Tag Archives: Santa Fe River

Six hours and no decision @ Alachua Planning Commission 2026-01-13

Update 2026-01-20: In the next meeting, Tuesday, January 20, 2026, the vote was 4:0 to deny, by the City of Alachua Planning and Zoning Commission. So it’s dead for now, but watch for it to come back later.

The City of Alachua Planning Commissioners seemed inclined to approve the Special Exception Permit for the Tara April detention ponds and trails next to I-75.

But after the applicant’s case was countered by the National Speleological Society (NSS) and others, the Commissioners seemed ready to deny.

However, at midnight the court recorder had to leave, so they had to adjourn until Tuesday, April January 20, 2026, at 6 PM, also at Alachua City Hall, 15100 NW 142 Terrace, Alachua, FL 32615.

Get there early. It was standing room only this Tuesday, with some people outside the doors.

[Six hours and no decision, @ Alachua Planning Commission 2026-01-13, They meet again about Tara April, and Mill Creek Sink, 6 PM 2026-01-20]
Six hours and no decision, @ Alachua Planning Commission 2026-01-13, They meet again about Tara April, and Mill Creek Sink, 6 PM 2026-01-20

You can see the relevant parts of the meeting (minus the other two items on the agenda) in this video by Richie Denmark for NSS:

https://youtu.be/g2yNv9MtRBY?si=dtbvAtyaEnXwmvVw

That video does not include the images projected by the various speakers. But I took stills of many of them, which you can see below.

The video starts with me photographing the Tara April Master Plan. You can see my photographs below. Continue reading →

Clean Ichetucknee, Santa Fe, Withlacoochee Rivers 2026-01-14

Update 2026-01-20: OK One Mile Branch 2026-01-13, Filthy Langdale Park Boat Ramp, Withlacoochee River 2026-01-18.

WWALS testers found the Withlacoochee, Santa Fe, and Ichetucknee Rivers clean for this Wednesday.

We have no new creek results and no results this week from Valdosta Utilities.

No new sewage spills have been reported in the past week in Georgia or Florida.

The weather is supposed to be sunny Saturday, but colder and rainy Sunday. If you can find a river with enough water and you don’t mind cole, happy paddling, motoring, swimming, and fishing.

This image is an overview. Scroll down for the details.

[Clean Ichetucknee, Santa Fe, and Withlacoochee Rivers; No Valdosta Utilities results, 2026-01-14]
Clean Ichetucknee, Santa Fe, and Withlacoochee Rivers; No Valdosta Utilities results, 2026-01-14

Follow this link for the WWALS composite spreadsheet of water quality results rainfall and sewage spills in the Suwannee River Basin in Georgia and Florida:
https://wwals.net/issues/testing/#results

The image below is a current excerpt from that spreadsheet. Continue reading →

Mill Creek Sink 2025-01-13

Update 2026-01-17: Six hours and no decision @ Alachua Planning Commission 2026-01-13.

It took about 12 days for dye put into Mill Creek Sink to show up six miles northwest in Hornsby Spring. That spring is on the far side of High Springs. It runs into the Santa Fe River.

[Mill Creek Sink, Alachua, FL 2026-01-13, Cave complex connects to Hornsby Spring, Santa Fe River]
Mill Creek Sink, Alachua, FL 2026-01-13, Cave complex connects to Hornsby Spring, Santa Fe River

Anything that goes into Mill Creek Sink could affect drinking water for the city of High Springs, as well as Hornsby Spring and the Santa Fe River. And probably other things nearby over the Floridan Aquifer.

The dye trace is according to MILL CREEK and LEE SINKS DYE TRACE ALACHUA COUNTY, FLORIDA JULY-DECEMBER, 2005,
Prepared for: Alachua County Environmental Protection Department, 201 SE 2nd Avenue, Suite 201, Gainesville, FL 32601;
Prepared by: Peter L. Butt, Stephen Boyes, P.G. and Thomas L. Morris, Karst Environmental Services, Inc., 5779 NE County Road 340, High Springs, FL 32643, June 7, 2006.

