Tag Archives: Suwannee River

More contamination after big rains, Withlacoochee River 2021-03-04

As usual, the big rains washed more contamination into the Withlacoochee River, most likely mostly down Okapilco Creek from cattle in Brooks County, Georgia.

However, since the rains were Monday and Tuesday, by the time Madison Health and WWALS tested Thursday, much of it had already started washing downstream. By Thursday it appears to have already been flushed down to the state line and beyond by more rainwater. By now it’s probably down into the Suwannee River, where it may well have been diluted by even more rainwater coming down the Alapaha and Suwannee Rivers.

So above the state line the Withlacoochee is probably OK to boat, swim, and fish this weekend. It may even be safe below the state line by Saturday morning, although we have no data on that.

[Last week, Swim Guide, this week]
Last week, Swim Guide, this week

So on Swim Guide I’ve set red from the state line down into Florida, yet green at Knights Ferry and Nankin Boat Ramps, as well as green for Valdosta’s readings upstream Monday before the rains.

[Map: Swim Guide]
Map: Swim Guide

The 3,784 cfu/100 mL E. coli Madison Health got at Florida 6 Thursday is far higher than the 1,000 alert limit. But a year ago on Thursday, March 5, 2020, Madison Health got TNTC (Too Numerous To Count) at all three of State Line, Sullivan Launch, and Florida 6. Plus that Friday Valdosta got 4,600 at the state line and 25,000 at Knights Ferry Boat Ramp. So there is still ample room for improvement, but it’s possible that the Best Management Practices (BMPs) the Brooks County dairies have been implementing are starting to work. Continue reading →

Big Shoals, Suwannee River, Florida, 2021-05-19

Update 2022-09-08: Nice day for a portage around Big Shoals, Suwannee River 2021-05-19.

Update 2021-05-18: It’s a half mile portage, so bring boat wheels and be prepared to haul over some rough spots down to the beach of the two gators.

Paddle to and portage past the biggest rapids in Florida: Big Shoals and Little Shoals on the Suwannee River, on this short weekday trip.

[Big Shoals, 20 and 21 Feb 2021, Map]
Big Shoals, 20 and 21 Feb 2021, Map

When: Gather 9 AM, launch 10 AM, end 2 PM, Wednesday, May 19, 2021

Put In: Big Shoals Tract Launch.
From White Springs, travel north on CR 135 to SE 94 Street (Godwin Bridge Road); turn right and follow road to Big Shoals, in Hamilton County.

GPS: 30.353167, -82.687333

Portage: The portage is 400 feet long.
Participants must be able to carry everything they bring from the beginning of the portage to the re-launch. Also must have fairly good physical conditioning and balance to climb up and down banks to re-launch.

Shirley Kokidko, experienced with this section of the Suwannee, says, “I’m 65 and I can do it, but it’s not easy, and takes a good bit of teamwork to get everybody re-launched. No children. Let’s keep this group to a safe number. On a weekday that probably won’t be a problem.”

Everyone must have a bowline, rope of any sort, very much needed to help lower boats back into the water after the portage. Continue reading →

Equinox Reschedule: Adams Tract River Camping, Suwannee River, Hardenbergh Boat Ramp, 2021-03-20

Update 2021-03-19: All the river camps are closed due to high water for the Spring Equinox weekend, so we are rescheduling the Adams Tract Camping paddle for Saturday and Sunday 10-11 April, 2021.

Update 2021-03-17: All the River Camps on the Suwannee River are closed due to high water, with more rain expected tomorrow (Thursday). Unless the River Camps open up by 3pm Friday, we will reschedule the Adams Tract Camping paddle for Saturday and Sunday 10-11 April, 2011. Everyone please stay tuned.

Update 2021-03-16: To be sure you have a spot at the camp, please say you’re going on the meetup.

Due to high water, we have rescheduled to the Spring Equinox! Help us welcome in Spring on the Suwannee River Wilderness Trail in Florida.

