Maybe a record for a Wednesday outing: 34 paddlers on Banks Lake to see the sun set and the Full Flower Blood Super Full Moon rise, and that red moon did not disappoint. Plus there were bats!
There are more pictures on the WWALS website:
https://wwals.net/pictures/2021-05-26–full-flower-blood-super-moon-pictures/
See also many facebook pictures by Bobby McKenzie and many others.
Next: in this series of full moon paddles is Continue reading
Update 2022-09-14: Bill Gates responds on MSNBC to my criticisms of his farm policies 2022-09-13.
Update 2021-06-18: Bill Gates, farms, rivers, springs (Vox story).
The story doesn’t say BMAP, but it does get at the heart of the problem the Basin Management Action Plans don’t actually solve, and Bill Gates did not, either.
April Glaser, NBC News, 8 June 2021, updated 9 June 2021, McDonald’s french fries, carrots, onions: all of the foods that come from Bill Gates farmland: Gates does not appear to count his farming investments as the nation’s largest farmland owner as part of his broader strategy to save the climate.
The reporter had never heard of Riverkeepers before, and now here’s one on NBC News.
Algae bloom
But some farmers whose land is adjacent to that of the Gateses have expressed disappointment that despite the couple’s wealth, they have not done more to preserve the environment. Quarterman also serves as the Suwannee Riverkeeper and advocates for conservation of the intricate network of springs and rivers in the region, where water from the swamps of Georgia flow into Florida before they release into the Gulf of Mexico. He said that this is where large tracts of rich farmland is used to raise livestock and grow many of the vegetables that end up in grocery aisles up and down the East Coast.
![[John Quarterman stands by the Withlacoochee River in Georgia. Matt Odom / for NBC News]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2021-06-08--gates-algae-nbc/210604-john-quarterman-mn-1635.jpg)
John Quarterman stands by the Withlacoochee River in Georgia. Matt Odom / for NBC NewsAll that farming has led to large water withdrawals from Florida’s aquifer system and requires fertilizer, which leaches through the ground into waterways, emptying nitrogen that has led to destructive algae blooms and severe loss of fish and marsh habitats.
In the video segment, she also mentions manatees.
He hoped Gates would have Continue reading
Update 2021-12-19: WWALS will hold a webinar about Rights to Clean Water, Air, Land, and a healthy environment at 7PM, March 10, 2022. Stay tuned for details.
Update 2021-12-18: A new Florida Right to Clean Water statewide petition will be available February 2, 2022, with the aim of getting the amendment on the November 2024 ballot.
Water as a human right will be on the Florida statewide ballot this fall, if enough Floridians sign the petition.
Plus wetlands protection, iconic species protection including the manatee, a ban on new or expanded toll roads, and a ban on captive wildlife hunting. As the website FL5.ORG says: Keep Florida Alive, Sign all 5.
For each petition, that’s 222,898 signatures to get judicial and financial review, and 891,589 to get it on the ballot.
It’s doable: there are more than 21 million Floridians.
![[Sign all 5: Right to Clean Water, Ban new toll roads, and more]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2021-05-20--fl5/many.jpg)
Sign all 5: Right to Clean Water, Ban new toll roads, and more
This one is the key for the work of Suwannee Riverkeeper. It would make it a lot easier to stop pipelines, mines, and Nestlé and other water withdrawal boondoogles.
CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT FULL TEXT Continue reading
Update 2022-08-07: Now with dog waiver.
Quite a few people pay the $10 non-member outing fee in cash at outings, and others pay at outings to become WWALS members.
To simplify keeping track of those things, we’ve added a column to the Event Sign In and Waiver for “Paid Today $”.
![[WWALS Event Sign In and Waiver 2021]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2021-05-31--event-sign-in/WWALS-Event-Sign-In-and-Waiver-2021-0001.jpg)
WWALS Event Sign In and Waiver 2021
PDF
You can also pay the $10 outing fee online:
https://wwals.net/outings/
If you want to become a member, it may be easier or clearer to use the Membership form:
https://pictures/2021-05-31–event-sign-in/WWALS-info-membership.pdf
Or you can join WWALS online:
https://wwals.net/donations/#join Continue reading
Update 2025-07-23: Pictures: Langdale Park Chainsaw Cleanup, Withlacoochee River 2025-07-22.
Sue Raffaele this Saturday donated an Old Town canoe to WWALS.
She said she wanted the canoe to have a home with a water-related nonprofit. Well, that’s WWALS! Continue reading
Update 2021-06-04: Clean Rivers 2021-06-03.
No rain has produced a quite low but clean Withlacoochee River. It’s fortunate WWALS testers sampled Wednesday and Thursday, so it looks like the Withlacoochee River remains about as clean as we’ve ever seen it. Happy boating, fishing, and swimming!
![[Bridges, Withlacoochee River, Swim Guide]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2021-05-27--wq/many.jpg)
Bridges, Withlacoochee River, Swim Guide
The last results we have from Valdosta are for upstream on Wednesday. They got slightly higher results at US 41 than did WWALS tester Bobby McKenzie, yet lower at GA 133. Continue reading
Bobby McKenzie has been busy planting water trail signs,
both road signs and at-water signs.
All these signs were paid for by a grant from the Georgia Department of Natural Resources (GA-DNR).
There was a cash match, so if you want to help with that, you can:
https://www.gagives.org/story/Wwalswatertrailsigns
We bought road signs from the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT). GDOT is planting road signs on state and federal highways, but WWALS has to put them on county roads, like Kinard Bridge Road. There are two sets of road signs for each location, for each direction. In this case, for Kinard Bridge Road Landig, the most upstream landing on the Little River in the Withlacoochee and Little River Water Trail (WLRWT). Continue reading
Update 2021-06-21: The real deadline is June 30, 2021.
