The Withlacoochee and Santa Fe Rivers tested clean this week.
No new sewage spills were reported in the past week in the Suwannee River Basin in
Florida
or
Georgia,
but there was an update on the August 5 Tifton spill.
So according to the results we have,
happy paddling, swimming, fishing, and boating,
if you can avoid the rains.
This image is an illustration.
Scroll down for the details.
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 →
The moon rose before the sun set over Banks Lake.
Not just any moon: a supermoon.
The moon’s orbit is not a circle, and it was the closest it ever comes,
appearing 18% larger than some other times.
Thanks to Kimberly Godden Tanner for leading
this paddle.
A little drizzle didn’t stop us.
The bats didn’t come out, but we heard them in their tree.
Valdosta Mayor Scott James Matheson and Suwannee Riverkeeper John S. Quarterman
discussed the Suwannee Riverkeeper Songwriting Contest last Thursday
at the Mayor’s day job, the radio show he owns and hosts on talk921.fm.
Songs can be about any waterbody in the 10,000-square mile Suwannee River Basin
or Estuary in Georgia or Florida, including the Withlacoochee, Little, Alapaha, Alapahoochee, or Suwannee Rivers,
or the Okefenokee Swamp, or any other river, creek, swamp, or sink.
Plus underground waters such as the Floridan Aquifer.
Songwriters can be from anywhere; they come from as far as Tennessee and south Florida.
Once we get those last few songs from the procrastinating songwriters,
the organizing committee will select Finalists.
The Finalists will play at WWALS River Revue, 5-9 PM, Saturday, September 12, 2026,
at the Lowndes County 4-H Club in Lake Park, Georgia, on Long Pond.
When you buy a ticket, you get to hear them along with the three judges,
who will select the winners.
And you get a sit-down dinner with cash bar, Headliner Joe First, who is last year’s winner, and two speakers:
Amy Sharma of Science for Georgia, talking about hyper-scale AI datacenters.
Rick Davis, Chair of the dozen-county Florida Task Force, talking about
Water First North Florida (WFNF), the currently-hibernating scheme
to pipe treated wastewater from Jacksonville into wetlands in the Suwannee Basin.
Dennis Norman, the landowner with the big hole in his driveway at 4637 Rustic Ridge Road,
said his wife did a video recording of the children back in 2019
and he saw the crack in the driveway then.
He told the county about it this spring, before his driveway collapsed.
Last Wednesday he was waiting around for somebody from the county to come out,
who apparently already had, and I finally got his Commissioner to call him.
According to the dictionary and USGS, it’s a sinkhole.
The question is what caused it: “gradual soil movement”, a sewer pipe break, or a contractor running something along the road?
The Alapaha River tested clean last Friday, but the Town of Alapaha Wastewater Treatment Outflow was filthy.
The Withlacoochee River tested clean for Monday and for Wednesday downstream.
The only sewage spill reported in the past week in the Suwannee River Basin in
Florida
or
Georgia,
was a 25,000 gallon spill into Hat Creek on August 2,
that
Ashburn, Georgia
didn’t report to GA-EPD until Monday, August 10. That’s upstream of the Alapaha River.
According to the results we have,
happy paddling, swimming, fishing, and boating,
if you can avoid the rains.
This image is an illustration.
Scroll down for the details.
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 →
Sabal Trail proposes to add another fracked methane pipeline alongside the one it plowed under the Withlacoochee, Suwannee, Santa Fe, and Withlacoochee (South) Rivers almost a decade ago,
plus bigger compressor stations in Suwannee and Marion Counties, Florida, and elsewhere.
What “economic development” could eat such a doubling of pipeline capacity?
I know of only one candidate: hyper-scale AI datacenters,
powered by gas plants such as the one rumored in Mitchell County, Georgia,
near the Sabal Trail pipeline.
The first person to post this letter online was apparently
Jodi Brantley,
today, August 14, 2026.
Others confirm that multiple landowners received this letter.
The gist of the letter is on Sabal Trail’s own website:
This is not the long-delayed Project Phase III, which was supposed to add 75 million cubic feet per day.
That one was originally supposed to be in service May 1, 2021, but got extended until May 1, 2023, and again to May 1, 2025, and most recently to May 1, 2027.
This Sabal Trail Expansion is a new project.
The current Sabal Trail pipeline “is capable of transporting over 1 billion cubic feet per day or more of natural gas to serve local distribution companies, industrial users and natural gas-fired power generators in the Southeast markets.”
