Update 2018-10-24: First test kit complete! Now waiting for analysis equipment to arrive. For more details on recent background, see Valdosta (and other) wastewater.
Thanks to Julie Shutters of Golden Triangle R&D for coming down from Sylvester to Valdosta, GA to do Georgia Adopt-A-Stream training for WWALS.
(No, we haven’t forgotten about Florida. We’re just starting with the biggest problem area.)
Join us for a leisurely paddle at sunset approximately 4 miles around the lake, looking for alligators, bats and birds. This is a leg of the Alapaha Quest, since Banks Lake is in the Alapaha River Water Trail.
When: 7 PM, September 11, 2018 (be on the water promptly by then!)
Put In: Banks Lake Boat Ramp, 307 Georgia 122, Lakeland, GA 31635, in Lanier County.
Take Out: Banks Lake Boat Ramp
Bring: the usual personal flotation device (PFD, and you must wear it), boat paddles, food, drinking water, warm clothes, and first aid kit. For everyone’s safety bring a light for your boat or to put on yourself, such as a glow stick, so that we will be visible to other boats. This will be one night after the new moon. It will be dark once the sun goes down at 7:46PM. Mosquitoes can be bad at the launch, especially after dark, so you may want to bring bug spray, but they are usually not a problem on the water. Also trash pickers and trash bags: every WWALS outing is also a cleanup.
Free: This outing is free to WWALS members, and $10 (ten dollars) for non-members. We recommend you support the work of WWALS by becoming a WWALS member today!
Shirley Kokidko leading
a previous Banks Lake paddle, 2018-07-27.
Venus gleamed through the fires of sunset as the full moon and Mars hid behind clouds.
The sound of frogs brought out swoops of bats, as a dozen or two paddlers braved the placid flat waters of Banks Lake Friday evening in the least strenuous yet one of the most enjoyable of all WWALS outings. As one new participant remarked, it’s one thing to see it from the road, but out on the water the size, the lucidity, and the sunset are startling while calming.
Bret Wagenhorst, who brought a crew of new people from Tifton and paddled out with them first, reports: “Got to see: ospreys and nest, eastern kingbirds, egrets, ibises, bats, gators and hear Continue reading
You’ve seen who won the eleven awards. Now here are the rest of the paddlers in the 6th Annual BIG Little River Paddle Race, from more counties, states, and watersheds than ever before. Also more Solo Female Kayaks than Solo Male Kayaks, and several whole families of paddlers.
43 Boats
37 kayaks
6 canoes
49 Paddlers
29 male
20 female Continue reading
Previously you saw the overall winner of the 6th Annual BIG Little River Paddle Race, organized by WWALS Watershed Coalition (WWALS) and Friends of Reed Bingham State Park (FORB), Saturday, April 28, 2018. Update 2018-07-16: Plus pictures of all the paddlers.
Here are all the winners:
The prize category is included for each winner.
Come on down and look over the pictures of the Withlacoochee, Alapaha, and Suwannee Rivers Gretchen printed. WWALS will be at Azalea Festival again today.
Where:
Drexel Park, north of E. Brookwood Drive, between North Patterson Street and Williams Street
30.846771, -83.285066
(across Patterson from VSU)
That’s on One Mile Branch, which flows into Sugar Creek, then the Withlacoochee River,
the Suwannee, to the Gulf.
WWALS booth: First thing you see coming in the main entrance from Slater Street. Continue reading
Bobby McKenzie and Shirley Kokidko are helping at the WWALS booth that Gretchen Quarterman set up yesterday. Come on down!
Photo: Gretchen Quarterman for WWALS at Azalea Festival 2018-03-10.
When:
Saturday and Sunday, 10 and 11 March 2018,
WWALS will be
at Azalea Festival today and tomorrow,
Free: Yes, it’s free to get in.
Parking: Continue reading
It probably didn’t hurt that Lace Futch was Mayor of Willacoochee before he became Chairman of Atkinson County. During a brief discussion, I pointed out that the resolution includes this clause, to fix the last landing name before we update and reprint the Alapaha River Water Trail brochures:
Section 3: The public access to the Alapaha River at GA 135 south of the city of Willacoochee is hereby named Willacoochee Landing;
The Commissioners passed it unanimously.
WWALS board member Shirley Kokidko, who lives in Atkinson County and who had asked for this resolution to be on the agenda, thanked the Commissioners afterwards, and invited them to come on the Hike to the Dead River Sink, noon Saturday, January 27, 2018, explaining that this first outing on the Alapaha Quest was originally scheduled to start at Sheboggy Landing at US 82 and to end up at Willacoochee Landing, but was rescheduled due to low water. Shirley is near the center of each of the pictures below, each taken at Willacoochee Landing on different WWALS outings.
See also the resolution in support of the Alapaha River Water Trail (ARWT) passed by Lanier County 2018-01-08.
Photo: Gretchen Quarterman for WWALS
at Willacoochee Landing 2016-02-20.
Chairman Lace Futch had a few words about my grandfather and a few questions, then he asked me to read the BE IT RESOLVED part to the Atkinson County Commissioners. They voted unanimously for the resolution to ask the Georgia state legislature to stop diversion of state fees, Thursday January 18, 2018. WWALS Board Member and Atkinson County resident Shirley Kokidko had asked for it to be on the agenda, and she thanked the Commissioners at the end of the meeting for passing it.
See also the resolutions previously passed by Lanier County 2018-01-08 and the City of Adel 2018-01-16.
Photo: Atkinson County Commission by John S. Quarterman for WWALS 2018-01-18.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Hahira, Georgia, December 13, 2017 — People got kayak raffle tickets for three months at festivals from Alapaha, Georgia to Live Oak, Florida, and online, until the drawing at a Suwannee Riverkeeper outing Sunday at the top of the Suwannee River in the Okefenokee Swamp. The lucky winner of a kayak donated by Malibu Kayaks is Chris Newton from the Atlantic coast of Florida. “No way!” he said.
At Stephen C. Foster State Park, Fargo, Georgia, Gretchen Quarterman, Acting Executive Director for WWALS Watershed Coalition, said:
“These are all the tickets that we sold. And these are the ones that Shirley [Kokidko, WWALS board member] sold. These are the ones that came from Phil [Hubbard, WWALS board member of Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia]. These are the ones that came from Hulaween [Live Oak, Suwannee County, Florida]. These are the ones that came from Skillet Fest [Quitman, Brooks County, Georgia, suggested by WWALS member John Horton of Quitman and Suwannee, Dixie County, Florida] ….”
WWALS board member Shirley Kokidko of Pearson, Atkinson County, Georgia, had the video camera at Continue reading
![[Julie Shutters, Ronnie Thomas, Erica McLelland, Shirley Kokidko, Joanne A. Wardell, Gretchen Quarterman, Bobby McKenzie, John S. Quarterman (hat)]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2018-09-16--wq-training-pictures/20180916_132727.jpg)
![[Finish]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2018-04-28--blrpr-hubbard/4063062-28Apr18.jpg)