Tag Archives: Suwannee River Basin

Spills reported to GA-EPD Atlanta, 2018-11-13 through 2018-12-03

Thanks again to GA-EPD Atlanta for rapid response to a request for an update on spills reported to them. They note that some spills due to the recent rains, including Valdosta’s weekend multi-million-gallon spill, have not yet been reported to Atlanta.

This update does include a spill of raw sewage by the city of Quitman. I wonder, though, was it really 2 gallons? Or did they mean in units of thousands or millions? Also, Quitman is in the Suwannee River Basin, not the Ochlockonee River Basin.

Last two weeks, Spreadsheet
The past two weeks extracted from the GA-EPD update, sorted by begin date, and with the River Basin column shifted left for visibility.

Posting this data enables some debugging of the data such as Continue reading →

Low water in Suwannee River Basin with Hurricane Michael 2018-10-11

Thursday morning, the day after Hurricane Michael passed by to the west and north of the Suwannee River Basin, only Gopher River and the New River gauge near Lake Butler were in Action Stage.

Gulf to Atlantic, After Gauges

Does a place that nearly floods even when a hurricane is a hundred miles west of it seem like a good location for the HPS II phosphate mine, in Union and Bradford Counties, Florida ? Continue reading →

Video: Emmett Carlisle singing Suwannee Harmony at SuwRK Songwriting Contest

Emmett Carlisle, from Gainesville, Florida, just outside the Suwannee River Basin, sang “Suwannee Harmony,” and won a prize for Best Florida Folk, at the First Annual Suwannee Riverkeeper Songwriting Contest, Saturday, June 23, 2018, at the Salty Snapper, Valdosta, GA.

Emmett Carlisle
Emmett Carlisle (Bret Wagenhorst)

As he sang, “just like the river, together we flow.”

Here’s the video: Continue reading →

Video: Hollin Gammage singing Little River at SuwRK Songwriting Contest

Hollin Gammage, from McMinnville, Tennessee, outside the Suwannee River Basin, sang “Little River,” and won a prize for Best Americana, at the First Annual Suwannee Riverkeeper Songwriting Contest, Saturday, June 23, 2018, at the Salty Snapper, Valdosta, GA.

Hollin Gammage
Hollin Gammage (photo by Bret Wagenhorst)

I think we’ve all been “Half crazy til I hit the water.”

Here’s the video: Continue reading →

Video: Jay Jourden singing Save Our Suwannee at SuwRK Songwriting Contest

Jay Jourden sang “Save Our Suwannee” and won a prize, at the First Annual Suwannee Riverkeeper Songwriting Contest, Saturday, June 23, 2018, at the Salty Snapper, Valdosta, GA.

Jay Jourden
Jay Jourden (photo by Bret Wagenhorst)

If there’s any song other than Stephen Foster’s that anybody knows about the Suwannee, it’s usually this one, which is a call to action:

The water table’s going down, cricks are running dry….
They say we need more power, there’s more rain in the sky….

But where’s that water going, and who says it’s so..??..
Somebody’s got the answers that we’d all like to know..!!..

Here’s the video: Continue reading →

Dave Pharr singing Care For the Waters @ Suwannee Riverkeeper Songwriting Contest 2018-06-23

David B. Pharr sang this Traditional Folk song, “Care For the Waters,” at the First Annual Suwannee Riverkeeper Songwriting Contest, Saturday, June 23, 2018, at the Salty Snapper, Valdosta, GA.

David B. Pharr

As he sang about the Suwannee and the other rivers: “And you may cross my bridges, But you’ll never get over me.”

Here’s the video: Continue reading →

Georgia Adopt-A-Stream

First in a series of Where is the existing water quality data? In Georgia, it’s in Georgia Adopt-A-Stream’s database, online maps, charts, etc. And Adopt-A-Stream is not just for Georgia anymore.

Suwannee River Basin, Maps

The data record for the Suwannee River Basin is embarrassingly empty.

Suwannee River Basin, Maps

TN, SC, GA, FL, Maps

However, it turns out there’s data in Tennessee, South Carolina, and in Florida way down to Key West. So Georgia Adopt-A-Stream is a candidate for keeping Suwannee Riverkeeper data. Of which there turns out to be quite a bit already for Florida, Continue reading →

Global Croplands, Suwannee River Basin

You can see on these maps that the Suwannee River Basin is massively agricultural, except where it’s forestry or swamp or other wetlands. Thus it’s no wonder that most of the nitrate runoff problem here is due to agriculture, as shown in the Basin Management Action Plans (BMAPs).

Basin Wide, Maps

WWALS Science Committee Chair Tom Potter points to this Global Croplands map to illustrate the BMAP issues. The question remains of whether agricultural best management practices as advocated in the recent BMAP meetings will be sufficient to deal with the problem, considering they haven’t decreased it in the past decade.

Global Croplands About: Continue reading →

Lead TMDL Evaluation for Three Segments in the Suwannee River Basin 2016-06-01

Through November 24, 2017, public comment is open about lead in our Georgia watersheds, in a new proposed Total Maximum Daily Load Evaluation.

Map: Streams Not Supporting Designated, Lead Criteria Violation

Map: Streams Not Supporting Designated, Lead Criteria Violation

Georgia EPD, Proposed TMDLs, 29 September 2017, NOTICE OF AVAILABILITY OF REVISED TOTAL MAXIMUM DAILY LOADS FOR WATERS AND POLLUTANTS OF CONCERN IN THE STATE OF GEORGIA, Continue reading →

Florida Public Notice of Pollution

While Alabama is thinking about it (actually, Alabama already does it) and Georgia requires an open records request with slow response (since 2018-12-21 Georgia now posts spills),

Florida has already required and is publishing timely notices of spills, and more recently a map of the most recent 30 days of spills!

Among them, surprisingly few in the Suwannee River Basin from Hurricane Irma: three in Baker and Bradford Counties from The Chemours Company, and two from Camp Blanding.

Florida, FDEP
Follow this link for the interactive google map.

Daniel H. Thompson, Lexology, 4 May 2017, Florida Legislature Passes “Public Notice of Pollution Act” Continue reading →