There are pictures below of Mill Creek Sink that I took on January 13, 2026. Continue reading →

Chemours closed some TiO2 mines, now lays off workers, outsources to contractor 2026-01-06

A few paragraphs about Chemours layoffs have been circling around north Florida, about the titanium dioxide (TiO2) mines near Starke, Florida. Chemours layoffs actually affect many mines in both Florida and Georgia, and Chemours already closed some mines, due to low prices for the minerals it mines.

No, Krebs Land Development did not buy any mines nor operations from Chemours. Krebs is an earthmoving contractor that has worked for Chemours for some time, in both Georgia and Florida.

Now Chemours is outsourcing more operations to Krebs. Some Chemours former employees may end up working for Krebs, run by Stuart Krebs.

[Chemours closed some TiO2 mines, now lays off workers 2026-01-06, outsources to contractor, because of low prices]
Chemours closed some TiO2 mines, now lays off workers 2026-01-06, outsources to contractor, because of low prices

Why? Housebuilding is down, so there is less demand for white paint. Also, much TiO2 is being imported. So the price of TiO2 is down. This is the most up to date graph I can find, which only goes through October 2025. Apparently it’s gotten worse since then. Continue reading →

Agenda: WWALS Quarterly Board Meeting 2026-01-11

Here is the draft agenda and the zoom parameters for the WWALS Quarterly Board meeting Sunday evening, January 11, 2026.

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89308028204?pwd=VmwyMzVTMVR6WGJxbUFUSlFXWFRWQT09

WWALS Quarterly Board Meeting

When: 6:00 PM, Sunday, January 11, 2026

What: The usual board business.

Event: https://www.facebook.com/events/1448563266894844/

[Agenda: WWALS Quarterly Board Meeting, By zoom, 6-8 PM, 2026-01-11, Advocacy, outings, events, Board, Staff, and Committees]
Agenda: WWALS Quarterly Board Meeting, By zoom, 6-8 PM, 2026-01-11, Advocacy, outings, events, Board, Staff, and Committees

Here is the agenda (see also PDF). Continue reading →

Clean Withlacoochee and Santa Fe Rivers 2026-01-07

Update 2026-01-12: Filthy Hightower Creek 2026-01-08 but clean upstream ILM Pond 2026-01-09.

The Withlacoochee and Santa Fe Rivers tested clean for this Wednesday.

We have no new creek results since last week.

The inch of rain last Saturday seems to have little effect on the rivers, neither level nor water quality.

No new sewage spills have been reported in the past week in Georgia or Florida.

The weather is supposed to be fine this weekend, so if you can find a river with enough water, and happy paddling, motoring, swimming, and fishing.

This image is an overview. Scroll down for the details.

[Clean Withlacoochee and Santa Fe Rivers; No new creek results, 2026-01-07]
Clean Withlacoochee and Santa Fe Rivers; No new creek results, 2026-01-07

Maybe you’d like to join us tomorrow for Ichetucknee Polar Plunge and Paddle to see SPZ 2026-01-10. Meet us at Ichetucknee State Park North Entrance: 9 AM to dip in the spring; 10 AM for the paddle.

Follow this link for the WWALS composite spreadsheet of water quality results rainfall and sewage spills in the Suwannee River Basin in Georgia and Florida:
https://wwals.net/issues/testing/#results

The image below is a current excerpt from that spreadsheet. Continue reading →

SJRWMD hired a consultant to plan piping treated Jacksonville wastewater into the Suwannee River Basin (Water First North Florida) 2025-11-12

The St Johns River Water Management District (SJRWMD) hired a consultant in November to solidify the plan to pipe Jacksonville treated wastewater to recharge springs on the Santa Fe and Ichetucknee Rivers in the Suwannee River Basin.

Their documents show that Jacksonville uses about as much water as all of agriculture in the Suwannee River Basin.

How about Jacksonville get a grip on its water usage?

Wouldn’t that be better than having JAX upstream from the Suwannee River Basin?

