The Valdosta-Lowndes Chamber of Commerce, host of One Valdosta-Lowndes (OVL), invited WWALS to a reception for the new OVL Executive Director, Mary Beth Brownlee.
Mary Beth Brownlee was previously with Association County Commissioners of Georgia.
I congratulated her on her new appointment.
She agreed that Troupville River Camp is top of OVL’s project list. Continue reading
WWALS congratulates Lowndes County on winning a statewide award for their litter crew. We can attest that boat ramps and other public access points to rivers in Lowndes County are much cleaner since the county litter crew has been picking up there weekly, both on the WWALS Withlacoochee and Little River Water Trail and the Alapaha River Water Trail.
We’d also like to thank Lowndes County Public Works for a longstanding agreement that they pick up bagged trash that WWALS leaves at river access points.
![[Clyattville-Nankin Boat Ramp: Lowndes County Litter Control 2021-06-10 (Photo: Bobby McKenzie) and WWALS cleanup 2022-12-17 (Photo: Gretchen Quarterman)]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2023-05-15--loco-trash/many.jpg)
Clyattville-Nankin Boat Ramp:
Lowndes County Litter Control 2021-06-10 (Photo: Bobby McKenzie) and
WWALS cleanup 2022-12-17 (Photo: Gretchen Quarterman)
Malia Thomas, Valdosta Daily Times, May 15, 2023 Lowndes County honored with 2023 Georgia County Excellence Award for litter program,
VALDOSTA — Lowndes County has been recognized with a 2023 Georgia County Excellence Award for its litter program.
Continue reading
Floridians, you can help protect our river, springs, and Floridan Aquifer!
Please use these convenient Waterkeepers Florida forms to ask Florida Governor DeSantis to veto three bad bills:
![[Suwannee Riverkeeper wants you! Photo: Shirley Kokidko, Alapahoochee River 2022-07-09]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2023-05-14--suwrk-wants-you/square-suwrk.jpg)
Suwannee Riverkeeper wants you! Photo: Shirley Kokidko, Alapahoochee River 2022-07-09
Don’t forget to sign the petition for a constitutional amendment referendum on Right to Clean and Healthy Waters:
https://www.floridarighttocleanwater.org/
Georgians and everybody else,
you can still send a comment to GA-EPD opposing a titanium dioxide strip mine
too near the Okefenokee Swamp:
twinpines.comment@dnr.ga.gov Continue reading
Please ask the Florida Governor to veto the part of the budget bill that could end up with preemption of local fertilizer bans.
You can use this handy Waterkeepers Florida form to do that: https://waterkeepersflorida.good.do/stopthefertilizerpreemption/
![[Veto fertilizer ban preemption]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2023-05-13--veto-fertilizer-preemption/2023-05-13--veto-fertilizer-preemption.jpg)
Who would benefit by the bill? Phosphate mines.
As everyone knows, fertilizer nitrates leaching through the soil into our springs and rivers is the main cause of the algae blooms that crowd out native vegetation and starve fish and manatees in the Suwannee River Basin. The state’s Basin Management Action Plans (BMAPs) won’t solve that problem. Counties and cities can pass ordinances to address the problem, but not so easily the relevant part of this bill becomes law.
The relevant part of line item 146 of SB 2500 reads: Continue reading
Here’s what they wrote:
We are excited to welcome our new member, WWALS Watershed Coalition, to the Southern Georgia Black Chambers! Their vision is to promote a healthy watershed with clean water that is swimmable, fishable, and drinkable. WWALS is an educational nonprofit charity that advocates for the conservation and stewardship of various river watersheds throughout South Georgia and North Florida. Join us in supporting WWALS and their efforts towards environmental monitoring and citizen activities in the area. Learn more about WWALS Watershed Coalition is Suwannee Riverkeeper and their work at www.wwals.net.
![[Southern Georgia Black Chambers welcomes WWALS]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2023-04-27--southern-georgia-black-chambers/343659309_3088303201476688_7080911220336717673_n.jpg)
Southern Georgia Black Chambers welcomes WWALS
“Thank You! We are excited to join and work on projects together,” wrote WWALS Executive Director Gretchen Quarterman.
And please come to
Juneteenth at Reed Bingham State Park Beach, 11AM to 3 PM, Saturday, June 17, 2023, for food, activities for children, and boating with stunt adults!
https://wwals.net/?p=61855 Continue reading
Citizens and nonprofits can’t afford to sue about bad development decisions if they might lose like this.
This year’s Florida legislature “session of sprawl” passed HB 359/ SB 540 entitled “Local Government Comprehensive Plans” that would allow the winning parties to recover their attorney fees from the losing parties in legal challenges to comprehensive plans and plan amendments. Developer attorneys tend to be very expensive. You probably can’t afforsd to pay for them, and we can’t, either.
We need local governments to be accountable to the people.
Please ask Governor DeSantis to veto HB 359 / SB 540.
