Update 2023-04-05: Maps: Valdosta Stormwater Pond Facility Clusters 2023-03-01.
The most interesting parts of the response to the open records request I sent to Valdosta about spraying are the summary by Stormwater Manager Angela Bray, and the Stormwater Pond Facility Clusters.
I agree with her first two points, but am confused by her other two.
![[ORR Response and Stormwater Pond Facility Clusters]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2023-02-19--vld-orr-spraying/many.jpg)
ORR Response and Stormwater Pond Facility Clusters
This is the main part of the Stormwater Manager’s summary: Continue reading
Bobby McKenzie reports, “So the trash trap at Lee Street pond is getting an upgrade…”
No doubt everyone agrees with Bobby when he says, “Hope it works!”
![[Looking upstream, Lee St. trash trap construction, --Bobby McKenzie 2023-01-09]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2023-02-09--valdosta-lee-street-trash-trap/image_67233281.jpg)
Looking upstream, Lee St. trash trap construction, –Bobby McKenzie 2023-01-09
He elaborates: Continue reading
The plastic industry doubled down on the failed solution of recycling, on potential revisions to a federal bill to limit the harm of plastics, including through bottle deposits.
Still, bottle deposits do increase recycling, so that would be better than nothing, reducing the amount of plastic trash we find in waterways such as the Withlacoochee River and leading to it Valdosta’s Sugar Creek, One Mile Branch, Two Mile Branch, and Three Mile Branch.
WWALS has been supporting bottle deposits and more since 2020, along with many other organizations.
Cheryl Hogue, Chemical & Engineering News, December 14, 2022, Requiring deposits on bottles in US could garner plastics industry’s support: Legislation would have to be ‘drafted correctly,’ association leader says,
A major US plastics industry organization could support federal legislation to require consumers to pay deposits on beverage bottles, the head of the group told a congressional panel Dec. 15.
Continue reading
Much improved, the trash situation in the two-acre cypress swamp the City of Valdosta owns at Barack Obama Blvd. and Ricardo Street; the one with the Pepsi Adopt-A-Spot sign.
I now give Valdosta Stormwater an A- for upkeep of this tract.
Maybe if you report a trash or other problem through Valdosta’s Click ‘n’ Fix, maybe they’ll do something about that problem, too.
With this drought, the swamp is dry enough to walk right through the middle. There is occasional trash. Continue reading
Thanks to Valdosta Utilities for speedily fixing a sewage smell issue that someone reported anonymously and vaguely through Click ‘n’ Fix. .
Once Valdosta Utilities addressed Click ‘n’ Fix report 13713615, they found the manhole that was open and put its cover on.
There is room for improvement. The report was on a Friday, and there was no response until Monday. It could have been an actual sewer spill, continuing all weekend. But it wasn’t.
And although Utilities asked for better location information, they found the problem anyway and fixed it.
They didn’t say it was somebody else’s problem.
They didn’t blame the person who reported it.
They didn’t ask for volunteers to clean it up.
They got out there and did their job in one day. Continue reading
Those of us who came to the Friday morning trash reporting cleanup at Valdosta’s Lee St. Detention POnd got some bags of trash and reported a couple of Click ‘n’ Fixes.
Y’all come this afternoon, 2PM, Sunday, October 23, 2022, for another Click ‘n’ Fix reporting and cleanup, led by Bobby McKenzie. Park at Mr. B’s IGA, 1405 N Lee St., Valdosta, GA 31601. We’ll forage for trash from there.
The goal is to stop the trash before it gets into One Mile Branch, whic flows into Sugar Creek and the Withlacoochee River. Valdosta can do what its Stormwater Permit requires and educate businesses to keep trash from escaping their parking lots. Or it can enforce Valdosta’s trash ordinances. The more people reporting such violations, the more likely something will be done.
Thanks to Mr. B for keeping the parking lot at Mr. B’s IGA pretty clean. There is room for improvement, in putting trash cans in the parking lot. He said he would consider it.
It turns out the strip of land with the drainage ditch just south of Mr. B’s IGA is Continue reading
Second chance to learn Click ‘n’ Fix reporting and seeclickfix.com followup at multiple locations in Valdosta. Come to Valdosta’s Lee Street Detention Pond at 2 PM this Sunday, October 23, 2022. Pick up trash and get a Rivers Alive t-shirt!
More people involved will improve public health, quality of life, and eco-tourism, while providing community involvement.
We invite all Valdosta City officials, especially Stormwater Division and Public Works, to come instruct us in how it should be done.
