Tag Archives: history

Solar and wind can make coal go away with no need for natural gas. –WWALS to Suwannee BOCC 2016-01-19

The Commissioners for the one county on every Sabal Trail fracked methane path ever proposed, Suwannee County, Florida, meet tonight at 6PM in Live Oak. I can’t go, so I sent them this letter (PDF). If you can go, please do, or you can send them a letter, too.

To: Suwannee County Board of County Commissioners,

Dear Commissioners,

Thanks again for your hospitality at your meeting of December 15th.

Solar and wind can make coal go away with no need for natural gas.

The FPL representative who spoke didn’t seem aware of what Southern Company CEO Tom Fanning said about solar power last June: “If somebody wants to buy distributed generation, I want to sell it to 'em." See Herman K. Trabish, UtilityDive, June 11, 2015, “Inside Georgia Power's move into the residential solar market: The utility says it will offer solar through an unregulated business, but installers fear possible anticompetitive impacts”:
http://www.utilitydive.com/news/inside-georgia-powers-move-into-the-residential-solar-market/400562/

That meeting gave me deja vu about a few years ago when Georgia Power and Southern Company were claiming Continue reading →

Bellville Bridge, Withlacoochee River, Madison to Hamilton County, Florida, put in for WWALS outing 2015-10-24

We saw the ruins in October; here’s a picture when it was still standing.

Side view, 1987
Picture from Hamilton County, by Marsanne Petty, on page 13 (Richard McCulley); found by Chris Mericle.

The caption reads: Continue reading →

Old wooden Cone Bridge over the Suwannee River, takeout for WWALS outing 2015-11-22

We’ll float down the Suwannee River to this spot Sunday afternoon: come join us!

Old Cone Bridge, 1963, Suwannee River
Picture from Hamilton County, by Marsanne Petty, on page 12; found by Chris Mericle.

Continue reading →

Conservation

There’s are a reason the WWALS Mission says “conservation”. It’s pithily summed up by Prof. Rahul Mehrotra.

Elizabeth Gudrais wrote for Harvard Magazine May-June 2012, Engaging Students with Conservation,

PROFESSOR OF URBAN DESIGN and planning Rahul Mehrotra has been involved with restoring historic palaces, writing a law on historic preservation in Mumbai, and crafting a conservation master plan for the Taj Mahal. Harvard recruited him in part for this expertise, and this academic year, with Noyes professor in architectural theory Michael Hays, he has launched a conservation track for Graduate School of Design (GSD) master’s students.

Conservation, he says, is not the same as preservation, which focuses on protection and repair. Conservation is broader and richer, combining historical integrity and creativity to develop narratives connecting the present with the past.

Historical narratives like connecting Continue reading →

Valdosta famous into Florida again for wastewater spill

As two of the Suwannee Democrat’s commentors ask:

Why does Valdosta keep having these spills?
Hasn’t this happened like 3 times now?

Why yes, yes it has. For example, Valdosta became famous for this all the way to the Gulf 3 March 2013, and there were two more spills in 2013 to add to the big one in 2009. However, the City of Valdosta has promised to use SPLOST and other funding to fix it within a few years. As AP reported Friday:

The city of Valdosta says it is making improvements to the Withlacoochee Water Pollution Control Plant to prevent future problems.

Staff, Suwannee Democrat, 28 February 2014, Florida Department of Health advises of possible wastewater contamination: Wastewater overflow from Valdosta, Ga. may impact Withlacoochee and Suwannee Rivers

Live Oak — The Florida Department of Health (DOH) today issued an advisory to residents in counties surrounding the Withlacoochee and Suwannee rivers. The City of Valdosta has reported a spill, made up of a combination of storm water and partially treated sewage, that has overflowed into the Withlacoochee River. The Withlacoochee flows south and connects with the Suwannee River.

Until further information Continue reading →

Floridan Aquifer VSU class paper

Found by Chris Graham. I added the illustrations and the table. -jsq

THE FLORIDAN AQUIFER

by Sandra McCullough
Sandra McCullough lives in Valdosta, Georgia. She is a Speech Communications major and has an interest in the Environment and Humankind’s interaction with the Environment. Sandra plans to continue her education and become a teacher of public speaking. The topic to be discussed here is the Floridan Aquifer.

The Floridan aquifer system is very important to a large number of people, despite general lack of knowledge of or about it. The Floridan aquifer underlies all of Florida, south Georgia, and parts of both Alabama and South Carolina.’ This particular aquifer system is one of the major sources of ground-water in the United States. For this reason and more, studies of its function have been done for years. These studies as well as other findings will be discussed in this paper.

Continue reading →

Big Little Water: Camera 1 Videos on the Withlacoochee by Tom Baird

Here are videos of Tom Baird’s talk for WWALS hosted at VSU by Blazer Gardens, about the Y-shaped Withlacoochee, or Suwannee, or Swithlacoochee, from the dry Paleo-Indian era 14,000 or more years ago through atlatls in the woodland period and Troupville queen city through the Ellaville log boom to current-day over-pumping of the aquifer.

Here’s a playlist.

Big Little Water by Tom Baird 2012-09-11

Update 2012-09-13: Pictures from Camera 1.

Tonight at VSU Student Union:

Big Little Water – a survey of the history, geology and archaeology of the Withlacoochee River, with replica artifacts people can handle, and slides.

“I’ll also get into some of the current threats to the river and maybe we can get into a good discussion and Q&A.”
Website event and facebook event.