You can use this handy Waterkeeper Florida form:
https://waterkeepersflorida.good.do/Development_Bills/SB540_Rules-2/
For more about Waterkeepers Florida, of which Suwannee Riverkeeper is a member,
see:
https://www.waterkeepersflorida.org/
-jsq, John S. Quarterman, Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®
You can help with clean, swimmable, fishable, drinkable, water in the 10,000-square-mile Suwannee River Basin in Florida and Georgia by becoming a WWALS member today!
https://wwals.net/donations/
The plaintiffs’ case is based on the Lowndes County Commission not agreeing with county staff’s recommendation to approve the rezoning, as well as “evidence supporting their petition and codes relating to the Unified Development Land Code.”
Maybe this is the “enhanced facade” that Dollar General offered in the Public Hearing after which the County Commission denied the rezoning, on January 1, 2023.
![[Enhanced facade, plat, and future development, VDT and actual stormwater by WWALS]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2023-05-03--lcc-dollar-general-lawsuit/many.jpg)
Enhanced facade, plat, and future development, VDT and actual stormwater by WWALS
Also the plaintiffs say all the public comments were “generalized and speculative”. Huh, I sure thought I heard a bunch of quite specific public comments. The letter WWALS sent to the Commission before that Public Hearing was quite specific, for example, in saying the allegation that the closest effect on nearby property owners would be on their residences was hogwash, given that stormwater from the subject site runs west under GA 122 onto neighboring property much closer than that residence.
There was speculation in various comments, but it was based on easily documented history of Dollar General and of property development in Lowndes County.
After a story by a Valdosta Daily Times reporter, that local organ of record weighed in with an editorial supporting the citizens. Continue reading
I sent this at 4:08 PM today to TwinPines.Comment@dnr.ga.gov:
“Please find attached a letter of opposition by all nine Riverkeepers of Georgia to the mining permit applications by Twin Pines Minerals, LLC.”
![[GA Riverkeepers letter for Okefenokee Swamp against strip mine 2023-03-09]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2023-03-09--ga-riverkeepers-us-waterkeepers-okefenokee/many.jpg)
See also the letter by Waterkeepers Florida, representing all fifteen Waterkeepers of Florida. It includes links to the letters by Suwannee and St. Marys Waterkeepers.
You can still send in your own comment.
While the comment period on the Mining Land Use Plan nominally closes at 4:30 PM today, that same address has been open for comments for a year or more, and will probably remain open.
Plus GA-EPD has said that if there is a draft permit, they will open another 60-day public comment period.
Meanwhile, all the Waterkeepers of Georgia and Florida oppose that strip mine for white paint, and support the Okefenokee Swamp, the St. Marys and Suwannee Rivers, and the Floridan Aquifer.
The letter is below in web form, or see it as PDF. Continue reading
Update 2023-03-29: Valdosta Creek Trash Tour 2023-03-29.
Come to Two Mile Branch Saturday, March 25, 2023, see the trash problem for yourself, and talk to many of the people mentioned in this article.
Malia Thomas, Valdosta Daily Times, March 9, 2023 , Group calls for city trash reforms,
VALDOSTA — In the WWALS Watershed Coalition’s eyes, the city needs to clean up its act.
John Quarterman, Suwannee [R]iverkeeper of WWALS, and Bobby McKenzie, [former] WWALS intern, have expressed concern over trash pile ups in the city’s waterways, particularly in Sugar Creek. Continue reading
Not just for the Withlacoochee River! There’s Valdosta trash in Dukes Bay Canal, which drains to the Alapaha River.
Valdosta Stormwater Division did remove trash from culverts near Southside Recreation Center, one somebody reported them via Click ‘n’ Fix. Then they declared the problem fixed, archived the tickets, and left trash floating in Dukes Bay Canal.
![[Tire, Dukes Bay Canal, Church's, Map]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2023-02-12--dukes-bay-canal-trash/many.jpg)
Tire, Dukes Bay Canal, Church’s, Map
I know Valdosta’s liability insurance does not cover any city employee getting into water. That’s right: Stormwater can’t get in water. But it’s hard to believe they don’t have long-handled nets that would reach halfway across the canal from each side.
Plus, how about find out where the trash is coming from, and stop it at the source? There’s a hint below.
The Oak Street location is in Valdosta City Council District 3, Thomas B. McIntyre, Sr.
The Toombs Street and Bay Street locations are in District 2, Sandra Tooley. Continue reading
![[OVL E.D. Mary Beth Brownlee]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2023-05-23--one-valdosta-lowndes/many.jpg)
![[Veto SB 540]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2023-05-12--veto-sb-540/2023-05-12--veto-sb-540.jpg)
![[Sugar Creek Beach, trash, WaterGoat trash trap, Valdosta Mayor Scott James Matheson, Suwannee Riverkeeper]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2023-03-09--vdt-trash/many.jpg)