“If you see it, it’ll break your heart. In a deadfall it all gathers,” Valdosta Mayor Scott James said to me on his radio show about trash in Sugar Creek, just above the Withlacoochee River, where it washes downstream into Florida and the Suwannee River, onwards to the Gulf. We discussed how the problem has been documented by the City of Valdosta since 2010, and some inexpensive solutions.
Here is video I took for WWALS of that August 12, 2021, radio show. Continue reading
Update 2021-08-20: Odd results, but mostly clean rivers 2021-08-19.
Madison Health yesterday lifted its Withlacoochee River Bacterial Advisory of June 22 after it got good water quality results at the state line for Tuesday, August 17, 2021. Apparently the spotty heavy rains over the weekend and Monday did not wash much E. coli down Sugar Creek or Okapilco Creek.
WWALS and Valdosta have gotten many good results in between, but Madison Health only goes by its own tests. Recent results from Valdosta are also good.
So, happy boating, swimming, and fishing in the Withlacoochee River!
WWALS testers are collecting samples today, so we can report results tomorrow. Continue reading
Valdosta did not bother to send the PR to WWALS, Gmail hid it under Promotions, but we’re publishing it anyway.
It’s good to sometimes see good news from them.
This lift station is on the west side of the YMCA, slightly uphill from the Withlacoochee River, and across the Norfolk Southern Railroad from Sugar Creek.
![[Gornto Road Lift Station]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2021-08-16--vld-gornto-lift-station-generator/many.jpg)
Gornto Road Lift Station: background by Valdosta, sign picture by John S. Quarterman in 2017.
This Gornto Road Pump Station is not the one that spilled in December 2019. That one is upstream on Sugar Creek by Remerton. Although the problem then was not equipment failure, I have asked the City of Valdosta what their plans are for a similar generator at their Remer Lane Pump Station.
Subject: Press Release – Utilities Department Installs Generator at Gornto Lift Station
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 16, 2021
Release #08-16-113Utilities Department Installs Generator at Gornto Lift Station
Continue reading
Update 2021-09-19: Advisory lifted, Withlacoochee River 2021-08-18.
Bad water quality for Thursday at US 41 on the Withlacoochee River, presumably because of the almost 3 and a half inches of rain just upstream at Skipper Bridge. However, still below the 1,000 cfu/100 mL alert limit, and all downstream results were below the 410 one-time test limit. So apparently no bad E. coli washed out of Valdosta’s Sugar Creek. That’s good news for tomorrow morning’s Pop-up Sugar Creek Cleanup.
Plus, since Troupville Boat Ramp at the bottom of the Little River tested zero, that water should dilute anything coming down the Withlacoochee. So chances are the good results for Thursday farther downstream will hold.
Happy fishing, boating, and swimming!
Of course rains from Tropical Storm Fred could change things rapidly, but that’s what we know now.
![[Chart, upstream plates, Withlacoochee River, Swim Guide 2021-08-12]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2021-08-12--wq/many.jpg)
Chart, upstream plates, Withlacoochee River, Swim Guide 2021-08-12
Despite significant rain Wednesday on both sides of Brooks County (Dixie on the west and Withlacoochee River @ US 84 on the east), apparently nothing bad came down Okapilco Creek, and Knights Ferry, Nankin, and State Line Boat Ramps all tested good for Thursday. Continue reading
Come help us clean up the Sugar Creek logjam for a fourth time before Tropical Storm Fred comes in.
Most of the trash from Hightower Branch at St. Augustine Road, no doubt plus much other trash, has already washed down Sugar Creek and is at the usual logjam. Let’s get it before it washes into the Withlacoochee River, then down the Suwannee to the Gulf.
When: Gather 9 AM, launch 9:15 AM, end 12 PM, Saturday, August 14, 2021
Put In: Salty Snapper Landing, a private slope to Sugar Creek, below the Salty Snapper parking lot, 1405 Gornto Rd, Valdosta, GA 31602
GPS: 30.862126, -83.31839
Take Out: Salty Snapper Landing
Bring: Cleanup materials will be provided, but if you’ve got a trash picker, bring it along.