So a second pipeline could add another billion cubic feet per day.
At 118 feet NAVD88 yesterday and 119.19 feet today on the
Valdosta Gauge at US 41,
that’s several feet above the WWALS recommended minimum of 116 for boating.
It’s probably even high enough to put in a boat with a motor and go over
most of the remaining deadfalls at the bottom of the park.
Unfortunately, the rains that brought the river up also
once again produced erosion on the access road,
out of the private development site.
Valdosta City Engineer Ben O’Dowd sent this update on August 7:
The property owner is required to install and maintain a series of
BMPs (silt fencing, check dams, sediment storage basins, etc.) to
prevent the escape of sediment from the permittee’s property
throughout construction.
Sometimes those components of the construction plan are not
maintained appropriately or the fail during severe inclement weather
and need to be repaired, replaced, or supplemented in order to
prevent the escape of sediment from the permittee’s property.
Following receipt of the report of sediment escape from the
property, we had our ESPC inspector visit the subject property,
document the deficiencies which resulted in the escape of sediment
from the property, and notify the owner and their contractor of the
deficiencies.
We also reached out to the owner’s design professional and
recommended a modified construction phasing approach which would
reduce the risk of repeat occurrences.
If the incident occurs again, or if the identified deficiencies are
not rectified within the required timeframe, we will progress
through the City’s enforcement procedures for locally issued
permits.
Please let us know if you identify any other deficiencies or if you
have any more questions.
Have a good weekend!
You may wonder why it took WWALS so long to post this update. Continue reading →
Hahira, Georgia, August 13, 2026 — We have some songs, but we’d like more songwriters to play next month at the Suwannee Riverkeeper Songwriting Contest. So everyone has another week to polish their song and send it in, by August 19, 2026.
Songs must be about any river, creek, spring, sink, swamp, or pond in the Suwannee River Basin or Estuary, such as the Withlacoochee, Alapaha, or Suwannee Rivers, or Sugar Creek, Okapilco Creek, Falling Creek, etc., or the Floridan Aquifer or other underground waters.
WWALS Board member Scotti Jay said, “For the first time, songs
can even be about the Santa Fe River or other waterbodies in that
basin.”
After August 19, the organizing committee will pick Finalists, who
will play September 12, 2026, as part of WWALS River Revue, at the
Lowndes County 4-H Club, in Lake Park, Georgia.
“It will be a fun evening, with a sit-down dinner and drinks,
two speakers, a headliner, plus a silent auction, and the Suwannee
Riverkeeper Songwriting Contest,” said Sara Squires Jones, Chair of the
organizing Committee.
![[Clean Withlacoochee and Santa Fe Rivers, No new sewage spills, Happy paddling 2026-08-19]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2026-08-19--wq/many.jpg)
![[Full Hunter's Moon Paddle, Banks Lake, 2026-10-26]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2026-10-26--full-hunters-moon-paddle/fbmany.jpg)
![[Full Hunters Moon Paddle, Banks Lake NWR, West of Lakeland, GA, 2025-10-06]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2025-10-06--banks-lake-full-hunters-moon-pictures/fbmany.jpg)
![[Songs for Suwannee Riverkeeper Songwriting Contest by August 19, on Scott James radio, Finalists play September 12, 2026]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2026-08-13--scott-james-radio/fbmany.jpg)
![[Alleged Sinkhole 2026-08-12, 4637 Rustic Ridge Road, Foxborough subdivision, Lowndes County, GA]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2026-08-12--alleged-sinkhole-rustic-ridge-road/many.jpg)
![[Ashburn sewage spill 2026-08-02, Clean Alapaha River 2026-08-08, but dirty Town of Alapaha, Clean Withlacoochee River 2026-08-12]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2026-08-12--wq/many.jpg)
![[Sabal Trail wants a second pipeline and bigger compressor stations, 2026-08-03]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2026-08-03--sabal-trail-doubled/fbmany.jpg)
![[2026-08-13: River up at Langdale Park Boat Ramp, Withlacoochee River, erosion on access road]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2026-08-13--langdale-park/fbmany.jpg)
![[Update: Clay Silt Runoff, St. Augustine Road into Withlacoochee River, Valdosta, GA 2026-08-07]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2026-08-07--clay-silt-runoff-update/fbmany.jpg)
![[Another week to send in your song, Until Wednesday, August 19, Suwannee Riverkeeper Songwriting Contest, Finals Saturday, September 12, 2026]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2026-08-13--deadline-extended-songwriting/fbmany.jpg)