WWALS Watershed Coalition, the Waterkeeper® Alliance Affiliate for the upper Suwannee River, will have a table at the
Suwannee River Roots Revival
at Spirit of the Suwannee Music Park, 13-16 October 2016.
That’s starting 4PM tomorrow, Thursday October 13th.
This is the festival we wrote has roots going back to the 1950s in the Suwannee River Jamboree radio show.
If you’d like to help with the WWALS table, Continue reading
Update 2019-03-19: The google map now includes Florida Southeast Connection (FSC) and FPL’s Martin County to Riviera Beach (MR-RV) pipeline to the sea, which FPL in 2018 got FPSC and FERC to roll into FSC. See also Stop FERC Shirking LNG Oversight.
Update 2016-12-13: The google map now includes the Sabal Trail path digitized for all of Georgia and to the end of the line in Florida south of Orlando.
Update 2016-11-29: In the google map, extended the Sabal Trail alignment maps localized by LAKE for Mitchell, Colquitt, Brooks, and Lowndes Counties, Georgia, and Hamilton, Suwannee, and Gilchrist Counties, Florida to just north of Bell, FL, plus on the crowdsourcing map, WWALS aerials of Gilchrist County.
Update 2016-11-03: Added to the google map digitized path and maps for Gilchrist, Alachua, and part of Levy Counties, FL.
Update 2016-10-31: Added to the google map: Aerials: Suwannee, Ocholockonee, Withlacoochee, Santa Fe Rivers, Okapilco Creek, Sabal Trail Moultrie CY3-6 @ WWALS Southwings 2016-10-22.
Update 2016-10-30: The google map now has all Sabal Trail’s alignment maps from 7 April 2016 linked in for (part of Gilchrist 2016-11-29), Suwannee and Hamilton Counties, FL and Lowndes, Brooks, Colquitt, and Mitchell Counties, GA. Aerial pictures from the WWALS Southwings flight of October 22nd 2016 are also linked in, starting with US 84 HDD Withlacoochee River and US 129 HDD Santa Fe River.
Update 2016-09-14: All 527 alignment maps Sabal Trail filed with FERC in April 2016, in small, big, huge, and PDF formats, courtesy of Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE).
Update 2016-09-23: Added Depressions within 1 mile of Sabal Trail in Hamilton, Madison, and Suwannee Counties, Florida. The pipeline path doesn’t go through Madison County, but it comes closer than a mile, and not even two miles from Madison Blue Spring.
These maps show the path Sabal Trail is gouging its fracked methane pipeline through south Georgia and north Florida, with comparisons to some geological features, including Okapilco Creek, Withlacoochee River, Suwannee River, Suwannacoochee Spring, Falmouth Spring, the Cathedral Cave System, and numerous karstic features, some of them sinkholes.
This digitizaiton is thanks to Continue reading
This old time radio show, Suwannee River Jamboree Radio Program, has some names you probably have heard of, others no doubt famous at the time, others more local, and others, well enthusiastic.
Welcome to the Florida Folklife Collection podcast series from the State Library and Archives of Florida.
In this feature we’ll take a nostalgic look at old time Florida radio with an original broadcast of the Suwannee River Jamboree preview. The Suwannee River Jamboree was broadcast from WNER out of Live Oak, Florida. The program ran from 1952 to 1962 and was billed as the deep south country music show from the heart of the Suwannee River Country.
This broadcast, believed to be from 1958, was created from a tape reel transfer of one of the original transcription discs from the radio program. So, let’s sit back and adjust our dial for 1958 and the Suwannee River Jamboree preview, the show’s about to start.
Follow the link to listen. Continue reading
The Bell brothers, Flint Riverkeeper, and John S. Quarterman of WWALS
all against Sabal Trail in an Atlanta publication.
Come on down to the Suwannee River Tuesday near Jasper, FL
or to the Withlacoochee River between Quitman and Valdosta, GA 9AM Saturday Sep. 17th to see
for yourself what we’re protecting and to say your piece on video.
Gloria Tatum, Atlanta Progressive News, 12 September 2016, Proposed SabaL Gas Pipeline runs through aquifer, wetlands, sinkhole territory, Continue reading
They didn’t even bother to fill in the year on the date, and “File with original letter”. Here’s what the Corps wrote (PDF) in response to Madison County’s request for a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) about Sabal Trail.