Free: This outing is free to everyone!
We recommend you support the work of WWALS by
becoming a WWALS member today!
https://wwals.net/donations/#join
This cleanup is part of the Georgia Rivers Alive cleanups.
We are still talking to Valdosta about trash traps. And we are working on dealing with the problem at its sources. Those include not only these heaps of trash, but also the companies that make all this single-use garbage. We will probably need your help with those things, too, before long.
Meanwhile, if you find any trash heaps like this, please report them through Valdosta Click ‘n’ Fix and let WWALS know, too.
![[St. Augustine Road, Sugar Creek, Withlacoochee River]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2021-07-12--trash-st-augustine-road/map-st-augustine-road-withlacoochee-river.jpg)
St. Augustine Road, Sugar Creek, Withlacoochee River
on the WWALS
map of the Withlacoochee and Little River Water Trail.
Update 2021-10-07: A trash source success: parking lot on St. Augustine Road, Valdosta.
A month ago Bobby McKenzie found a motherlode of trash. He went upstream on Sugar Creek, then Hightower Creek, across St. Augustine Road, to the parking lot that contains Cook Out, Chick-fil-A, and Steak and Shake.
He reported it to Valdosta Code Enforcement. Since then, we’ve been having some fruitful conversations with the city and with business owners. More on that later.
![[Trash heap, St. Augustine Road, Sugar Creek, Withlacoochee River]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2021-07-12--trash-st-augustine-road/many.jpg)
Trash heap, St. Augustine Road, Sugar Creek, Withlacoochee River
From: bobby mckenzie
To: bcorbitt@valdostacity.com
Sent: Tuesday, July 13, 2021, 11:17:14 AM EDT
Subject: Massive Valdosta Litter Source FoundGood Morning,
I would like to report 2 locations within Valdosta for being a significant contributor to a recurring litter problem to Sugar Creek. Both locations can be reached on St Augustine Road. One location is the far south end of the parking lot that is home to Hobby Lobby, Tractor Supply and fast food places Cook Out and Steak and Shake. Continue reading
Update 2021-07-23: Bad Upstream, Good Downstream, Withlacoochee River 2021-07-22.
Not just two, but seven Valdosta July 7th sewage spills finally showed up in the GA-EPD Sewage Spills Report yesterday.
That’s ten working days later, or almost two calendar weeks after they happened during Tropical Storm Elsa. Even Quitman is usually only one week late filing such reports.
However, unlike the vague “800 block” verbiage in Valdosta’s press release of July 8th, these reports have precise street addresses.
And these reports say which waterbody was affected. The “800 Block of E Brookwood Dr.”, from which I could not tell whether it went west into Onemile Branch, Sugar Creek, and the Withlacoochee River, turns out to be “836 E. Brookwood Dr”, and it went into “Knights Creek”, which runs into Mud Swamp Creek, the Alapahoochee River, and the Alapaha River.
So I’ll go back and revise our WWALS map. Maybe from now on Valdosta will report spills with this kind of precision and save everybody trouble.
![[Seven Valdosta Spills, GA-EPD Sewage Spills Report parsed by WWALS]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2021-07-20--valdosta-spills-ga-epd/spills.jpg)
Seven Valdosta Spills, GA-EPD Sewage Spills Report parsed by WWALS,
see
the WWALS website.
Also maybe Valdosta will finally do something to Continue reading
It’s surprisingly lovely, Sugar Creek. It has a great beach, stretches where birds are far louder than traffic, some shoals (thanks to a Valdosta sewer main), and it’s wider in spots than the Alapahoochee River,
It’s a shame it’s always gotten trash and sewage.
Here’s what we’re doing, and how you can help with that and the rest of what needs to be done.
![[Beautiful Sugar Creek, but trashed]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2021-07-10--sugar-creek-cleanup/creek.jpg)
Beautiful Sugar Creek, but trashed
Meanwhile, Austin, Texas, is turning its urban Waller Creek into Waterloo Greenway of linked parks and trails down to the Colorado River. Continue reading
Our host, Sementha Mathews, of Turner Center Art Park, asked us to extend the deadline one more week. So we did, to July 21, 2021!
