Yesterday was actually Florida Gopher Tortoise Day, but as Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission says, “you can celebrate gopher tortoises by making your yard tortoise friendly and participating in our new recognition program.”
Georgians, you won’t get a sign, but you can also make your yards gopher-friendly for Gopherus polyphemus.
Gopher Tortoise Friendly Yard Recognition Program
![[Gopher tortoise in human habitat --FFWCC]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2023-04-10--gopher-tortoise-day/6893501454_bbe28cdf8a_o.jpg)
Gopher tortoise in human habitat –FFWCC
Last month the SRWMD board approved buying the Camp and Abel Tract on the Suwannee River in Hamilton County.
Tomorrow morning, April 11, 2023, at 9 AM, SRWMD will approve an additional resolution for a slightly higher amount to cover costs of the transaction.
And SRWMD will consider buying Waldo Tree Farm, which is near the Santa Fe River in Alachua County.
You can attend in person at SRWMD HQ, 9225 Co Rd 49, Live Oak, FL 32060.
Or online:
GoTo Webinar Link: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/7498156259411455319
Public Comment Form Link: www.MySuwanneeRiver.com/Comments.
The entire board packet is on the WWALS website.
Here are a few excerpts. Continue reading
Update 2023-05-19: Valdosta annual stormwater reports to GA-EPD 2023-02-14.
In December GA-EPD reissued Valdosta’s stormwater permit, which happens every five years.
![[About, NOI, maps: Valdosta reissued Stormwater permit 2022-12-06]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2018-08-30--permits/valdosta/stormwater/2022-12-06--valdosta-stormwater-permit/many.jpg)
About, NOI, maps: Valdosta reissued Stormwater permit 2022-12-06
However, if I understand the response by Valdosta City Engineer Ben O’Dowd in the documents received in response to an open records request, all there is right now is a generic boilerplate permit for cities of this size. That generic permit requires Valdosta to spell out best practices it will use, and to update its Stormwater Master Plan (SWMP), all by June 4, 2023.
Since the City Engineer has been quite receptive to public input lately, I hope this means Valdosta will be accepting input into rewriting the SWMP. About trash, for example. Continue reading
These maps show the locations of Valdosta’s Stormwater Pond Facility Clusters previously posted. They provide clues to where trash may be accumulating.
Most of the major creeks in Valdosta are represented, plus some that I didn’t know had names, such as Bunche Street Canal and Knob Hill Canal, as well as some that apparently do not have names.
Most (Sugar Creek, Hightower Creek, Dow Street Canal, One Mile Branch, Two Mile Branch, Three Mile Branch, Knob Hill Canal, Cherry Creek, and Browns Canal) are in the Withlacoochee River Basin.
Others (Knights Creek, Dukes Bay Canal, Bunche Street Canal) are in the Alapaha River Basin.
Several of the maps straddles several watersheds.
Below there is a pair of maps for each of the clusters: a map received from Valdosta in response to an open records request, and a map excerpt from one of the WWALS water trail maps.
The rest of the text below is from the document previously posted. Continue reading
Update 2023-04-20: Ten days until BIG Little River Paddle Event, 2023-04-29.
WWALS charter board member Bret Wagenhorst will guide a tour of the Little River from Red Roberts Landing to Reed Bingham State Park Lake.
Paddlers will learn about natural history of the river, from flora and fauna to aspects of rivers and black water: oxbows, tannic acid, river foam, hairpin curves and breakthroughs, sloughs, silt deposition sides, etc. If more than 8 boats sign up, we will add another tour guide.
The tour will make stops at various locations for short learning experiences. The tour will last at least 1.5 hours, and possibly up to 2.5-3 hours depending on water level, paddle speed, and number of questions. There will be a briefing before and after on land.
Registration is online in advance:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/wwals-members-only-paddle-with-an-expert-big-little-river-paddle-event-tickets-605920995007
This is a WWALS members-only event.
If you are not a WWALS member, you can become one at the event,
or online:
https://wwals.net/donations
There is no charge for this paddle,
other than a $5 park entrance fee and any boat rental fees to the park.
Please contact the park in advance about any boat rentals.
https://gadnr.org/ReedBingham/Paddling
Paddlers are encouraged to donate to this WWALS fundraiser. Sponsors will be listed on a sign at the event and in social media and other postings.
When: Gather 8 AM, launch 9:30 AM, end 3 PM, Saturday, April 29, 2023
Put In: Red Roberts Landing, 4727 Rountree Bridge Rd., Adel, GA 31620. Take I-75 exit 41, head west onto Roundtree Bridge Road, then right to stay on Roundtree Bridge Road (CR 251). After 4.7 miles, turn left just before the Little River, into the park entrance at Red Roberts Landing, in Cook County, Georgia.
![[Bret Wagenhorst, paddlers on the Little River, 2022]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2023-04-29--blrpe/m2023.jpg)
Bret Wagenhorst, paddlers on the Little River, 2022
Continue reading
Georgia has it, among 23 states, including all states in the southeast, except for Florida.
Looks like it’s coming to Florida: a state constitutional amendment for a Right to Hunt and Fish. Identical bills are speeding through the state House and Senate towards getting this amendment on the 2024 ballot.
![[Ballotpedia, 23 states have Right to Hunt and Fish as of November 2020]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2023-03-27--fl-right-hunt-fish/2020-11-01--ballotpedia-right-to-hunt-fish-fl.jpg)
Ballotpedia, 23 states have Right to Hunt and Fish as of November 2020
And what good is a Right to Hunt and Fish without clean water for the fish and wildlife? Floridians, please sign the petition for Right to Clean Water, also intended for the 2024 ballot.