File with
original letterDEPARTMENT or THE ARMY
JACKSONVILLE DISTRICT CORPS 0F ENGINEERS
POST OFFICE BOX 4970
JACKSONVILLE, FLORIDA 32232-0019July 29, 201
Reply to attention of
Regulatory Division
North Permits Branch
Jacksonville Permits Section
SAJ-2013-03030Madison Board of County Commissioners
Attn: Mr. Brian Kauffman, County Coordinator
Post Office Box 539
Madison, Florida 32341Dear Mr. Kauffman:
Please accept this correspondence as Continue reading
This request for a Supplementary Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS), mentioning Madison Blue Spring in particular, was sent July 18th or 19th 2016, one copy to each of the Corps addresses. (PDF). That’s the fourth Florida county to make such a request, after Hamilton, Suwanee, and Marion Counties. The Corps already responded to Madison County.
Board of County Commissioners
Madison County, Florida
Jacksonville Permits Section
U.S.A.C.E. Regulatory Division
Attn: Mark R. Evans,
Senior Project Manager,
Post Office Box 4970
Jacksonville, Florida 32232Commander, U.S.A.C.E.,
Savannah District
Attn: Mr. Terry C. Kobs
1104 N. Westover Boulevard, Unit 9
Albany, GA 31707U.S.A.C.E.
Mobile District Reg. Div.
Montgomery Field Office
Attn: Mr. James S. Cherry II
605 Maple Street
Building 1429 Room 105
Maxwell AFB, AL 36112-6017
Norman C. Bay, Chairman Continue reading
Sabal Trail offers $60,000 to a library in Suwannee County, the only county through which every path ever proposed by Sabal Trail would pass.
The same Florida county where
another hydrogeology report says Sabal Trail’s 36-inch fracked methane pipeline drilling would risk springs, caverns,
the Suwannee River, and everyone’s drinking water in the Floridan Aquifer.
If you think $60,000 or $60 million or $3 billion is not enough for that hazard to our water and property rights, you can come and say so.
When: 6PM Tuesday July 5th 2016
where: Judicial Annex
218 Parshley St. SW
Live Oak, FL 32064
Event: facebook
What: On the agenda for the Suwannee Board of County Commissioners: Continue reading
Jasper, Florida, July 1st 2016 — Another independent
professional geologist reveals more omissions and discrepancies in pipeline company reports and faults in federal oversight of the Sabal Trail pipeline:
groundflow actually goes the other way,
drilling under a river will change water
flow in the Floridan Aquifer, and there is very high risk of
sinkhole collapse. An indigenous Floridian commissioned this scientific report to protect his mother, the living earth.
This geological report provides compelling additional reasons for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE)
to open a new process to evaluate this and other new information.
Bobby C. Billie, one of the Clan Leaders and Spiritual Leader, Council of the Original Miccosukee Simanolee Nation Aboriginal Peoples, asked professional geologist and hydrologist Peter Schreuder, P.G. to conduct investigations at the proposed Sabal Trail crossing under the Suwannee River from Hamilton County and under U.S. 90 in close proximity to the Falmouth Cave System in Suwannee County.
This Schreuder report concludes about the Floridan Aquifer System (FAS): Continue reading
See press release, New hydrology report exposes Sabal Trail pipeline risk to Floridan Aquifer, and this report is also available in PDF.
Schreuder, Inc. Water-Resources & Environmental Consultants
Directional Horizontal Drilling (HDD) under the
Suwannee River
At Suwannee River State ParkHydrogeologic Issues of Concern
In any review of potential environmental consequences related to the use of Horizontal Directional Drilling (HDD), both the geotechnical and scientific communities can be expected to raise serious concerns when such drilling is done around karst areas, and in regions which over lie the Floridan Aquifer System (FAS), which includes the Upper Floridan Aquifer, and the karstic geologic subsurface features at the location proposed in Continue reading
Why does a farm need an industrial wastewater facility permit? WWALS got an email alert from FDEP about such a permit request for Suwannee Farms LLC on June 11th. A bit of digging shows it’s apparently now owned by Bill Gates, along with many more nearby acres in center pivot agriculture.
Permit: Water – Industrial Wastewater Facility Permit
Project Name: SUWANNE FARMS LLC
Location Id: FLA470031
Location Name: Suwanne Farms LLC
County: Suwannee
Application Number: FLA470031-005For further information, please contact the Northeast District permitting office in Jacksonville at (904) 256-1700
Suwannee Farms has its own Continue reading