Tag Archives: Okapilco Creek

USGS Flood-Tracking Chart for Withlacoochee and Little River Basins

An interesting flyer pointed out by Emily Davenport, Storm Water Utilities Director, City of Valdosta. It has many useful contacts on the front, and tips on the back (don’t walk or drive through flood waters) but the most useful part is inside, where the flood-tracking chart is, in Flood-tracking chart for the Withlacoochee and Little River Basins in south-central Georgia and northern Florida, 2014, by Gotvald, Anthony J.; McCallum, Brian E.; Painter, Jaime A., USGS General Information Product: 155.

Here are the gages mentioned in the chart, with links to the live USGS FloodTracking pages, Continue reading →

Entering Floridan Aquifer Recharge Zone

Maybe we need signs like that around here to remind people that what goes into the ground comes out in our drinking water. For example, San Antonio has its Edwards Aquifer Protection Program. Maybe our local governments need to have Floridan Aquifer Protection Programs. Georgia state law seems to indicate they should.

GA Secretary of State has GA Code §391-3-16-.02 Criteria For Protection of Groundwater Recharge Areas. (more legible copy on GA EPD website),

Georgia's Groundwater Recharge Areas (1) Background. Variable levels of recharge area protection can be based upon the State’s hydrogeology (e.g., areas such as the Dougherty Plain where a major aquifer crops out would receive a relatively high degree of protection whereas other areas, such as the shale hills of northwest Georgia, would receive a lower degree of protection). Recharge area protection within the significant recharge areas would be further refined, based upon the local susceptibility or vulnerability to human induced pollution (e.g., high, medium, or low). The significant recharge areas have already been identified and mapped (about 22-23% of the State). Pollution susceptibility mapping is ongoing. Existing statutes are adequate for protecting the remaining recharge areas (about 77-78% of the State).

[…]

(2)(f)3. In the Coastal Plain, the significant recharge areas are Continue reading →

Streamer on the Suwannee, Alapaha, and Withlacoochee Rivers: ten or more rivers and many creeks, lakes, swamps, and ponds

Update 3 March 2016: Suwannee River, ten rivers, and current location of USGS streamer.

The USGS Streamer interactive map shows all (well, most) tributaries of our two biggest WWALS rivers. Visitors sometimes refer to our “four rivers” since we only originally named four in our WWALS mission: Withlacoochee, Willacoochee, Alapaha, and Little. Yet we added the upper Suwannee, and there always were more than that: from one to ten rivers, depending on how you count them.

600x817 WWALS Rivers, in WWALS Rivers, by John S. Quarterman, for WWALS.net, 25 July 2015

The Withlacoochee River tributary map here shows the New River south of Tifton joining the Withlacoochee between Nashville and Adel.

Withlacoochee River Alapaha River

The New River is rather important, since it forms half of the boundary between Cook and Berrien Counties (the Withlacoochee River forms the other half): Continue reading →