Valdosta Consent Order from the Georgia Environmental Protection Division is now also on WWALS website, including I made a web version, from which I extracted the paragraphs quoted below.
This was the original problem: Continue reading
Florida does it. Alabama does it. Maybe Georgia should do it: post pollution notices online as they are received, and send out email notices to those who have signed up. That way cities and counties would not have to notify anybody but the Georgia Environmental Protection Division (GA-EPD), and Riverkeepers wouldn’t have to poll each and every city and county to find out what is going on.
See
below for the interactive map of sewage spills in Alabama in 2016 by Alabama Riverkeepers, and see also the Florida map I drew from Florida’s Pollution Notices.
Alabama also requires reporters to include latitude and longitude in their reports, and to use an electronic reporting system. Both are great improvements on Georgia’s current methods of telephoning in a number and responding to open records requests with records that do not have GPS coordinates.
Dennis Pillion, AL.com, 1 September 2017, ADEM rolls out email notifications for sewage spills, Continue reading
Through November 24, 2017, public comment is open about lead in our Georgia watersheds, in a new proposed Total Maximum Daily Load Evaluation.
Georgia EPD, Proposed TMDLs, 29 September 2017, NOTICE OF AVAILABILITY OF REVISED TOTAL MAXIMUM DAILY LOADS FOR WATERS AND POLLUTANTS OF CONCERN IN THE STATE OF GEORGIA, Continue reading
Update 2017-09-21: Yes, I reported it to GA-EPD, et al. (PDF), and here are facebook photos of most of the images below.
How close to exposed is Sabal Trail’s pipe? This sinkhole is at least a foot deep, maybe two or more, and Sabal Trail only buried their pipe three feet deep, despite requests by Brooks, Colquitt, and Lowndes Counties to bury it deeper.
Is that fill material exposed Continue reading
Update 2019-05-09: fixed URLs and added map.
It has a name and it is listed: Lola Tract; WMA Stockton:
Google Streetview, Lanier County CR 123 off of US 84 aka GA 38.
Lola Tract WMA is a 391 acre property near Stockton. Hunting opportunities include deer, bear, turkey and small game.
This property is only open during hunt dates.
Directions:
From Stockton Take Hwy. 84 west for 1.4 miles. WMA kiosk is on the right. WMA is on both sides of the river.
Voluntary Public Access Area
Continue reading