We will start at Valdosta’s Lee Street detention pond (highlighted in the map), where the city recently installed a trash trap it made and later added a net. Since Valdosta from time to time cleans that pond out, there should not be much trash in there.
So we will forage farther afield. In addition to trash, we’re looking for trash cans in parking lots: if they’re not there, they should be according to Valdosta’s own ordinances, so you can report them missing.
![[Trash trap, map, Lee St. Detention Pond, Valdosta, GA]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2022-11-23--trash-reporting-cleanup/many.jpg)
Trash trap, map, Lee St. Detention Pond, Valdosta, GA
Update 2022-10-08: Clean rivers 2022-10-06.
Withlacoochee, Little, and Alapaha Rivers declared safe from Hurricane Ian. Maybe as clean as we’ve ever seen!
Happy boating, fishing, and swimming this weekend! Join us tomorrow on the Alapaha River plus hike to the Dead River Sink.
This is despite yet another small Valdosta sewage spill, this time last Friday on Lake Sheri, which drains into the Withlacoochee River just upstream from I-75.
Friday, September 23, 2022, was also the day WWALS tester Scotti Jay discovered a fish kill in One Mile Branch starting on the VSU campus.
Valdosta has not reported any test results for that day; I don’t know why. Valdosta results for Monday, September 26th are normal. Those are the most recent results Valdosta has published. Continue reading
Good news! Valdosta Engineering has added a net to the home-made Valdosta City trash trap in the Lee Street detention pond on One Mile Branch, upstream of Ashley Street, Drexel Park, VSU, Sugar Creek, and the Withlacoochee River.
Bobby McKenzie opened an issue in Valdosta’s Click ‘n’ Fix smartphone app on September 11, 2022. Valdosta officials closeed it twice, but he persisted, reminding them that a year ago in July 2021, at the invitation of WWALS, trash trap company Osprey met with WWALS and Valdosta Stormwater Manager Angela Bray and then-City Engineer Pat Collins, presenting their Litter Gitter, which has a net in addition to a boom. Bobby also sketched the idea on an image of the current Lee St. trap.
Apparently current City Engineer Benjamin O’Dowd got the picture, because yesterday Bobby sent a picture of that trash trap with a net on top of it.
Valdosta so far has not said in the Click ‘n’ Fix thread that they have done that, but I’m going ahead and announcing this good news.
Thank you, City Engineer Benjamin O’Dowd, for the net on Valdosta’s Lee Street detention pond trash trap!
And thanks to Bobby McKenzie for his persistence.
Yes, I know Continue reading
Update 2023-11-09: GA-EPD Consent Order on Valdosta for One Mile Branch fish kill and sewage spills 2023-09-15.
Update 2022-10-01: Good Water Quality, Withlacoochee, Little, Alapaha Rivers 2022-09-29.
Update 2022-10-01: Equipment next to One Mile Branch at VSU was put there by Valdosta to route around a sinkhole.
The City of Valdosta says “a fuel spill may be a contributing cause” of the One Mile Branch fish kill.
Meanwhile, WWALS finds E. coli counts too high even upstream of the fish kill, but more than doubling in the fish kill.
WWALS rescheduled our Chainsaw cleanup, which was supposed to be this morning, on the Withlacoochee River downstream from Sugar Creek, which is downstream of One Mile Branch.
I recommend everyone else also avoid One Mile Branch, Sugar Creek, and the Withlacoochee River from Sugar Creek at least down to the Little River Confluence, until there is some resolution of this fish kill, the high E. coli counts, and the alleged fuel spill.
Scotti Jay collected water samples Friday and Sara Jay plated them. The results are:
Drexel Park Bridge: 966 cfu/100 mL
One Mile Branch Waterfall: 1,100 cfu/100 mL
West Gordon Street: 2,566 cfu/100 mL
The Georgia Adopt-A-Stream (GA-AAS) one-time sample limit for E. coli is 410. The GA-AAS alert limit is 1,000. Continue reading
![[Toxic, Trash]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2022-12-15--fed-bottle-deposit/many.jpg)
![[Collage 202-12-01]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2022-12-01--obama-ricardo-pictures/many.jpg)
![[Report and fix in Seeclickfix]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2022-11-18--valdosta-sewer-smell/many.jpg)
![[Trash, trash trap, banners]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2022-10-21--lee-st-click-n-fix-cleanup/many.jpg)
![[Chart, Rivers, Swim Guide]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2022-09-29--wq/many.jpg)
![[Before and after]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2022-09-28--valdosta-trash-trap-net/many.jpg)
![[One Mile Branch sites]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2022-09-23--one-mile-branch-fish-kill-e-coli/many.jpg)