When: 1:30PM to 4:30PM, Tuesday, October 3, 2017
Where: SRWMD Office, 9225 County Road 49, Live Oak, Florida
Event: Suwannee River SWIM Plan public meeting
Received this morning:
Suwannee River and Coastal Rivers SWIM Plan interested parties:
In 2016, the Suwannee River Water Management District (SRWMD) received funds from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to develop consolidated updates to the Continue reading
Setbacks, he says.
The Commissioners voted unanimously to table the amendments to the Union County Comprehensive Plan, after attorneys for the opponents submitted many suggested modifications and attorneys for the proposed miners asked for more time.
WWALS videos of most of the numerous speakers will follow.
-jsq, John S. Quarterman, Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®
You can join this fun and work by becoming a WWALS member today!
Sent today (as PDF) before this afternoon’s 4:30 PM Union County BOCC meeting at Union County High School.
September 18, 2017
To: James Tallman, Chairman
Union County Board of County Commissioners
15 NE 1st Street, Lake Butler, FL 32054
(386) 496-4241
ucbocc@windstream.netCc: Scott R. Koons, Executive Director
North Central Florida Regional Planning Council
2009 NW 67th Pl, Gainesville, FL 32653
(352) 955-2200
koons@ncfrpc.orgRe: Aerial photographs of Phosphate Mine site
Dear Chairman Tallman, Commissioners, Staff, Director Koons, and NCFRPC,
Sometimes it helps to see the problem from a different point of view, so on September 1st Suwannee Riverkeeper organized an overflight of the proposed HPS II mine site. Here are a few aerials from that flight. I hope they help encourage you to rezone to prevent mining in Union County, regardless whether from the current proposals or from others.
In addition to the few examples below, a few hundred more pictures are online here:
http://www.l-a-k-e.org/issues/phosphate/2017-09-01–southwings-phosphate/
The Howard mine site at the corner of CR 231 and the New River includes Five Mile Creek and other wetlands. Between there and the Pritchett mine site many people own land that could be affected. Just beyond is Worthington Springs, downhill and thus downstream from the mine.
W across Howard mine site, Five Mile Creek, SW 48th Path, CR 18A, Pritchett mine site, Worthington Springs, 09:53:54, 29.9461300, -82.3565700From the air, Union county looks Continue reading
Looks like we may finally see Action stage tomorrow on the Withlacoochee River above Valdosta @ Skipper Bridge Road. This is upstream from Valdosta’s Withlacoochee Wastewater Treatment Plant, so it’s a good thing that didn’t spill during Irma. The Alapaha River at Statenville peaked Tuesday and probably would be a fine ride (what shoals?) today. The New and The Santa Fe Rivers are still flooding, and that’s still raising the Suwannee River all the way to the Gulf, and there’s minor flooding all the way up at Fargo, so another surge of high levels may follow on the Suwannee. The I-75 Santa Fe River bridge never did close.
2017-09-17 Withlacoochee River above Valdosta @ Skipper Bridge Road
The Suwannee River at White Springs peaked Continue reading
See from the air the land the Union County, Florida, Commissioners will be voting on tomorrow.
When: 4:30-9PM, Monday, September 17, 2017
Where: Union County High School, 1000 S. Lake Avenue, Lake Butler, FL 32054
What: Voting on Union County Comprehensive Plan with much stronger restrictions on mining
Event:
Two facebook events, by
Citizens Against Phosphate Mining in North Central Florida (CAPM)
and by
Our Santa Fe River (OSFR).
WNW from Compressor Station up FGT pipeline to Columbia Co., 10:18:14, 29.9114200, -82.3324080
I took these pictures in Union and Bradford Counties, Florida, of the proposed HPS II phosphate mine site, on a Southwings flight for WWALS Watershed Coalition 1 September 2017. You can help figure out what some of them show.
The main conclusion, already published in much briefer form by Jim Tatum with a few pictures he took, is that Continue reading
Update 2017-09-15: On the seventh day.
Update 2017-09-15: Added Suwannee River at Wilcox @ US 19, plus another image for the Gage Map.
Hurricane Irma flooded the Suwannee River at White Springs, the Santa Fe River especially at Fort White, with a new record for the New River new Lake Butler. It did not flood the Withlacoochee or Alapaha Rivers.
2017-09-14 Suwannee River at White Springs
FDOT says the I-75 bridge over the Santa Fe River Continue reading
Update 2017-09-15: On the seventh day.
Hurricane Irma is bringing flood levels on on most of the rivers in the Suwannee River Basin. Here are the gages with projections from downstream to upstream, since Irma is coming from the south. The images here are static to show this moment, but click on any image to go through to the live gage.
To see Sabal Fail in inaction at Dunnellon, jump to The Dunnellon odorant leaks, where the pipeline stooges wrapped it in towels, sprayed a deodorant, and waited until morning. Really, according to the incident report from Marion County Fire Rescue. It doesn’t get better in this summary: none of the state or federal permitting or safety agencies did anything, leaving Marion County to deal with the situation unassisted.
If you want to know some background, see also Continue reading
Apparently you can mine almost anywhere in Bradford County, Florida, according to the Bradford County Comprehensive Plan:
Illustration A-X Bradford County MINING AREAS
That map is about as bad as the one in Continue reading
Update 2017-09-01: Add #StopETP Day of Action one day early to the same event in Live Oak.
Suwannee Riverkeeper John S. Quarterman will show four years of Sabal Fail, and the Three Stooges plumbing in Dunellon. WWALS member Cecile Scofield will talk about LNG export all over Florida. Flint Riverkeeper Gordon Rogers will explain what the fossil fuel industry calls the Great Major Victory by Sierra Club, Flint Riverkeeper, and Chattahoochee Riverkeeper, and what it means (so far as anyone knows). WWALS E.D. Gretchen Quarterman will lay out what you can do to help stop Sabal Trail and reform FERC. Plus videos.
When: 6:30 PM, Thursday, September 7, 2017
Where: Live Oak Woman’s Club, 1308 11th St SW, Live Oak, FL 32064
Free: There is no admission fee and you do not have to be a member of WWALS to attend. Naturally, we do encourage you to join WWALS today. https://wwals.net/blog/donations/
Gordon Rogers, Flint Riverkeeper and Gretchen Quarterman, WWALS Executive Director