Tag Archives: Suwannee River Water Trail

Suwannee River Water Trail signs planted at Fargo Ramp and Griffis Fish Camp 2024-12-15

Update 2025-01-02: Another view: Griffis Fish Camp Suwannee River Water Trail signs planted –Richard Fowler 2024-12-15.

We got two sets of at-water signs planted Sunday on the Suwannee River in Georgia, at Fargo Ramp and Griffis Fish Camp, just downstream from the Okefenokee Swamp.

[Suwannee River Water Trail at-water signs planted at Fargo Ramp and Griffis Fish Camp 2024-12-15]
Suwannee River Water Trail at-water signs planted at Fargo Ramp and Griffis Fish Camp 2024-12-15

Thanks to the Georgia Department of Natural Resources (GA-DNR) for the grant that paid for these signs for the Suwannee River Water Trail (SRWT).

Thanks to Ray Figueroa of Miami for digging the hole at Fargo Ramp.

Thanks to Linda Tindall of Umatilla, Florida, for digging at Griffis Fish Camp, to Richard Fowler of I’m not sure where for photographing, and to Shirley Kokidko of Pearson, Georgia, for bringing water for the Quikrete.

Thanks to camp manager Walter Hickox for telling us where to plant the Griffis signs.

There are also signs for Stephen C. Foster State Park, but those are waiting on final sign-off by the Park and by the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge.

There are more images below. Continue reading →

Rivers, creeks, and Alapaha River Water Trail in Echols County Comprehensive Plan Update 2024-01-25

The state-required five-year update process for the Echols County Comprehensive Plan has started, with a kick-off meeting December 5, 2024.

The first Workshop appears likely to be January 25, 2025, most likely in Statenville.

Stay tuned for updates from the Southern Georgia Regional Commission (SGRC).
https://www.sgrc.us

Or ask SGRC Planner II Alexandra Arzayus, aarzayus@sgrc.us, 229-333-5277.

[Rivers, creeks, and Alapaha River Water Trail in Echols County Comprehensive Plan Update]
Rivers, creeks, and Alapaha River Water Trail in Echols County Comprehensive Plan Update

Meanwhile, WWALS has been doing its part since the last update, adopted July 9, 2020.
https://dca.georgia.gov/document/plans/plan-update-2020-3/download

We thank the Echols County Commission for their Okefenokee Resolution to help protect the Suwannee River from strip mining near the Okefenokee Swamp.

We have paddled on the Suwannee River, including Fargo to campsite, Suwannee River 2022-03-05 and State Line to Turner Bridge, Suwannee River 2022-03-06.

We have formalized a Suwannee River Water Trail (SRWT).

We have suggested to Echols County a boat ramp on the Suwannee River. As far as we know, the county is pursuing that opportunity with the landowner and the GA-DNR.

WWALS convinced GA-EPD to redesignate all of the Alapaha River in Echols County from Fishing to Recreational, meanwhile stricter levels of permitted contamination.

WWALS has designed, printed, and planted at-water signs and road signs for the Alapaha River Water Trail (ARWT). Continue reading →

Thatcher Keeps the Music Coming –The Lookout Mountain Mirror 2024-09-07

Ferris Robinson, The Lookout Mountain Mirror, December 2024, Pages 18-19, Thatcher Keeps the Music Coming,

Lookout Mountain native and longtime Signal Mountain resident Robert Thatcher has always loved writing, poetry in particular. Coming from a very musical family, he probably learned to play the guitar before he learned to ride a bike. Those were always two separate activities, and Robert wrote poem after poem in various notebooks and on scrap sheets of paper and whatever was handy when the words came to him. And he has played guitar for a lifetime, strumming other folks’ songs.

[Robert Thatcher and Tom Brown profiled in hometown paper, After winning prize in Suwannee Riverkeeper Songwriting Contest]
Robert Thatcher and Tom Brown profiled in hometown paper, After winning prize in Suwannee Riverkeeper Songwriting Contest

His uncle is the late legendary Fletcher Bright of The Dismembered Tennesseans fame, and his cousin is Frank Bright, a great musician and songwriter. Both encouraged Robert’s music, but Frank planted the seed that Robert might want to try writing some tunes on his own, something that simmered for a while on the back burner.

