Tag Archives: Reed Bingham State Park

Spaces are filling up for the Ninth Annual BIG Little River Paddle Race

Update 2021-04-25: BIG Little River Paddle Race is cancelled due to weather.

Postponed due to weather to 2PM, Sunday, April 25, 2021: BIG Little River Paddle Race.

Adel, Georgia, April 19, 2021 — Southwell Medical of Tifton and Adel has become a sponsor of the annual WWALS and FORB race and leisurely paddle three miles down the scenic blackwater Little River in Reed Bingham State Park between Adel and Moultrie, Georgia.

“Spaces are going fast, with only four heats of ten people, so sign up soon!” said event mastermind Bret Wagenhorst, an eye doctor in Tifton, GA, and a charter board member of WWALS Watershed Coalition, Inc. (WWALS). “First Prize is $100, and another $200 if the winner beats the record.”

All tickets are $30 online in advance, and you can also rent a boat online from the park and pick it up at the start at Red Roberts Landing. For tickets, boats, and all event details, including sponsor opportunities, see:
https://wwals.net/pictures/2021-04-24–blrpr/

Photo: Phil Hubbard, of Dan Phillips placing second in BLRPR 2018.
Photo: Phil Hubbard, of Dan Phillips placing second in BLRPR 2018.

You could win in any of a dozen categories, or up to $300 if you Continue reading →

Water Trail signs planted for Reed Bingham State Park 2021-04-16

WWALS Trails Committee Chair Dan Phillips planted the signs for Reed Bingham State Park Thursday, both the road signs for Red Roberts Landing, and the at-water signs for there and for the boat ramps on both sides of RBSP Lake.

[Red Roberts Landing, Reed Bingham State Park Lake]
Red Roberts Landing, Reed Bingham State Park Lake

Red Roberts Landing is where the BIG Little River Paddle Race will start this Saturday morning. Tickets are going fast, and are only available online, so get your tickets now. Continue reading →

Fun race or paddle for the whole family: the Ninth Annual BIG Little River Paddle Race

Update 2021-04-25: BIG Little River Paddle Race is cancelled due to weather.

Postponed due to weather to 2PM, Sunday, April 25, 2021.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (PDF)

Adel, Georgia, March 22, 2021 — You could win in any of a dozen categories, or up to $300 if you beat the previous winning record time. But you are not required to race: it’s a nice spring paddle anyway! On Saturday, April 24, 2021, in Reed Bingham State Park, between Adel and Moultrie, Georgia, it’s the ninth annual BIG Little River Paddle Race. There will be lunch and a kayak raffle. You can just paddle along this scenic three-mile stretch of tea-colored river on the Withlacoochee and Little River Water Trail among cypress trees, turtles, birds, and yes, alligators. (Don’t pet the alligators and they aren’t likely to bother you.) This race also has fierce competitors, with one past winner finishing in barely more than half an hour.

BLRPR mastermind Bret Wagenhorst, an eye doctor in Tifton, GA, and a charter board member of WWALS Watershed Coalition, Inc. (WWALS), said, “After having to cancel last year’s event due to the Covid-19 pandemic, we found a way this year, with staggered heats and limited boats, to try to keep the event within Covid guidelines for outdoor activities. This is a great opportunity to learn about the joys of paddling canoes and kayaks, to see the natural beauty of our region’s blackwater rivers, and to have fun while getting some outdoor exercise with family and friends.”

There are several categories in which you could win, from fastest paddler, one and two person canoe (male and female), solo or tandem kayak (male and female), youngest paddler, oldest paddler, paddler from furthest away, and slowest paddler.

[Tandem female canoe, orange (BW)]
Photo: Bret Wagenhorst, of 2019 First female tandem kayak: Megan Robinson & Lily Robinson, of Tifton, GA.

Dianne Walters, president of Friends of Reed Bingham State Park (FORB), said, “This is a great community event, with volunteers from all around helping paddlers from everywhere.”

Wagenhorst added, “in 2019, the first woman across the finish in a solo kayak was Nikki York, of Adel, GA. And for the first time, a canoe finished first to win the $100 cash prize. It was a two-person canoe of gentlemen from Gray, GA: Continue reading →

Redesignating waterways as Recreational –GA-EPD Triennial Review Meeting 2021-02-02

Update 2021-08-24: Parts of Alapaha, Withlacoochee Rivers to be Recreational –GA-EPD 2021-08-11.

The Georgia Environmental Protection Division (GA-EPD) is being quite thorough about the Triennial Review of Water Quality Standards that is required by federal law. However, several problems were revealed at their online meeting on February 2, 2021. Some of the GA-EPD slides are inline below, and the rest are on the WWALS website:
https://wwals.net/pictures/2021-02-02–ga-epd-triennial-review

You can help:
https://wwals.net/?p=50127#help

[Second-class Recreational, maps, wastewater]
Second-class Recreational, maps, wastewater

They want to create a second class of Recreational designation for boating, with more lax restrictions on contamination and only seasonal application; several waterbodies we requested are missing; and they want to declare that 20 river miles downstream from a wastewater permit cannot be Recreational.

