That was a fun cleanup, down at Five Holes, a chain of linked swallets on the Suwannee River. We walked up from Suwannee River Campsites.
Five Holes is in Suwannee River State Park. Back then we needed permission and got it (thanks, Craig Liney). We hear it’s now public access. Update 2022-05-28: Actually, Five Holes is closed for renovation. However, we have permission from the Park Manager for an outing there in August; stay tuned. Continue reading
Update 2022-05-01: Florida petition online now for Right to Clean and Healthy Waters 2022-05-01.
Five of us spoke about the new Florida Right to Clean and Healthy Waters (RTCW) statewide petition for a constitutional amendment. We said saying extraordinary problems demand extraordinary solutions, water supports everything, RTCW is needed like the First Amendment, flow and nitrates in the Santa Fe River and springs need RTCW, and drinking water needs RTCW.
That press conference at Poe Springs Park on the Santa Fe River was covered by CBS4 News out of Gainesville. Here is the TV news story, WWALS video of the speakers, and the full text of the petition amendment.
Julianne Amaya, CBS4, Gainesville, Florida, Thursday, April 21, 2022, Petition calls for ‘rights to clean and healthy waters’ in Florida, Continue reading
Update 2022-03-15: Due to high water, replaced by Hike: Bell Springs to Big Shoals, Suwannee River 2022-03-19.
Join us for a geologic education paddle through millions of years, on a scenic two-mile stretch of the Suwannee River. Led by Practicing Geologist Dennis J. Price of Hamilton County, Florida, we will pass White Sulphur Spring, the first Floridan Aquifer Spring encountered on the Suwannee River.
Once you land, you can go on up to the Wild Azalea Festival! The festival is conveniently located at the corner of Spring and Bridge Street, 10499 Spring St, White Springs, FL 32096.
![[US 41 Bridge past FL 136 Bridge, Suwannee River, White Springs, Florida]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2022-03-19--white-springs-bridge-to-bridge-suwannee-river/map.jpg)
US 41 Bridge past FL 136 Bridge, Suwannee River, White Springs, Florida
Dennis Price explains, “For millions of years, Florida was a limestone platform not connected to the now North American continent. For eons the limestone bed would emerge, the bed surface would erode then sink again, several times. Each time the limestone would build again with a different set of fossils. The last limestone bed to deposit was the Suwannee Limestone. Florida thru this time was separated from the continent by the Suwannee Straits, similar to the Florida straits separating Florida from Cuba. Erosional sediments from the continent was slowly filling the Straits and when finally filled, sediments began covering the limestone that was Florida. These sediments are known as the Hawthorne formation today.”
When: Gather 8 AM, launch 8:30 AM, end 10 AM, Saturday, March 19, 2022
Put In:
Suwannee River Wayside Park Ramp @ US 41.
From White Springs, travel south on US 41 to the river; the ramp is on the south side in the town park, in Hamilton County.
This is where the Suwannee River Wilderness Trail officially starts,
although the WWALS web pages and map include the entire river up into Georgia and the Okefenokee Swamp.
GPS: 30.3255, -82.739167 ,
Take Out:
Stephen Foster Folk Culture Center State Park Launch, 11016 Lillian Saunders Drive/U.S. Highway 41, White Springs FL 32096.
$5.00 per vehicle (up to 8 people) State Park entry fee.
White Sulphur Springs is after the second bridge but before the takeout. It was one of the first tourist attractions in Florida. Nowadays you can visit the empty bathhouse, see the trickle of water coming out, and read what Dennis wrote: The NFRWSP’s job is to figure out how to increase water levels in the aquifer. –Dennis J. Price 2016-12-12.
Bring: the usual personal flotation device, boat, paddles, food, drinking water, warm clothes, and first aid kit. Also trash pickers and trash bags: every WWALS outing is also a cleanup. Mosquitoes can be bad at dusk so come prepared.
Free: This outing is free to WWALS members, and $10 (ten dollars) for non-members.
You can pay the $10 at the outing, or online:
https://wwals.net/outings
We recommend you support the work of WWALS by
becoming a WWALS member today!
https://wwals.net/donations/#join
Actually, there is a US 41 Little Alapaha River bridge, and it may even be historic. So that’s five bridges across the Little Alapaha River, four above the Swallet, and one below, before its Confluence with the Alapaha River.
![[Composite US 41 Little Alapaha River Bridge]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2022-02-07--little-alapaha-river/many41.jpg)
Composite US 41 Little Alapaha River Bridge
The US 41 bridge is the first bridge listed by bridgereports.com for Hamilton County, mislabled as “US-41 (SR-6 & 25) over ALAPAHA RIVER OVERFLOW”. But at 30.52389, -83.01550, it’s much closer to the Little Alapaha River.
At more than a mile east of the Alapaha River, that’s a bit far to be overflow. Continue reading
WWALS sent EPA some comments on groundwater, which is very important here above the Floridan Aquifer in south Georgia and north Florida.