We will paddle 8 miles on the Suwannee River the first day, and 10 miles on the second day, after camping at Adams Tract River Camp. There are many springs along the way.

[Adams Tract River Camp, map, Suwannee River Wilderness Trail]
Adams Tract River Camp, map, Suwannee River Wilderness Trail

We will check temperatures with an infrared thermometer, and everyone will be expected to keep their distance from people not in their party, and to wear masks when closer than six feet. Self shuttle if you can (have a close friend or relative shuttle you), or join the team shuttle from the takeout back to the put-in; see below.

River Camp platforms are available on first-come first-serve basis so, plan for primitive camping.

When:
Gather 9:30 AM, launch 11 AM, end overnight, Saturday, March 20, 2021, which is the Spring Equinox
Gather 8 AM, launch 9 AM, end 2 PM, Sunday, March 21, 2021

[Spring Equinox --TimeandDate.com]
Spring Equinox, https://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/spring-equinox.html

Put In: Hardenbergh Boat Ramp. From Mayo, travel east on US 27 to NE CR 361; turn left; travel north to NE CR 354; cross over to NE Pecan Avenue; turn right on NE River Road and follow to the boat ramp, in Lafayette County.

GPS: 30.0903, -83.111903

Take Out: Ivey Memorial Park Ramp, in Branford on the south side of US 27 at the Bridge in Ivey Memorial Park, in Suwannee County.

Bring: primitive camping gear, 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.

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//donations/#outings

We recommend you support the work of WWALS by becoming a WWALS member today!
https://wwals.net/donations/#join

Event: facebook, meetup Continue reading →

Capitol Conservation Day 2021-03-03

No need to trek to Atlanta this year to show Georgia state legislators that many people and organizations throughout the state care about water. Capitol Conservation Day is online, this Wednesday, March 3, 2021.

When: 12-1:30 PM, Wednesday, March 3, 2021

Where: Online: register here
https://nwf-org.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJAodumqpzgsHtNgHr3nLG6rX7m4gw_7fY_f

Event: facebook
Don’t forget to register, then you can click Going on the facebook event to encourage others.

What: Experts from the Georgia Water Coalition will brief you on important legislative issues. Then you will put your new skills and information to work! Following the event, meet with your local legislators virtually to advocate in support of important legislation.

[2019 and 2020]
2019 and 2020

 -jsq, John S. Quarterman, Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®

You can join this fun and work by becoming a WWALS member today!

Pictures: Allen Ramp to SRSP with shoals and springs –Gretchen Quarterman 2019-06-01

Update 2024-07-22: And again: Allen Ramp to SRSP, Withlacoochee River 2024-08-01.

Update 2022-11-25: We’re doing it again 2023-02-04

Two photographers, three cameras, one outing: Allen Ramp to Suwannee River State Park, past Double Window Spring, Morgan Spring Run, Powerline Spring, Corbett Spring, Withlacoochee River, Suwannee River, and Suwanacoochee Spring, plus that chair on the old road bridge buttress, and let’s not forget Battery Shoals, Wipe-Out Shoals, Deer Shoals, Deer Shoals, and Melvin Shoals, where 1/3 of our paddlers (starting with me) fell in. Thanks, Shirley Kokidko for leading us from Allen Ramp to Suwannee River State Park, June 1, 2019.

[Left: Allen Ramp, Corbett Spring; Right: Melvin Shoals, Suwanacoochee Spring]
Left: Allen Ramp, Corbett Spring; Right: Melvin Shoals, Suwanacoochee Spring

We started at Allen Ramp. All pictures are by Gretchen Quarterman, except where marked jsq, when I took them. Click on any small picture for a bigger one. All the pictures are also on the WWALS website. Continue reading →

Adams Tract River Camping, Suwannee River, Hardenbergh Boat Ramp, 2021-03-06

Update 2021-03-19: All the river camps are closed due to high water for the Spring Equinox weekend, so we are rescheduling the Adams Tract Camping paddle for Saturday and Sunday 10-11 April, 2021.