[SJRWMD hired a consultant to plan piping treated Jacksonville wastewater into the Suwannee River Basin (Water First North Florida) 2025-11-12]
SJRWMD hired a consultant to plan piping treated Jacksonville wastewater into the Suwannee River Basin (Water First North Florida) 2025-11-12

Maybe you’d like to Ask Florida statehouse and Water Districts to explain JAX treated wastewater into the Suwannee Basin or to stop it.
https://wwals.net/?p=69143

The trail from SRWMD’s lack of knowledge of the locations for this project led to SJRWMD’s board minutes.

There is still an opportunity to change course (see below about the SJRWMD November 12, 2025, board packet):

Projects identified in the Strategy do not become permit conditions by virtue of their inclusion in an approved Strategy. The projects described in this Strategy, or alternative projects that the Districts concur will provide an equivalent benefit, may be developed and incorporated as conditions on water use or consumptive use permits (WUP or CUP) through the permitting process and shall be updated with each approval of the NFRWSP.

That’s good, because the projects SJRWMD considered apparently did not include limiting water withdrawals or Dennis Price’s proposal to drill wells at the bottom of planted pine ditches.

They apparently did not include anything about limiting water withdrawals, not even by Jacksonville, which uses about as much water as Suwannee Basin agriculture.

SJRWMD (and SRWMD as junior partner) appear to only be considering massive pipe engineering projects.

And I see nothing in these SJRWMD documents about how they plan to get rid of toxic chemicals that are not normally removed by wastewater treatement, such as PFAS, pharmaceuticals, and artificial sweeteners.

The SJRWMD Board in November 2025 authorized “a contract not-to-exceed $2,170,000 with the Jacobs Engineering Group Inc.” to do an initial design. Continue reading →

Ask Florida statehouse and Water Districts to explain JAX treated wastewater into the Suwannee Basin or to stop it, 2026-01-02

Update 2026-02-17: Consent Order on JEA Buckman Wastewater Treatment Plant –FDEP 2025-09-15.

Update 2026-02-13: Video: Jacksonville Wastewater into Suwannee Basin, WWALS Webinar 2026-02-12.

Update 2026-02-05: Jacksonville Wastewater into Suwannee Basin, WWALS Webinar 2026-02-12.

Do you think a billion dollars to pipe treated wastewater from Jacksonville into the Suwannee Basin is a bad idea?

If so, please ask your statehouse delegation and Water Management District Board to explain why limiting water withdrawals would not be a better idea, or to stop this project.

Everybody is downstream from somebody else. But we don’t need the Suwannee River Basin to be downstream from Jacksonville. Sure, we’re poorer than Jacksonville, but we’re not their sacrifice zone.

Two Water Management Districts say this Water First North Florida project would replenish levels and flows in the Lower Santa Fe and Ichetucknee Rivers, including the Ichetucknee Headspring, by sending water into the Upper Floridan Aquifer through wetlands.

How can this expensive and risky project be the best way to conserve levels and flows in these Outstanding Florida Waters, which are supposed to be worthy of special protection because of their natural attributes?

How can risking the source of our drinking water be a good idea?

[Why is piping treated JAX wastewater into the Suwannee River Basin, better than limiting water withdrawals? Ask FL statehouse and WMD boards]
Why is piping treated JAX wastewater into the Suwannee River Basin, better than limiting water withdrawals? Ask FL statehouse and WMD boards

Here’s how to find your legislators:

https://pluralpolicy.com/find-your-legislator/

Also ask SRWMD to hold a Public Hearing explaining why this project is better and safer than limiting water withdrawals.

Let’s see the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). Including evidence about how much JEA’s Buckman Wastewater Treatment Facility actually removes PFAS forever chemicals, drugs, and artificial sweeteners. Plus single points of failure such as sole-source contractors.

Suwannee River Management District
9225 CR 49
Live Oak, FL 32060
Phone: 386.362.1001
Toll Free: 1.800.226.1066
Hugh Thomas, Executive Director
Hugh.Thomas@SRWMD.org

Also ask your SRWMD Board members:
https://mysuwanneeriver.com/134/Current-Board-Members

The Suwannee River Water Management District (SRWMD) seems to know surprisingly little Continue reading →

Water First North Florida wetland locations: unknown –SRWMD 2025-12-17

Update 2026-01-08: SJRWMD hired a consultant to plan piping treated Jacksonville wastewater into the Suwannee River Basin (Water First North Florida) 2025-11-12.

