Hike to the Drew Mansion Site, the Historic Hillman Bridge across the Suwannee River, Suwannacoochee Spring, and maybe up the Withlacoochee River a bit just to take a look.
When: Gather 9 AM, launch 9:30 AM, end 1 PM, Saturday, February 7, 2026
Put In: Town of Ellaville site, 596 NE Drew Way, Lee, FL 32059
Continue readingUpdate 2025-12-18: Water First North Florida wetland locations: unknown –SRWMD 2025-12-17.
In their Drought Conditions Workshop on December 9, 2025, SRWMD talked about starting an outreach campaign, “highlighting the water deficit that we are in, and our drought, and the need for efficiency, and here are some possible measures that you could implement, from a voluntary standpoint.”
But they are not yet willing to declare even the statutory Water Shortage Warning or Advisory, which has only voluntary measures.
If the current drought is not severe enough to warrant even a statutory Warning, why are SRWMD and SJRWMD forging ahead with their billion-dollar Water First North Florida project to pipe treated Jacksonville wastewater into the Suwannee River Basin to recharge the Floridan Aquifer here? And what is being done to remove the PFAS, drugs, and articifical sweeteners that typically pass right through wastewater treatment?
Thanks to SRWMD Board members Charles Keith, Larry Sessions, and William Lloyd, they did talk about possibly instituing limits on water withdrawals, considering that the past 10 years have been the hottest on record.
The presenter, Amy Brown, Deputy Executive Director, Water Resources, was clear that they have not even advised voluntary limits for the biggest group of users, which are in agriculture.
Her slides, received from SRWMD in response to a WWALS public records request, are on the WWALS website, with images below in this post.
SRWMD Executive Director Hugh Thomas did note that the water withdrawal permits SRWMD issues have standard conditions that can require limits on water withdrawals. But “it’s never fun to engage with the permittee and say, hey, you’re going to have to cut back because we’re in a water shortage period.”
You can see Amy Brown, Deputy Executive Director, Water Resources, present these slides to the SRWMD Board in their own video of their December 9, 2025, Workshop, at 1:45:58:
https://www.youtube.com/live/6LDIIdFqxaY?si=LnRZUqNL0imphDJz&t=6358
At 2:14:10, you can hear Charles Keith asking about increasing drought. Continue reading
This is not the historic bridge you can see today at Suwannee Springs.
It’s the one before that. The clue is the columns holding it up. Also the spring wall holding water.
The Suwannee River Water Management District (SRWMD) posted this picture December 12, 2025. Continue reading
Here’s what the second and third gates in the Suwannee River Sill looked like a week after Shirley Kokidko’s Low water at the first gate, Suwannee River Sill, Okefenokee Swamp 2025-11-20. Plus a gator ambling down to the river, and Mixon’s Hammock, upstream towards Stephen C. Foster State Park.
Here are a few videos:
Remember, despite the Florida myth, the gates in the Suwannee River Sill are always open, since about 2001.
The third gate isn’t even a gate: it’s just a breach in that 4.5-mile earthen dam, so the North Fork of the Suwannee River can get through. The Sill was meant to keep water levels up in the Swamp to prevent wildfires, but it did not succeed. Also, it turns out wildfires are necessary for the Swamp’s vegetation to regenerate itself. So after a study starting in 1998 and a two-year trial period, the gates have always been open.
The current low water in the Swamp and in the Suwannee River is because we’re in a drought.
It rained a bit the last day or so, and more is predicted. But so far that has made almost no difference in the level of the Suwannee River at Fargo, GA.
Other rivers in the Suwannee River Basin also show almost no change.
See
Current River and Lake Levels by Florida’s Suwannee River Water Management District (SRWMD).
http://www.mysuwanneeriver.org/realtime/river-levels.php
There is a gauge at the Sill, but Continue reading
Looks like you could paddle through the Suwannee River Sill, but it’s not clear how far you would get through the Narrows below Stephen C. Foster State Park Ramp before you got to the Sill.
![[Low water, first gate, Suwannee River Sill, Okefenokee Swamp, Thursday, November 20, 2025]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2025-11-20--suwannee-sill-gate-1/fbmany.jpg)
Low water, first gate, Suwannee River Sill, Okefenokee Swamp, Thursday, November 20, 2025
Yesterday Shirley Kokidko checked on water levels in the Suwannee River in the Okefenokee Swamp. She says there is enough water to paddle to Billys Island or Minnies Lake.
Until we get some rain to break this drought, paddling from SCFSP to Griffis Fish Camp will be doubtful.
Here is a video Shirley sent from the First Gate at the Suwannee River Sill, the 4.5-mile-long earthen dam that was supposed to keep water levels up in the Okefenokee Swamp to prevent fires, but did not work.
https://www.facebook.com/Wwalswatershed/videos/854041060433085
Update 2025-11-21: Low water at the first gate, Suwannee River Sill, Okefenokee Swamp 2025-11-20.
Actually, the Suwannee River Sill Gates are always open.
This was a facebook comment yesterday, “Open the dam in the swamp.”
It was on this WWALS facebook post:
Very low water, Fargo Ramp, Suwannee River 2025-11-12 Video by Shirley Kokidko for WWALS Watershed Coalition, Inc. (WWALS):
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1946665392780126
See also:
https://www.facebook.com/Wwalswatershed/posts/pfbid02p1mXs1UZK6ZhGQe4BeEdAa54E1Ws2Dk5AQmKmRsbqKPc3ATi6SxVyZjXL1U54dHRl
https://wwals.net/?p=68851
I’ve also heard from otherwise very knowledgeable Floridians: “When there are big rains, Georgia opens the Okefenokee gates and floods Florida!”