Update 2021-03-01: Rescheduled to the Spring Equinox, March 20, 2021.

Join us for pre-spring on the Suwannee River Wilderness Trail in Florida! We will paddle 8 miles on the Suwannee River the first day, and 10 miles on the second day, after camping at Adams Tract River Camp. There are many springs along the way.

We will check temperatures with an infrared thermometer, and everyone will be expected to keep their distance from people not in their party, and to wear masks when closer than six feet. Self shuttle if you can (have a close friend or relative shuttle you), or join the team shuttle from the takeout back to the put-in; see below.

River Camp platforms are available on first-come first-serve basis so, plan for primitive camping.

When:
Gather 9:30 AM, launch 11 AM, end overnight, Saturday, March 6, 2021
Gather 8 AM, launch 9 AM, end 2 PM, Sunday, March 7, 2021

Put In: Hardenbergh Boat Ramp. From Mayo, travel east on US 27 to NE CR 361; turn left; travel north to NE CR 354; cross over to NE Pecan Avenue; turn right on NE River Road and follow to the boat ramp, in Lafayette County.

GPS: 30.0903, -83.111903

Take Out: Ivey Memorial Park Ramp, in Branford on the south side of US 27 at the Bridge in Ivey Memorial Park, in Suwannee County.

Bring: primitive camping gear, 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.

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//donations/#outings

We recommend you support the work of WWALS by becoming a WWALS member today!
https://wwals.net/donations/#join

Event: facebook, meetup

[Adams Tract River Camp, map, Suwannee River Wilderness Trail]
Adams Tract River Camp, map, Suwannee River Wilderness Trail

Continue reading →

Gates Foundation viewed as political ploy

This article does not follow the Gates-worshiping herd: “The [Gates Foundation] even reports having a $5.3 million bond holding in Energy Transfer Operating, which is a partial owner of the Dakota Access pipeline —the subject of a very high-profile divestment campaign.”

There is much more, well worth reading, in today’s article by Tim Schwab, The Nation, 16 February 2021, Bill Gates, Climate Warrior. And Super Emitter: The billionaire’s new book, a bid to be taken seriously as a climate campaigner, has attracted the usual worshipful coverage. When will the media realize that with Gates you have to follow the money? See below for where I’m quoted about Gates’ farmland investments. But first, more about pipelines.

As we dug up back in 2016, the same company, Enbridge, is part owner of both the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) and the Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline that gouged under our Withlacoochee, Suwannee, Santa Fe, and Withlacoochee (south) Rivers in south Georgia and north Florida, destroying farmlands and forests along the way. We held and participated in numerous demonstrations about #NoDAPL, #NoSabalTrail, as well as other actions, including a legal case in Florida and feeding information to the case Sierra Club won in U.S. District Court. We continue to advocate against expansion of Sabal Trail, and to report on its leaks and other damage.

Stop Sabal Trail from the Suwannee
Stop Sabal Trail from the Suwannee, in #NoDAPL #NoSabalTrail @ Suwannee River State Park 2016-09-13

The article does not go easy on Gates or his Foundation, for example referring to the book he just published about climate change.

In his book, Gates several times praises the young people and activists who have energized climate politics—even drawing parallels to successful protests against the Vietnam War and divestment campaigns against South African apartheid. Yet Gates doesn’t seriously engage with these political movements, and seems oblivious to ways that they’ve pushed the mainstream conversation on climate change beyond the technical question of how to reduce carbon emissions—Gates’s narrow focus—to interrogate the political systems and economic models that, for example, channel climate change’s greatest impacts toward the poor and people of color.

Anthony Rogers-Wright, director of environmental justice for the New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, notes that even Joe Biden—a “centrist, neoliberal president”—understands that issues like equity and justice are central to climate change, as is evident in a recent executive order that mentions the term “environmental justice” 27 times. In Gates’s 250-page book, the term is completely absent.