Update 2026-01-03: Ask Florida statehouse and Water Districts to explain JAX treated wastewater into the Suwannee Basin or to stop it 2026-01-02.

Here’s a bit more about the Water First North Florida (WFNF) billion dollar project to pipe treated wastewater from Jacksonville into the Suwannee River Basin.

The Suwannee River Water Management District (SRWMD) seems to know surprisingly little about this joint project with the St Johns River Water Management District (SJRWMD).

They don’t know where the water would go into wetlands to “clean” it up some more, and they don’t know where it would go to infiltrate into the Floridan Aquifer.

They don’t have a pilot study and they don’t have wetland site assessments.

Turns out there are a couple of reasons why SRWMD does not know or have those things. But I have found out a few things.

And I have leads to find out much more.

[Water First North Florida wetland locations: unknown, No Pilot Study or Wetland Assessments, But here is the RFQ --SRWMD]
Water First North Florida wetland locations: unknown, No Pilot Study or Wetland Assessments, But here is the RFQ –SRWMD

Back on July 8, 2025, SRWMD Deputy Executive Director of Water Resources Amy Brown gave her board a Lower Santa Fe and Ichetucknee Project Update. It included a few slides on the WFNF, aka North Florida Regional Recharge Project. Continue reading →

Drought Workshop Presentation –SRWMD 2025-12-09

Update 2026-01-08: Water Shortage Advisory Order on agenda @ SRWMD 2026-01-13.

Update 2026-01-03: Ask Florida statehouse and Water Districts to explain JAX treated wastewater into the Suwannee Basin or to stop it 2026-01-02.

Update 2025-12-18: Water First North Florida wetland locations: unknown –SRWMD 2025-12-17.

In their Drought Conditions Workshop on December 9, 2025, SRWMD talked about starting an outreach campaign, “highlighting the water deficit that we are in, and our drought, and the need for efficiency, and here are some possible measures that you could implement, from a voluntary standpoint.”

But they are not yet willing to declare even the statutory Water Shortage Warning or Advisory, which has only voluntary measures.

[Drought Workshop Presentation --SRWMD 2025-12-09, No water withdrawal limits yet, Maybe an outreach campaign soon]
Drought Workshop Presentation –SRWMD 2025-12-09, No water withdrawal limits yet, Maybe an outreach campaign soon

If the current drought is not severe enough to warrant even a statutory Warning, why are SRWMD and SJRWMD forging ahead with their billion-dollar Water First North Florida project to pipe treated Jacksonville wastewater into the Suwannee River Basin to recharge the Floridan Aquifer here? And what is being done to remove the PFAS, drugs, and articifical sweeteners that typically pass right through wastewater treatment?

Thanks to SRWMD Board members Charles Keith, Larry Sessions, and William Lloyd, they did talk about possibly instituing limits on water withdrawals, considering that the past 10 years have been the hottest on record.

The presenter, Amy Brown, Deputy Executive Director, Water Resources, was clear that they have not even advised voluntary limits for the biggest group of users, which are in agriculture.

Her slides, received from SRWMD in response to a WWALS public records request, are on the WWALS website, with images below in this post.

SRWMD Executive Director Hugh Thomas did note that the water withdrawal permits SRWMD issues have standard conditions that can require limits on water withdrawals. But “it’s never fun to engage with the permittee and say, hey, you’re going to have to cut back because we’re in a water shortage period.”

You can see Amy Brown, Deputy Executive Director, Water Resources, present these slides to the SRWMD Board in their own video of their December 9, 2025, Workshop, at 1:45:58:

https://www.youtube.com/live/6LDIIdFqxaY?si=LnRZUqNL0imphDJz&t=6358

What about reducing water withdrawals?

At 2:14:10, you can hear Charles Keith asking about increasing drought. Continue reading →