Tag Archives: Little Creek

Good Withlacoochee River water quality 2020-05-20

Update 2020-05-27: Withlacoochee River still clean 2020-05-25.

Water quality test results through Wednesday are good, and rain has only been drizzles except way upstream. That’s probably not enough to wash any new E. coli into the rivers. So I’ve set the Swim Guide Withlacoochee River “beaches” to green for “Meets water quality standards”. This is all advisory, of course: conditions can change rapidly. But there’s no big rain in the forecast.

WWALS will be testing this weekend. You can help.

Swim Guide

Since our last report, we’ve gotten data from Valdosta through Wednesday, May 20, and from Madison Health for Tuesday. That all confirms the WWALS results over the weekend. Continue reading →

Farmer Randy Dowdy objects to Sabal Trail’s soil mixing evaluation plan 2018-03-13

How can there be soil mixing yet zero noncompliance incidents? Randy Dowdy asked directly to FERC, following up his call in AgWeb for an independent investigation of Sabal Trail’s destruction of his world-record-holding soybean fields in Brooks County, Georgia.

Dowdy doesn’t trust Sabal Trail or anybody it sends to investigate that soil mixing. He’s hardly the first to say Sabal Trail’s inspectors don’t; see for example FERC’s Moultrie Scoping Meeting 2015-09-29 where James Bell said pipeline inspectors stood around until they noticed him watching, Sandra Jones said the surveyors were not qualified, and Attorney Daniel Dunn said Sabal Trail operates under darkness of misinformation. Dowdy may be late to the opposition, but he is determined.

Sabal Trail is still a stagecoach line in an electric car world, except stagecoaches didn’t destroy farmers’ fields.

Letter from Randy Dowdy to FERC

Continue reading →

Randy Dowdy calls for independent investigation of Sabal Trail soil mixing 2018-03-06

Dear pipeline companies: if you gouge through a rock-star farmer’s world-record-holding soybean fields, you may find he gets national coverage.

Bryan Mitchell, March 6, 2018 08:16 AM, AgWeb powered by Farm Journal, Pipeline Nightmare: Randy Dowdy Calls For Independent Investigation,

Randy Dowdy’s soil death is no mystery, insists the Georgia producer, and now a federal inspection report appears to back his claims of soil damage on record-breaking farmland due to pipeline construction. A letter (Feb. 6) from the Federal Regulatory Commission (FERC) to the Sabal Trail Pipeline Project describes “topsoil and subsoil mixing” on Dowdy’s farming operation, yet significantly does not address issues of noncompliance.

GA-BR-029.000 Dowdy south field, Little Creek, MP 217, 1657-PL-DG-70197-219, 30.9439700, -83.6154600

Dowdy signed Continue reading →

Sabal Trail alleged plan for soil mixing 2018-03-09

Yesterday Sabal Trail filed with FERC a sketchy plan to investigate the subsoil and topsoil mixing it caused on four farmers’ lands in two Georgia counties. The tail wagging the dog, Sabal Trail demanded FERC rubberstamp this plan within one week.

GA-BR-028.000 Dowdy north field, Little Creek, MP 216.4, 1657-PL-DG-70197-218, 30.9503000, -83.6217700

Needless to say FERC didn’t supply the GPS coordinates, nor the county parcel numbers, nor the related Sabal Trail alignment maps: WWALS did that, to figure out things are in what Sabal Trail filed.

The details are on the WWALS website, also including maps by WWALS.

-jsq, John S. Quarterman, Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®

You can join this fun and work by becoming a WWALS member today!

FERC requires Sabal Trail report mixing of Randy Dowdy’s subsoil and topsoil

Bad news doubled for the little pipeline that cried wolf: FERC did not file any certificates today for Sabal Trail, and Brooks County farmer Randy Dowdy is vindicated with a letter from FERC demanding a plan from Sabal Trail “within 20 days” (emphasis in the original) for “for investigating the actual extent of the topsoil and subsoil mixing on the Dowdy and Robinson properties and the reported mixing on the Jones property.”

Map: Google, of Sabal Trail pipeline through Randy Dowdy’s soybean fields, next to Little Creek, which runs into Okapilco Creek, into the Withlacoochee River, into the Suwannee, to the Gulf.

That letter refers to an inspection report of November 14, 2017, also filed by FERC today, that documents that “topsoil and subsoil mixing has occurred in agricultural areas during construction of Sabal Trail Transmission, LLC’s (Sabal Trail) Sabal Trail Pipeline Project.”

FERC has thus validated Continue reading →

Sinkhole, Sabal Trail, Okapilco Creek, Brooks County, GA 2017-09-19

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.

N of sinkhole, Sinkhole

Is that fill material exposed Continue reading →

Brooks County Comprehensive Plan Workshop

Workshop, Greater Brooks 2030 Comprehensive Plan, 2017-02-07

First on the list of Areas Requiring Special Attention in Brooks County, Georgia:

Areas of significant natural or cultural resources, particularly where they are likely to be intruded upon or otherwise impacted by development; such as wetlands, groundwater recharge areas and river corridors.

Map D-4 Water Resource Protection Districts

According to Ariel Godwin of the Southern Georgia Regional Commission,

The next workshop for the Brooks County Comprehensive Plan will be:
Thursday, February 7^th, 2017
9:30 a.m
Brooks County Commission Offices
610 South Highland Street, Quitman
In this workshop we will work on the Land Use Maps and Character Areas.
We are inviting you to participate to ensure Continue reading →

Little Creek just above Okapilco Creek

Perry Road.

WWALS Watershed Coalition (WWALS) is Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®

A healthy watershed with clean, swimmable, fishable, drinkable water.