WWALS also signed on to comments by Waterkeeper Alliance and SELC, but SELC wrote almost nothing about groundwater, and there was more to say than was in the WKA comments. Those other comments are on the WWALS website.
The WWALS comments should appear on regulations.gov, Docket number EPA-HQ-OW-2021-0602, with Comment Tracking Number kzd-8bdc-p6xf, after EPA finishes reviewing it. Here they are in PDF and inline below.
![[Dead River Sink, Alapaha River Rise, WWALS Letter to EPA]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2022-02-07--wwals-epa-groundwater/many.jpg)
Dead River Sink, Alapaha River Rise, WWALS Letter to EPA
Update 2022-02-09: US 41 Little Alapaha River Bridge.
During Sunday’s paddle on the last stretch of the Alapaha River, people got curious about a distributary which turned out to be the Little Alapaha River absorbing water from the Alapaha River.
![[Source, Bridge, Swallet, Confluence: Little Alapaha River]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2022-02-07--little-alapaha-river/many.jpg)
Source, Bridge, Swallet, Confluence: Little Alapaha River
Here is a bit more about the Little Alapaha River: map, Source, Bridges (one wooden), Confluence, where two days ago we found the Alapaha River running into the Little Alapaha River as a distributary. Continue reading
Update 2022-02-07: Little Alapaha River, Swallet, Bridges, Source, Mouth 2022-02-07.
Cold but well worth it, said the nineteen paddlers let by Shirley Kokidko on the WWALS paddle from US 41 on the Alapaha River to the Suwannee River. Plus a distributary that turns out to be the Little Alapaha River. And the Alapaha River Rise, where Alapaha River water from the Dead River Sink comes back up 20 miles and three days later, slightly upstream on the Suwannee River.
![[US 41 Bridge, Little Alapaha River, Suwannee River, Alapaha River Rise]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2022-02-05--last-stretch-alapaha-pictures/many.jpg)
US 41 Bridge, Little Alapaha River, Suwannee River, Alapaha River Rise
Here are 360-degree views every 10 seconds, taken with a GOPRO 360. Continue reading
Floridians, please go to the Florida Department of Transportation’s Northern
Turnpike Extension web page and tell FDOT we don’t need any more toll roads.
Here’s where you can say No Build:
https://floridasturnpike.com/turnpike-projects/featured-projects/northern-turnpike-extension/
Doesn’t matter that No Build isn’t listed as an option. Tell them anyway.
Please also ask your state legislative delegation to stop this boondogle.
This new push for an unnecessary toll road is ignoring previous county and city resolutions against it. So ask them to pass another one, or a new one if they didn’t before. Here’s a draft resulution by the No Roads to Ruin coalition (Suwannee Riverkeeper is a member of NRTR).
Dunnellon already passed a resolution on Monday, December 21, 2021. Continue reading
SB 100 didn’t stop one of the M-CORES projects: a toll road up US 19 across the Suwannee River to Jefferson County connecting to Thomasville, Georgia.
Starting tonight are three meetings about the current incarnation, which aims to run from FL 19 at Wildwood through the horse country of Marion County past Dunnellon into Levy County past Chiefland, stopping (for now) just short of the Suwannee River. That’s already a sizeable swath of the springs heartland of Florida.
But don’t expect it to stop there: SB 100 authorized it to go “to a logical and appropriate terminus as determined by the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT)”
So please attend online or by telephone or in person. Otherwise, they’ll say nobody objected.
Tuesday Dec 7, 2021, 5:30-7:30 pm, FDOT Public Kickoff Meeting Continue reading
Like me, you may be wondering what is going on at Suwannee Springs since I first reported on the debris there after the July 2020 flooding. In January 2021, the answer was SRWMD would finishing removing the debris “in a few weeks, not months.”
Unfortunately, then there was repeated flooding, and in between floods the COVID-19 pandemic interfered.
So yesterday I asked again, and today Edwin McCook took this picture:
As you can see, the river water is close to the top of the spring wall.
Edwin says once the water recedes, the Suwannee River Water Management District (SRWMD) will continue planning to remove the debris. They had already reviewed options back in January, so they have a leg up on that planning.
More when I know more.
Meanwhile, the Suwannee Springs USGS gauge reads 53.86′.
That’s well below flood stage, which is 60′. However, you can see by the picture that working inside the spring wall would be difficult with the water that high. Continue reading
![[Swallets, Suwannee River]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2018-02-10--five-holes/many.jpg)
![[RTCW, Poe Springs]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2022-04-21--poe-springs-fl-rtcw-pictures/many.jpg)
![[Routes with No Build sign]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2022-01-13--fdot-toll-road/many.jpg)
![[Map and Meetings]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2021-12-07--northern-turnpike-extension/many.jpg)
![[Flooding on the Suwannee River at Suwannee Springs on 9/23/2021. Suwannee; Springs gauge 53.86'. Photo: Edwin McCook, SRWMD]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2021-09-23--suwannee-springs/AP9230005.jpg)