But then things changed when he went to college. Continue reading →

Griffis Camp to Fargo, Suwannee River Paddle 2025-01-11

Update 2025-01-06: Rescheduled: Griffis Camp to Fargo, Suwannee River Paddle 2025-03-01

Come out and join us for a winter paddle on the Suwannee River in this remote 14-mile section of wilderness from Griffis Fish Camp to Fargo.

Very important to dress for a cold day and bring a change of clothes. Everyone must wear a PFD at all times on the water. Have a bow line/rope for your kayak.

When: Gather 9 AM, launch 10 AM, end 4 PM, Saturday, January 11, 2025

Put In: Griffis Fish Camp, 10333 Ga Highway 177 Fargo, Georgia 31631. From Fargo, travel south on US 441 to CR 177; turn left and travel 10 miles northeast; Griffis Fish Camp is on left, in Clinch County.

GPS: 30.7845, -82.446333

[Griffis Fish Camp to Fargo 2025-01-11, Suwannee River, Dress warmly]
Griffis Fish Camp to Fargo 2025-01-11, Suwannee River, Dress warmly

Continue reading →

Rescheduled: Ichetucknee to Santa Fe Rivers 2025-02-01

Update 2025-01-25: Due to park closure, Rescheduled: Ichetucknee to Santa Fe Rivers 2025-02-22.

Rescheduled to February 1, 2025, due to schedule conflict.

Join us on a leisurely paddle on the Ichetucknee and Santa Fe Rivers, starting at Ichetucknee Springs State Park North Entrance, past many springs, taking out at the US 129 Boat Ramp.

When: Gather 8:30 AM, launch 9:30 AM, end 4 PM, Saturday, February 1, 2024

Put In: Ichetucknee Springs S.P. North Entrance, 8294 SW Elim Church Rd, Fort White, FL 32038.

GPS: 29.986107, -82.760109

[Ichetucknee River to Santa Fe River 2025-02-01, Ichetucknee Springs S.P. North to US 129 Boat Ramp]
Ichetucknee River to Santa Fe River 2025-02-01, Ichetucknee Springs S.P. North to US 129 Boat Ramp

Continue reading →

WWALS Day of Giving 2024 #GAGIVES

You don’t have to be in Georgia, and you don’t have to wait until Tuesday, to donate to this fundraiser to support WWALS:
https://www.gagives.org/story/Wwals-Gagives2024

[Day of Giving 2024: Banks Lake, Alapaha River Rise, Juneteenth, Festivals, Chainsaw Cleanups, Sewage, Water Quality, Okefenokee Swamp]
Day of Giving 2024: Banks Lake, Alapaha River Rise, Juneteenth, Festivals, Chainsaw Cleanups, Sewage, Water Quality, Okefenokee Swamp

WWALS Mission

WWALS advocates for conservation and stewardship of the surface waters and groundwater of the Suwannee River Basin and Estuary, in south Georgia and north Florida, among them the Withlacoochee, Willacoochee, Alapaha, Little, Santa Fe, and Suwannee River watersheds, through education, awareness, environmental monitoring, and citizen activities.

Advocacy

Continue reading →

Floyds Island Campout, Okefenokee Swamp –Gretchen Quarterman 2024-11-10-11

It was drizzly and it rained on Floyds Island, but everybody enjoyed it anyway.

[Floyds Island Campout, Okefenokee Swamp 2024-11-10-11, Suwannee River, and Middle Fork]
Floyds Island Campout, Okefenokee Swamp 2024-11-10-11, Suwannee River, and Middle Fork

Thanks to Brack Barker for leading this Floyds Island Campout, 9 miles upstream on the Suwannee River in the Okefenokee Swamp.

Thanks to Gretchen Quarterman for these pictures.

