Update 2018-12-21: GA-EPD daily online Sewage Spill Reports!
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: Continue reading
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.
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
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
Congratulations City of Valdosta! You got the VDT to issue a correction for that one sentence a week ago, even though the VDT blamed it on “a source cited in the article”, and came up with yet another number of violations that doesn’t match what NRDC says nor what Valdosta says, with still no specific comparisons to other local governments. So it’s a correction that doesn’t resolve anything. And you’re not helping your credibility problem, Valdosta, by quibbling over a single digit while neglecting to mention an entire year in which you did have drinking water violations that match what’s in NRDC’s map.
Valdosta Daily Times, page 3A, 17 May 2017
CORRECTION
An article headlined “Report. Georgia 5th in drinking water violations,” published 1n the May 10 edition of The Valdosta Daily Times contained an error that originated from a source cited in the article.
The Georgia Environmental Protection Division said in an email, “Valdosta had six violations: two total coliform violations (one monitoring violation and one MCL exceedance) and four haloacetic acid violations (four consecutive quarters of a running annual average MCL exceedance from one sample location). These violations have all been resolved in an old database that preceded our current database. This actual violation was resolved in 1998.”
This correction is on page 3A, below the Crime Report. It does have a big red CORRECTION header, but Continue reading
Levy BOCC passed a resolution Tuesday much like the Suwannee BOCC resolution, but adding instructions to transmit it to a wide range of Florida and U.S. elected officials and agencies.
If you’re in Valdosta today, the City Council meets at 5:30 PM; you can join us in talking to them about this, or send them email.
Thanks to Jessica Berryhill, Administrative Assistant I, Board Administration, Levy Board of County Commissioners, for the PDF.
RESOLUTION 2017-008
A RESOLUTION BY THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS OF LEVY COUNTY, FLORIDA REQUESTING THE PROTECTION OF THE HISTORIC SUWANNEE RIVER IN NORTH FLORIDA.
WHEREAS, Levy County is located in North Central Florida and is bordered by the Historic Suwannee River on its western side; and
WHEREAS. the Historic Suwannee River is one of the most widely known and recognized river system in the world; and Continue reading
Apparently Madison County was the first in Florida to call for state help to resolve the Valdosta sewage situation, back on February 8, 2017.
Followed by
Hamilton
and
Suwannee Counties, both on February 21, 2017,
and the other three four downstream Florida counties seem to have it on
their agendas.
After all, people downstream have been complaining about this since at least 2013,
and the 2009 old Withlacoochee Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) overflow was one of the reasons for the founding of WWALS in 2012.
In the BOCC packet for the Wednesday March 8, 2017 Regular Meeting of the Madison County, Florida Board of County Commissioners, and see also PDF of just those two pages.
RESOLUTION 2017-02-08
A RESOLUTION BY THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS OF MADISON COUNTY, FLORIDA ASKING FOR THE PROTECTION OF THE HISTORIC SUWANNEE RIVER AND THE WITHLACOOCHEE RIVER IN NORTH FLORIDA.
WHEREAS, Madison County is located in North Central Florida and is bordered by the State of Georgia to the North and the Withlacoochee River and Historic Suwannee River to the East; and
WHEREAS, the Withlacoochee River starts its journey in Valdosta, Continue reading
The Suwannee County BOCC resolution is even more explicit than the Hamilton County one.
Thanks to Eric Musgrove, Clerk, Suwannee BOCC, for the PDF.
RESOLUTION 2017-26
A RESOLUTION BY THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS OF SUWANNEE COUNTY, FLORIDA REQUESTING THE PROTECTION OF THE HISTORIC SUWANNEE RIVER IN NORTH FLORIDA.
WHEREAS, Suwannee County is located in North Central Florida and is bordered for 100 miles by the Historic Suwannee River on its north, west and south sides; and
WHEREAS. the Historic Suwannee River is one of the most widely known and recognized river system in the world; and
WHEREAS, the Withlacoochee River (North) begins at its headwaters in South Georgia, and flows into the Historic Suwannee River at Suwannee County’s northwestern border area; and
WHEREAS, Suwannee County and each Continue reading
GA-EPD’s Atlanta office sent
their entire sewage spill database for January 2017 in response to an open records request from WWALS.
For the Suwannee River Basin,
I see only the known ones by Valdosta, plus a spill from Moultrie’s
Carlton Woods Lift Station into the Ocholockonee River,
with 36000 gallons, which matches
the amount we got directly from Moultrie.
That Ochlockonee spill is still not in the Suwannee River Basin.
The Georgia Environmental Protection Division (GA-EPD) Southwest office in Albany handles the other sewage treatment operations in the Suwannee River Basin in Georgia, and that Albany office already told us by telephone that they had no reported spills other than the Tifton spill into the New River which I had gotten directly from Tifton. So I think we can conclude there were no other sewage spills into the Suwannee River Basin in Georgia in January 2017 other than the ones from Valdosta and Tifton.
Interestingly, Valdosta with its 2.2 million gallon Withlacoochee Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) leak (and three manhole spills) was not the winner. Continue reading