Update 2025-02-21: Valdosta Sewage Spill Reports: Jackson Drive, not Street, and Sugar Creek 2025-02-17.

Valdosta’s Sugar Creek tested even worse Friday after the Thursday rains, as expected.

The Withlacoochee River downstream at State Line tested pretty clean, with the volume of river water diluting the creek contamination. Also, apparently nothing washed from Quitman out of Okapilco Creek, or it was diluted or had not yet reached the GA-FL line.

Filthy Sugar Creek, Friday, February 14, 2025, Clean Withlacoochee River at State Line

Sugar Creek

WWALS tester Suzy Hall for Friday got 1,800 cfu/100 mL E. coli at the WaterGoat below Berta’s Kitchen parking lot. That’s well above the 1,000 alert limit, and almost four times her Wednesday result of 466, which was above the one-time test limit of 410.

So something is still washing out of Sugar Creek during rains such as the inch or more that fell on Valdosta Thursday. Probably it is just residual sewage sludge from the months-long Sugar Creek sewage spill. The Valdosta Utilities bypass is still in place, and we can hope that was the only leak on Sugar Creek.

More rain is falling today (Sunday), so best to continue avoiding Sugar Creek.

Join us Sunday, February 23, for another chainsaw cleanup, assuming the Withlacoochee River has gone back down enough by then:
https://wwals.net/?p=66972