Not many gators were visible, but there was a tree full of wood storks. Continue reading →

Pictures: Suwannee River Basin BMAP meeting in Live Oak 2024-10-30

Update 2025-04-03: BMAP Webinars: Lower and Middle Suwannee and Santa Fe Rivers, Silver and Rainbow Springs 2025-04-10.

I got to the Suwannee Basin BMAP meeting late, because I had been at SRWMD HQ talking about water trails. Still, this seemed sparsely attended.

[Suwannee River Basin BMAP meeting in Live Oak 2024-10-30 Much like Santa Fe BMAP and no closer to solutions]
Suwannee River Basin BMAP meeting in Live Oak 2024-10-30 Much like Santa Fe BMAP and no closer to solutions

Other than a few IFAS people, almost everybody there seemed to be the same usual suspects from the Santa Fe BMAP meeting two days before in Lake Butler. So that was an opportunity to talk to many of them without much interruption.

I promised them some comments, which I will send to Chandler B. Keenan <Chandler.B.Keenan@FloridaDEP.gov>

For example, asking why SRWMD made no mention of the Manatee Springs BMAP when issuing an ERP for a road in the area of the big PUD rezoning that Chiefland City Commission approved mostly in flood zones next to Long Pond, in the springshed of Manatee Springs. Continue reading →

Pictures: Santa Fe River BMAP meeting, Lake Butler, FL 2024-10-28

Update 2024-11-05: Pictures: Suwannee River Basin BMAP meeting in Live Oak 2024-10-30

There was better communication than last time, but of course that was a low bar.

You can follow up after that meeting, and the next ones: here are some ideas.
https://wwals.net/?p=66108

The other two BMAP meetings are today (see below).

[Santa Fe River BMAP Meeting, Lake Butler, FL 2024-10-28 Better communication than last time]
Santa Fe River BMAP Meeting, Lake Butler, FL 2024-10-28 Better communication than last time

At the Santa Fe BMAP meeting in Lake Butler, none of the people from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) volunteered an answer to the most basic question: how has the situation improved since the BMAPs started?

Thanks to the graph Ryan Smart of the Florida Springs Council (FSC) brought, showing “Changes in pounds of nitrogen at spring vent”, several of them did agree that in fact the situation has gotten worse. Continue reading →

Edwin Alphin Griffis, June 21, 1930 – October 27, 2024 2024-10-27

Many of us remember Mr. Griffis, jovially greeting us at Griffis Fish Camp on the Suwannee River just downstream from the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, and showing us his museum. He will be missed.

According to Roundtree Funeral Home, Inc.

Edwin Alphin Griffis

June 21, 1930 — October 27, 2024

Edwin Alphin Griffis, 94, of Fargo passed away Sunday morning, October 27, 2024 at his residence after an extended illness. He was born in Clinch County to the late Elemuel “Lem” and Alice Howell Griffis. Mr. Griffis lived in Clinch County for most of his life where he retired from the Clinch County Board of Education as the Principal of Fargo Elementary School. He was a member of the Clinch County Retired Teacher’s Association, Fargo Senior Citizens. Mr. Griffis was a member of the Fargo United Methodist Church where he taught Sunday School for thirty-five years. He always enjoyed talking with people staying at Griffis Campground in Fargo.

[Alphin Griffis at the Griffis Camp office, near Fargo, Georgia. The office is home to dozens of well-prepared mounts of animals native to the swamp (as a young man, Griffis taught himself the craft of taxidermy). [Dirk Stevenson/for Savannah Morning News]]
Alphin Griffis at the Griffis Camp office, near Fargo, Georgia. The office is home to dozens of well-prepared mounts of animals native to the swamp (as a young man, Griffis taught himself the craft of taxidermy). [Dirk Stevenson/for Savannah Morning News
Dirk J. Stevenson, SavannahNow, August 16, 2019, Learning from a lifelong swamper.

Along with his parents he was preceded in death by his wife, Dorothy Grace Barineau Griffis; grandson, Kyle Ware; two sisters, Maldine Barnhill and Mary Alice Griffis; one brother, Arden Griffis.

Survivors include Continue reading →