Calling for pictures, personal experience, or other evidence of swimming or diving in lakes and rivers in the Suwannee River Basin, and evidence of investments in recreation.
![[Candidate Recreational waterways, Georgia, legend, Suwannee River Basin]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2021-05-12--ga-epd-designated-use-update/many.jpg)
Candidate Recreational waterways, Georgia, legend, Suwannee River Basin
For a waterway to be redesignated Recreational instead of Fishing, as we requested back in 2019, GA-EPD requires evidence of “Primary Contact Recreation,” which it says is “full immersion contact with water where there is significant risk of ingestion that includes, but is not limited to, swimming, diving, white water boating (class 3+), tubing, water skiing, and surfing.”
Recreational designation would mean tighter restrictions on contamination limits. That should be good for fish, fishing, people who swim, fish, and boat, and for eco-tourism.
Could everyone who has pictures, news reports, or other solid evidence of such activities in the Suwannee River Basin in Georgia please send them in. That’s in the Okefenokee Swamp, Suwannee River, Alapaha River, Banks Lake, Grand Bay, Withlacoochee River, or Little River.
Please use this form:
https://forms.gle/DipPgU2TP5atc2Rf9
If you have difficulties with that, please email them to wwalswatershed@gmail.com.
Also, please send any evidence of investments in recreation along any of these waterways, with dollar amounts, if you have them.
No rush. We thought we had until the end of June, but recently GA-EPD truncated the deadline to May 28th. That’s Friday of this week. GA-EPD has indicated that the end-of-week deadline may be flexible, but please send what you’ve got as fast as you can.
They also applied a bunch of criteria, some of which we were previously unaware of, and tossed out many stretches of the rivers. We asked for an appeal process, but they have not provided one. So feel free to send in pictures and other evidence about all stretches, and we’ll see what we can do with them.
The good news is that still on the candidate list for Recreational redesignation is all of the Okefenokee Swamp, the Suwannee River in Georgia, Banks Lake, and Grand Bay Creek and Trail within the Grand Bay WMA. Also included is most of the Alapaha River within the Alapaha River Water Trail, but not upstream from the Willacoochee River, and not for ten miles downstream from Lakeland.
But almost all of the Withlacoochee River is eliminated, except for Tiger Creek (at Spook Bridge) to the state line, and all of the Little River is eliminated. Also gone is Lake Irma, because Continue reading
Update 2021-05-28: No rain, clean Withlacoochee River 2021-05-27 .
Good news: all clear on the Little and Withlacoochee Rivers for this weekend! That’s as far as E. coli in numerous water quality samples. And the Alapaha River, too, from the one datapoint we have.
![[All clear, many samples, three rivers, Swim Guide]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2021-05-20--wq/many.jpg)
All clear, many samples, three rivers, Swim Guide
Thanks to WWALS tester Elizabeth Brunner for the GA 122 sites Tuesday: Folsom Bridge on the Little River, Hagan Bridge on the Withlacoochee River, and Lakeland Boat Ramp on the Alapaha River. For Thursday, thanks to Bobby McKenzie for testing Troupville Boat Ramp on the Little River and the pictures of the too-low Withlacoochee River at Langdale Park and GA 133. Thanks to Michael Bachrach and Jacob Bachrach in the bug suit for Knights Ferry, Nankin, and State Line Boat Ramps Thursday. Thanks to Gus Cleary for Cleary Bluff Monday and Thursday. Thanks to WWALS Testing Committee Chair Suzy Hall for wrangling review of results.
Thanks to Madison Health for State Line, Sullivan Launch, and FL 6 Thursday.
Valdosta was again asleep at the wheel.
Here’s the chart: Continue reading
“Nature should have its own voice…,
even though nature can’t speak.
Corporations can’t speak.
Nation states can’t speak.
They hire a counsel to speak for them.”
Christopher D. Stone said that in 2013, revisiting a legal theory he pioneered in 1972.
He died May 14, 2021, and there is a lengthy eulogy. Emily Langer, Washington Post, 2021-05-19, Christopher Stone, environmental scholar who championed fundamental rights of nature, dies at 83.
But first, hear the professor speak.
![[Christopher Stone Revisits
"Should Trees Have Standing?" -USC Gould School of Law 2021-07-30]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2021-05-19--christopher-stone-eulogy/hq720.jpg)
Christopher Stone Revisits “Should Trees Have Standing?”
Here is the video by USC Gould School of Law:
He describes a situation that seems eerily familiar:
Walt Disney Enterprises had proposed to develop Mineral King Valley. By develop meaning put in motels, restaurants, and things of that sort. The Sierra Club challenged the permit, permitting this to go on. And the case went up to the Ninth Circuit. And the Forest Service said, look, you don’t have standing, you the Sierra Club don’t have standing. Maybe this is a wrong to issue the permit, but you are not injured, you as a club are not injured.
That scenario is familiar for two reasons.
Early on, Walt Disney World was intended to be in Lowndes County, Georgia, as recounted by numerous local people here who remember when it happened. This actually makes more sense as a location than Orlando, because it would have been next to I-75 and not far from I-10, with easier road access from more of the U.S. population than Orlando. It didn’t happen because Continue reading
![[Banners, paddlers, moonrise]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2021-05-26--full-flower-blood-super-moon-pictures/many.jpg)
![[Donation of an Old Town canoe]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2021-05-29--new-canoe/many.jpg)
![[Kinard Bridge Road, Adel-Moultrie, andAntioch Road Landings, Cook County Boat Ramp, Folsom Bridge, Hagan Bridge, and Pafford's Landings]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2021-05-21--water-trail-signs-planted/many.jpg)