Second-class Recreational designation

Here is the slide defining second-class Recreational for boating: Continue reading →

Tifton spilled 2,000 gallons raw sewage 2020-11-03

Update 2020-11-06: Odd water quality upstream, Withlacoochee River 2020-11-04

Any amount is too much, but that 2,000 gallons Tuesday was probably not enough to affect Reed Bingham State Park Lake much, nor anything downstream from it. However, we don’t know, because nobody was testing on Willow Creek or the Little River above RBSP. Any spill is too much raw sewage into waterways.

[Golden Road Lift Station, Spill, RBSP, Little, Withlacoochee, Suwannee Rivers]
Golden Road Lift Station, Spill, RBSP, Little, Withlacoochee, Suwannee Rivers

Unlike some other cities recently, Tifton did timely report this spill, which appeared in GA-EPD’s Sewage Spills Report the day after it happened.

And this time was less than the 250,000 gallons on September 11, 2017 from the same Golden Road Lift Station. Continue reading →

Adel, GA, resolution, Withlacoochee and Little River Water Trail 2018-01-16

Thanks again to the City of Adel for Resolution #18-02 that they passed on January 16, 2018, in support of the Withlacoochee and Little River Water Trail.

[Resolution and WLRWT Sign]
Resolution and WLRWT Sign

Also in the big image above you see a new sign for the Withlacoochee and Little River Water Trail. More on that, later.

For now, note that the sign has the new City of Adel logo on it. That logo and the signed resolution are courtesy of City Clerk Rhonda P. Rowe.

Resolution

The text of the resolution we published at the time.

Here is a signed and executed copy. Continue reading →

Reed Bingham SP, underrated southern nature lover destination –Forbes 2020-08-07

The Little River Trail mentioned is a hiking trail, but it and Reed Bingham State Park (RBSP) are on the WWALS Withlacoochee and Little River Water Trail. RBSP is the site of the annual WWALS and FORB BIG Little River Paddle Race and where last summer FORB invited WWALS to help fifty new boaters paddle.

Jared Ranahan, Forbes, August 7, 2020, Six Underrated Southern Destinations To Include On A Nature Lover’s Road Trip,

[Forbes: Reed Bingham State Park, Underrated Southern Nature Lover Destination]
Forbes: Reed Bingham State Park, Underrated Southern Nature Lover Destination
“The gopher tortoise is a burrowing animal, and other creatures such as gopher frogs, indigo snakes, … [+] Georgia Department of Natural Resources”

Reed Bingham State Park

For those wishing to encounter a wide array of native Georgian flora and fauna, few destinations compare to Reed Bingham State Park, a 1,613-acre stretch of land located in the depths of rural southern Georgia. The park is rife with hiking trails that showcase the rich biodiversity of the region—the Little River Trail crosses through pristine swamp, offering glimpses of river otters, turtles, and bald cypress trees, while the short Turkey Oak Trail is home to native ectothermic species ranging from indigo snakes to Georgia’s own state reptile, the gopher tortoise. Be sure to spend some time exploring the banks of Reed Bingham Park Lake—this idyllic water feature is a popular local spot for kayaking and fishing.

Continue reading →

Winner and answers: third Within These WWALS contest, 2020-04-25

First, remember the fifth Within These WWALS contest is still in progress, and you have until midnight tonight, May 9, 2020, to answer, to win a set of WWALS picture notecards from that waterbody:
https://forms.gle/Nidt7HnxS91fCPWQ6

Meanwhile, the winner of the third Within These WWALS contest is:

Jennifer Harris, of Parrott, Terrell County, Georgia.

She lives in the Flint River watershed, but she answered all the questions correctly before anybody else did.

Withlacoochee and Little Rivers note cards

She got a set of Withlacoochee and Little Rivers note cards, sent to her by WWALS charter board member emeritus Bret Wagenhorst. You can get your own from the WWALS online stor for $10.00.

The answers to Within These WWALS #3 are:

Plant: Wild Azalea, Rhododendron canescens.

Blooms February to April, with a sweet jasmine scent. No, not honeysuckle: Continue reading →

Postponed: Eighth Annual BIG Little River Paddle Race

Due to the pandemic of the novel Coronavirus, and to help prevent the spread of the virus-caused disease COVID-19, WWALS and FORB are postponing the Eighth Annual BIG Little River Paddle Race (BLRPR), until a date to be announced later.

Anyone who has bought a BLRPR ticket and wants a refund, let us know. Otherwise, all tickets will remain valid at the eventual rescheduled date and time.

If Georgia state parks are open at the originally scheduled date and race start time of 9:30 AM, Saturday, April 25, 2020, one or two WWALS members will livestream from the BLRPR site and race course; six feet apart, of course. Stay tuned for details.

[Closer]
Closer

For more Continue reading →

No WWALS booth at festivals rest of March 2020 due to virus

Due to the many health considerations of our volunteers and their families, WWALS, exercising an abundance of caution, will not send the information booth to festivals for the rest of March 2020.

Preparing for Community Mass Gatherings --GA-DPH

This means we are cancelling our appearances at:

While we are sorry to have to do that, the risk is beyond simple infection of our booth volunteers, which would be bad enough. The novel coronavirus is airborne, causes a disease that Continue reading →