“These billionaires, the best they could do, some would say, would be to be stop their foundations and pay their fair share of taxes,” says Continue reading →

Very bad, GA-FL line and downstream, Withlacoochee River 2021-02-11

Update 2021-02-13: Better, Withlacoochee River 2021-02-12.

I’d avoid the Withlacoochee River for a few days if I were you. Apparently the Tuesday rains did wash more manure out of Brooks and Colquitt Counties down Okapilco Creek into the Withlacoochee River.

Valdosta’s Wednesday results upstream of Okapilco Creek were only slightly elevated, but Madison Health’s Thursday downstream results were very high. The WWALS Thursday samples had a technical glitch, so we don’t know about Knights Ferry or Nankin Boat Ramps, but they were probably pretty bad. We hope to have Friday results soon.

Meanwhile, I would not want to get that river water on me until the upstream rainwater dilutes and washes down the contamination, which will probably take a few days. Unless, of course, it rains harder and washes more in.

[Chart, Swim Guide map]
Chart, Swim Guide map

Yesterday afternoon FDEP posted Madison Health results for Thursday, February 11, 2021, and they were very bad: Continue reading →

Special Nestle permit meeting 2019-02-23; Regular SRWMD business 2021-02-09

Update 2021-02-09: Back to Live Oak and online: SRWMD Nestle Special Meeting 2021-02-23.

This time the judge recommended accepting the permit, as the Nestlé case bounced back to SRWMD from DOAH for a second time.

So the Suwannee River Water Management District (SRWMD) has scheduled a special meeting at 9AM on Tuesday, February 23, 2021, at the Suwannee River Fair Pavilion in Fanning Springs. I wonder if all those postcards had any effect on scheduling a special meeting?

SRWMD will not accept any comments on this subject at their regular board meeting next Tuesday.

[Special SRWMD Meeting, Suwannee River Fair Pavilion, 2021-02-23]
Special SRWMD Meeting, Suwannee River Fair Pavilion, 2021-02-23

This time, SRWMD should take the public interest into consideration.

Which would mean a Swiss company profiting on plastic bottles, at the expense of the Floridan Aquifer, Ginnie Springs, and the Santa Fe River levels, is not in the public interest.

You can still send a postcard to SRWMD:

SRWMD Board Members
9225 CR 49
Live Oak, FL 32060

NO Nestlé PERMIT

Here’s the announcement of the special meeting in the current SRWMD Board packet: Continue reading →

Resounding applause for M-CORES toll road boondoggle repeal bill 2021-02-03

Elimination of the proposed boondoggle is just what the state needs

TALLAHASSEE, February 3, 2021 — The announcement today of a bill filed in the Senate (SB1030) and soon to be filed in the House, to repeal the bill that created M-CORES, the program that would construct 330 miles of unneeded and fiscally dangerous toll roads through rural Florida, was welcomed by No Roads to Ruin Coalition partners from across the state. After 93% of public comments were opposed to M-CORES, the failure by FDOT and outside analysts to identify any need at all for these roads, and the brutally obvious fiscal reasons to stop the M-CORES process in its tracks, repealing the bill and devoting the billions of dollars it would have devoured instead to critical state needs is exactly what Floridians need.

“Need should have been established before wasting millions of dollars on M-CORES workshops, but that was not possible, because there is no need,” said John S. Quarterman, Suwannee RIVERKEEPER, WWALS Watershed Coalition. “US 19 from Crystal River to Thomasville, Georgia has nowhere near enough traffic to justify the Suncoast Connector toll road, before even getting into the damage it would cause the Suwannee River, springs, farms, and forests. Cancel M-CORES and spend some of the money directly on pandemic relief, rural broadband, solar panels and batteries, and hurricane shelters,”

[Empty US 19 Photo: Janet Barrow 2020-12-19]
Empty US 19 Photo: Janet Barrow 2020-12-19

Newton Cook, President of United Waterfowlers of Florida said, Continue reading →