Jim Saunders, News Service of Florida, Tampa Bay Times, March 27, 2023, updated March 29, Hunting, fishing could be enshrined in Florida Constitution under proposal: If approved, the proposal could be on the November 2024 ballot. Continue reading
Update 2023-04-16: Agenda and zoom parameters.
Update 2023-03-30: The correct date is Sunday, April 16.
WWALS President Sara Jay will preside over the WWALS Quarterly Board Meeting. The public is invited.
We will be discussing the BIG Little River Paddle Event, the WWALS Gala including the Suwannee Riverkeeper Songwriting Contest, and other outings and cleanups: see https://wwals.net/outings. As well as trash, sewage, water quality testing, opposition to mines (titanium and phosphate), water withdrawals, coal ash, pellet plants, and LNG export, as well as promotion of water trails and solar power: see https://wwals.net/issues/ And of course finances. New WWALS Development Director Veronica Oakler will report.
That’s for the entire 10,000 square mile Suwannee River Basin, in Georgia and Florida, including the Withlacoochee, Willacoochee, Alapaha, Alapahoochee, Little Alapaha, Little times two, New times two, Black, Dead, Sampson, Santa Fe, and Suwannee Rivers, and all their creeks, springs, sinks, ponds, and swamps, such as Grand Bay, Banks Lake and the Okefenokee Swamp.
When: 6 PM to 8 PM, Sunday, April 16, 2023
Where: Online via zoom, so you don’t even have to go anywhere. The zoom parameters will follow, as will an agenda.
Update 2023-04-26: Upper and Middle Suwannee River MFL webinar and followon WebBoard meetings 2023-05-02.
SRWMD considered everything from water levels needed for paddling and other boating, to fish passage depths, to Gulf Sturgeon spawning depth. The sturgeon won, with the least allowable flow reduction at the median. This was for all of the reference gauges for both stretches of the river. Which means Gulf Sturgeon determine the minimum flow levels and depths for both the Upper and Middle Suwannee River. The draft MFLs are already in the report.
![[Reviewers, MFL, Public Comment 2022-03-15]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2023-03-15--suwannee-river-mfl-meeting-videos/many.jpg)
Reviewers, MFL, Public Comment 2022-03-15
As one of the three speakers in the Public Comment agenda item, I got surprising agreement on two points. I said that while limiting water withdrawals might not be within the scope of this process, nonetheless the sensitivity map for the Suwannee River at Ellaville indicated that this process could study what would happen with various potential water withdrawals in various locations. And this process could study the effects of different aquifer replenishment methods. Continue reading
Update 2023-03-27: Correction: Pickleball courts to be on other side of Two Mile Branch from 2007-proposed detention pond 2023-03-07.
The City of Valdosta has planned to do something about trash in Two Mile Branch since at least 2007, as part of a Watershed Management Plan, that appeared to grow out of a GA-EPD action. Most of those planned actions do not seem to have happened, despite a table of projects and an implementation schedule. And despite some of them turning up again as merely “proposed” in a 2010 plan. At least one of them will never happen, because the city has found a source of funds for a completely different project on the same site.
I urge the Georgia Environmental Protection Division (GA-EPD) not to be satisfied with plans.
Actions are what count.
![[Two Mile Branch: plans are not enough]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2007-11-01--two-mile-branch-wmp/many.jpg)
Two Mile Branch: plans are not enough
I commend the City of Valdosta for its plans for a trash trap on Two Mile Branch at Berkley Drive and at Oak Street. There is some reason to believe these actions will happen, thanks to City Engineer Ben O’Dowd.
I urge anyone who can to come to the Two Mile Branch cleanup between those locations,
8-11 AM this Saturday, March 25, 2023:
https://wwals.net/?p=61338
First let’s go back to 2007 to see why plans are not enough: only actions count.
This map includes as BMPs (Best Management Practices) detention ponds on Two Mile Branch at Berkley Drive (15) and above Oak Street (18), the same locations where Valdosta is now planning, sixteen years later, to finally do something. The map even includes additional ponds below St. Johns School (27) and on Canna Drive (18). I see no sign any of these projects actually happened. Continue reading
Update 2023-05-01: Alapaha Swallets Dye Trace Project 2016-10-01.
A congenial time was had by all on a balmy north Florida day at the Dead River Sink (or swallet) as the Florida Geological Survey incorporated it into the new Jennings Bluff Tract State Geological Site.
![[Jennings Bluff State Geological Site and Dead River Sink 2023-03-17]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/gretchen/2023-03-17--jennings-bluff-dead-river-pictures/many.jpg)
Jennings Bluff State Geological Site and Dead River Sink 2023-03-17
The Dead River Sink in the Suwannee River Water Management District (SRWMD) Jennings Bluff Tract is one of the most popular spots for WWALS outings on the Alapaha River Water Trail.
Here is a WWALS video playlist by Gretchen Quarterman, who also took the still pictures except where otherwise indicated:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKwQ5xfKf-QwFQi2rSRU59BUHPbSkTdVW
![[Agenda, Waldo Tree Farm on the Santa Fe River, Camp and Abel Tract on the Suwannee River @ SRWMD Board 2023-04-11]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2023-04-11--srwmd-board/many.jpg)
![[Example Cluster maps]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2023-03-01--vld-orr-pond-clusters-map/many.jpg)
![[Square WWALS and Suwannee Riverkeeper logos]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/logo/square-wwals-suwrk-logos.jpg){kind=logo}