Nope, that doesn’t happen, either.
![[Open the Okefenokee Gates, Suwannee River Sill, Actually always open, Since around 2000]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2025-11-15--open-the-okefenokee-gates/fbmany.jpg)
Open the Okefenokee Gates, Suwannee River Sill, Actually always open, Since around 2000
The Sill itself was an experiment in fire prevention that did not work, and also turned out to be a bad idea, because the Okefenokee Swamp needs fire to regenerate itself.
Here’s video and pictures of the Second and First Gates through the Suwannee River Sill,
December 9, 2025 2023 [date corrected]
https://youtube.com/shorts/8LA_PLDqXA0 Continue reading
Join us for a fascinating historical exploration of Georgia’s Wiregrass Region and the complex stories of survival, resistance, and adaptation that unfolded there after the 1814 Treaty of Fort Jackson.
When: 12-1 PM, Thursday, December 11, 2025
Register to join with Zoom:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/XHeXy9xUSCOKIPvYpMNtcQ
WWALS Board Member Janet Martin will give a brief introduction.
Questions and answers will be at the end.
As settlers moved south of the Oconee River, drawn by the land’s economic promise, waves of migration and militia efforts reshaped the landscape—and the lives of the Native American families who called it home. Through rivers, streams, and the vast Okefenokee Swamp, Indigenous people found ways not only to endure but to carve out paths of freedom and self-determination amid the U.S. Indian Removal Policy of the 1830s.
Drawing from original correspondence between settlers, militia, and Georgia’s governors in Milledgeville, this presentation reveals how waterways became corridors of escape and survival. As Everitte reminds us, “Swamps are places on the margins — as much, they are places of transition, opportunity, and challenge.”2
Update 2025-11-06: Pictures: Alapaha River Rise Hike 2025-11-01.
We climbed over, under, and around much Hurricane Helene deadfall on what Dottie Price called a “Class 5 Meander” from the Dead River Sink to the Dry Alapaha River.
Thanks to 30 people who came, to Practicing Geologist Dennis J. Price for leading this expedition, and to Dottie Price for the additional pictures. See also the facebook video by Christiaan Ard.
There was a false start at Jennings Bluff Cemetery, where Dennis told the lemmings to go back up the bluff, because of too much deadfall. Continue reading
Hahira, Georgia, October 30, 2025 — Join us this Saturday, November 1, 2025, on an approximately 3 mile or 4 hour hike on the Dead River and the dry Alapaha River bed, led by Practicing Geologist Dennis James Price of Hamilton County, Florida.
![[Hike with a Geologist to a Spring, the Dead River Sink, and the Dry Alapaha River, November 1, 2025]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2025-11-01--hike-dead-river-sink-pr/fbmany.jpg)
Hahira, Georgia, October 30, 2025 — Join us this Saturday, November 1, 2025, on an approximately 3 mile or 4 hour hike on the Dead River and the dry Alapaha River bed, led by Practicing Geologist Dennis James Price of Hamilton County, Florida.
![[Hike to Dead River Sink, Alapaha River, Jennings Bluff, with Practicing Geologist Dennis Price 2025-11-01]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2025-11-01--hike-dead-river-sink/fbmany.jpg)
We will meet at 9:30 AM at Jennings Bluff Cemetery. On a short stop there, we will climb down a steep bank to explore a spring. Then we will drive into public lands to the Dead River Sink where we will hike out to the Alapaha River and hike the river bed.
From Jennings, Florida, go south on US 41 approximately 2.25 miles and turn left onto NW 25th Lane, which dead ends at the Jennings Bluff Cemetery on the Alapaha River. GPS: 30.56693, -83.035297
This area has recently been designated a State of Florida Geological Site.
Much of the year, the Alapaha River is dry for the last eighteen miles from Jennings Bluff to the Suwannee River, because its water flows into the Dead River and down into the Dead River Sink. On June 22, 2016, several Florida agencies put fluorescent green dye into the Dead River Sink. The dye came back up four days later in the Alapaha River Rise, and eight days later in Holton Creek Rise, both off of the Suwannee River.
Bring sturdy boots or shoes, clothes for woods with stickers, water, and snacks.
Also Continue reading
![[Ellaville Hike, Withlacoochee River, Drew Mansion 2026-02-07, Historic Hillman Bridge, Suwannacoochee Spring]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2026-02-07--ellaville-hike/fbmany.jpg)
![[Drought Workshop Presentation --SRWMD 2025-12-09, No water withdrawal limits yet, Maybe an outreach campaign soon]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2025-12-09--srwmd-drought-workshop/fbmany.jpg)
![[Site of Stagecoach Road Bridge at Suwannee Springs 2025-12-12, Upstream from Historic 1931 Graffiti Bridge]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2025-12-12--srwmd-suwannee-springs-bridge/fbmany.jpg)
![[Suwannee River Sill, Okefenokee Swamp --Shirley Kokidko, Alligator, Second and Third Gates, and Mixons Hammock 2025-11-26]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2025-11-26--sill-mixons-hammock/fbmany.jpg)
![[Geography of Opportunity in Georgia's Wiregrass Region, by History Instructor Vickie Everitte, a WWALS Webinar, Noon-1 PM by zoom, 2025-12-11]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2025-12-11--geography-of-opportunity-webinar/many.jpg)
![[Dead River Sink Hike, Practicing Geologist Dennis J. Price, Meander to the Dry Alapaha River, 2025-11-01]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2025-11-01--hike-dead-river-sink-pictures/fbmany.jpg)