Tag Archives: quality

Withlacoochee River sewage spills, Suwannee River Basin flooding study, and Valdosta’s funded plan to fix its problem

Someone referred to the mid-February Old Statenville Road spill in asking:

What’s happening in your watershed? This is the most recent of several sewage overflow issues I’ve been reading about.

Brief answer: this flooding issue is one of many reasons WWALS Watershed Coalition was formed; we’ve been on it since then; the City of Valdosta is being fixed the immediate problem; however there’s a much bigger problem throughout the entire Suwannee River Basin that the Army Corps of Engineers is studying.

Long answer: This has been going on for years, especially starting with the 700-year flood in 2009, which overflowed the City of Valdosta’s Withlacoochee Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) and backed up sewage out of manholes, in addition to rivers and streams running over roads and bridges; see this USGS two-pager on that.

Larry Hanson, Valdosta City Manager, presented to Continue reading →

Shadrick and Cherry Creek Sinks on the Withlacoochee River near Valdosta

300x225 Don Thieme and Dan Chapman at Shadrick Sinkhole, in Sinkholes near the Withlacoochee River, by John S. Quarterman, for WWALS.net, 18 February 2015 Yesterday Prof. Don Thieme, WWALS member Dan Coleman, and I showed a reporter around some sinkholes near the Withlacoochee River, including one that’s been there for decades, leaking into the Floridan Aquifer, and one that opened up within a couple of months only a few years ago.

Dan Coleman says Shadrick Sinkhole has been there probably at least Continue reading →

Floridians for Clean Water & Amendment 1 Rally tomorrow in Tallahassee

Tomorrow in Georgia it’s Capitol Conservation Day in Atlanta, and in Florida it’s Floridians for Clean Water & Amendment 1 Rally tomorrow in Tallahassee. That’s 11:30 AM to 1:30 PM on the steps of the Old Capitol, 400 S. Monroe Street, Tallahassee, FL 32399.

See Our Santa Fe River, Sierra Club Florida, and FloridaWaterLandLegacy.org.

-jsq

WWALS Goals for 2014

A surprising number of the Board’s nine goals for 2014 have been accomplished, and some new ones have already been added. What goals should WWALS have for 2015?

Goals accomplished include becoming an IRS 501(c)(3) and raising money for and purchasing insurance. Some we’ve been doing right along: cleanups, including Rivers Alive. Some are so much the core of what WWALS does that we didn’t even list them as goals, but we’ve been doing them anyway: monthly outings and indoor events.

The later-added goal of the Alapaha River Water Trail is Continue reading →

Grimmway of Bakersfield, CA in Madison County, FL

Bill Gates isn’t the only west coast investor buying up north Florida farmland.

300x383 Grimmway-marked, in A Bakersfield, CA Carrot Corp., by John S. Quarterman, for WWALS.net, 4 January 2014 Grimmway Enterprises, Inc. of Bakersfield, CA bought 1358.44 acres in Madison County, FL, all on 18 April 2014, on both sides of SE Farm Road between Lee and the Withlacoochee River. Grimmway’s website says they grow carrots. It doesn’t say whether they have any financial relationship with Continue reading →

Water testing certification at Reed Bingham this Saturday 2015-01-10

Thanks to Margaret Tyson. See also PDF. -jsq

Georgia
Adopt-A-Stream
Chemical and
Bacterial
Certification
Workshop 300x400 Sign up, in GA Adopt-A-Stream at Reed Bingham, by GOLDEN TRIANGLE RC&D, for WWALS.net, 10 January 2015

Reed Bingham State Park
Saturday
January 10th, 2015
9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

This is a registration only event.
Register by calling
GOLDEN TRIANGLE RC&D
at 229-723-3841 or
Email j.shutters@yahoo.com

Together We Can Make A Difference Continue reading →

Bill Gates in Lowndes County in the Alapaha River watershed

300x220 Lake Park, in Cottonwood Ag Management in SW Echols County, by John S. Quarterman, for WWALS.net, 22 October 2014 The east side of Lake Park and east of Naylor: acreage bought by a shell of a shell of a shell of Bill Gates’ investment company in the past two years.

170.57 acres in Parcel 0224 003 just east of Lake Park, plus another 126 acres in adjoining parcels inside and outside of Lake Park, which is most of the blue acreage on this map, all in the Alapahoochee River watershed, owned by Lakeland Sands according to the Lowndes County Tax Assessors database. Continue reading →

Anti-fracking ordinance on agenda, Columbia County, FL 2015-01-15

We all drink out of the same Floridan Aquifer, and the Santa Fe River, like WWALS’ Withlacoochee River, is a tributary of the Suwannee River. Fracking in north Florida could affect our drinking water, and if it were allowed there, next frackers would try to cross the state line, just like the Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline already is. So everyone who can, please support OSFR. -jsq

Our Santa Fe River Action Alert 31 December 2014, Important Meeting, Please Attend, County Commissioners, Lake City On Jan. 15, 2015,

OSFR as an organization will be on the agenda of the Columbia County Board of County Commissioners at the Jan. 15 meeting, requesting that the commission enact an ordinance which bans all forms of fracking in Columbia County.

Please plan to attend this important meeting, either Continue reading →

Sabal Trail on GWC Dirty Dozen: contamination, sinkholes, aquifer –WCTV

WCTV’s Winnie Wright interviewed VSU’s Don Thieme, and VSU’s Can Denizman navigated her to the the Cherry Creek sinkhole site for part of her report about 300x169 Sinkhole opened suddenly --Winnie Wright, in GWC Dirty Dozen Sabal Trail on WCTV, by John S. Quarterman, for WWALS.net, 26 November 2014 the Withlacoochee River in Georgia Water Coalition Dirty Dozen 2014 Item 9 as threatened by the Sabal Trail pipeline. Sabal Trail’s Andrea Grover is “disappointed” in being on the Dirty Dozen; does she also find it “hard to believe” like Sabal Trail’s well-documented eminent domain threats?

Winnie Wright, WCTV, 26 November 2014, Sabal Trail Pipeline Environmental Concerns Cited In Annual ‘Dirty Dozen’ Report, Continue reading →

Dirty Dozen, sinkhole, aquifer, drinking water, and corrosion –WWALS to FERC about Sabal Trail

“There is no reason anyone in WWALS’ watersheds should accept any risk for the profit of Williams Company, Spectra Energy, and FPL, when any need for the Sabal Trail pipeline is unproven, and in any case the pipeline does not serve anyone in Georgia.”

Filed with FERC 15 November 2014, and appeared in FERC’s ecomment system 17 November 2014 (PDF).

WWALS Watershed Coalition, Inc.
3338 Country Club Road #L336
Valdosta, GA 31605
15 November 2014

VIA ELECTRONIC FILING
Ms. Kimberly Bose
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
888 First Street NE
Washington, DC 20426

Re: Southeast Market Pipelines Project,
Sabal Trail Transmission, LLC Docket No PFl4-1-000
Williams Transco Hillabee Expansion Project, LLC Docket No PFl4-6-000

Dear Ms. Bose,

I applaud FERC for getting Sabal Trail to move off of the Withlacoochee River in Hamilton County, Florida. However, the same karst limestone geology underlies the same Withlacoochee River and the Floridan Aquifer in Brooks and Lowndes Counties, Georgia, and WWALS Watershed Coalition continues Continue reading →