Send in your song now through this entry form:
https://forms.gle/tWrqas7qPWDKgpqF6
Yes, we have some songs. But, we want more!
Our most recent songwriter wrote his song yesterday and sent it in.
Come on, songwriters, make the competition fierce for that $300 cash First Prize, with $300 equivalent in studio time!
And for the $50 prize for best song from within the Suwannee River Basin, and $50 for best song from without.
And for the plaques for best in each song genre.
Everybody else, tickets will be on sale soon, to listen to our two headliners, Scott Perkins and his band Little Perks in Paradise from Atlanta, and Valdosta’s own Dirty Bird and the Flu. Each of the three judges will also play, even before we get to the finalists and the judging. With food by Hibachi Hwy and drinks by The Pour House.
Here’s Scott Perkins singing his song, Hoochie Coochie for the Withlacoochee, in the 2020 Contest:
Scott Perkins singing Hoochie Coochie for the Withlacoochee, Suwannee Riverkeeper Songwriting 2020
Videos by Phillip Plumlee and John S. Quarterman for WWALS Watershed Coalition (WWALS),
Turner Center Art Park, Valdosta, Georgia, August 22, 2020.
Much more about the Contest is here, including song submission form,
contest Rules, and, soon, tickets:
wwals.net/pictures/2021-08-21–songwriting/
Georgia Beer Company is back as our top tier sponsor. We have more sponsors, and we can use more!
To encourage more songwriters, here’s a facebook event. But remember to send in your song through the entry form!
About WWALS: Continue reading
Update 2021-07-14: Valdosta Manhole Rehabilitation lists 2021-07-13.
“Doesn’t look good,” WWALS member Scotti Jay summed up the situation at the Wainwright Drive Onemile Branch manhole that spilled yet again in Tropical Storm Elsa. “No lime was put out.”
![[Caution, Sewage Spill, Manhole ajar, Wainwright Drive, Onemile Branch, Valdosta, GA]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2021-07-08--wainwright-drive-sugar-creek-manhole/many.jpg)
Caution, Sewage Spill, Manhole ajar, Wainwright Drive, Onemile Branch, Valdosta, GA
This is a manhole at 1212 Wainwright Drive, where Valdosta, Georgia, spilled 37,500 gallons of raw sewage on July 7, 2021, during Tropical Storm Elsa. That’s the same place Valdosta has spilled numerous times before, listing it as 1208 Wainwright Drive, or “1200 block”, including 51,800 gallons 2018-12-14, 166,275 gallons 2018-12-03, 9,800 gallons 2017-01-22, and 90,500 gallons 2016-02-04. That’s a total of 355,875 gallons spilled at that one location.
Is a third of a million gallons of raw sewage not enough for Valdosta to pay attention and fix that location? Will it require a million gallons?
Back on November 11, 2017, Valdosta Utilities Director Darryl Muse joined WWALS on a cleanup of Onemile Branch, including at the bridge in these pictures. He said they were trying to get the number of sewer spills down to zero.
Yet a year later at a Valdosta City Council meeting and then at a SRWMD Board meeting, Director Muse neglected to mention the 218,075 gallons spilled at that location alone in December 2018. In both cases I had to stand up and correct him in public.
SRWMD Board member Virginia Sanchez noted, “You don’t want to swim in a little sewage versus a lot of sewage either. Both of them are bad. A spill is bad.”
When I asked him another year later during one of the Florida dozen-county Valdosta sewage Task Force meetings with the Valdosta City Council when Wainwright Drive would be fixed, Darryl Muse did not recall that location.
Still years more later, Scotti Jay last week observed, “You would be amazed at all the incompetent work being done around the Wainwright location. With no effort whatsoever towards improving the faulty, damaged manhole. Absolutely nothing.”
![[Radio 2021, Plan 2010]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2021-08-12--scott-james-trash-problem-video/many.jpg)
![[Lifted, Chart, Swim Guide]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2021-08-18--wq-advisory-lifted/many.jpg)
![[Canoe, floating trash, map]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2021-08-14--cleanup-sugar-creek/many.jpg)