University of Georgia (UGA) Professor Todd C. Rasmussen is back after 30 years
with peer-reviewed double evidence that the Okefenokee Swamp does exchange water with the underlying Floridan Aquifer from which we all drink in south Georgia and north Florida.
This paper is more incentive to pass Georgia House Bill 561 to protect the Okefenokee Swamp from mining, at least on its east side.
Georgians, please ask your statehouse delegation to pass HB 561.
Floridians, please ask your Georgia friends and relatives to do the same.
Here’s how to contact Georgia Statehouse members:
But not droughty enough for SRWMD to declare even a voluntary Drought Warning,
according to the Drought Workshop after the Board meeting.
I have sent in a FOIA request for the Workshop slides.
Both meetings are in the SRWMD YouTube post for 2025-12-09.
Meanwhile, here is the SRWMD Hydrologic Conditions Report for November 2025,
plus some related information.
Such as SRWMD actually does have “Year-Round Lawn & Landscape Irrigation Measures,” but nobody seems to know about them.
And that page does not seem to include agricultural, mining, or water bottling water use. Continue reading →
Maybe you’d like to come to the Workshop on
“Drought Conditions and Review of the District’s Water Shortage Process” that the Suwannee River Water Management District (SRWMD) is holding.
That’s this Tuesday, December 9, 2025, at 9 AM in Live Oak,
after the SRWMD Board meeting.
If I’m not mistaken, a drought declaration by the Suwannee River Water Management District would mean numerous water withdrawal permit holders would have to reduce their withdrawals.
Also, Board agenda item 26. Water Resources Division Updates,
will probably include an update on the
Water First North Florida billion-dollar aquifer recharge project.
It would pipe treated wastewater from Jacksonville to wetlands in the Suwannee River Basin, and from there into sinks to recharge Ichetucknee Headspring and maybe others.
Limiting water withdrawals would be less expensive and more effective,
without risking contaminating our springs and aquifers with PFAS and other
chemicals that wastewater treatment does not remove.
The third gate isn’t even a gate: it’s just a breach in that 4.5-mile earthen dam,
so the North Fork of the Suwannee River can get through.
The Sill was meant to keep water levels up in the Swamp to prevent wildfires,
but it did not succeed.
Also, it turns out wildfires are necessary for the Swamp’s vegetation to regenerate itself.
So after a study starting in 1998 and a two-year trial period,
the gates have always been open.
The current low water in the Swamp and in the Suwannee River is because we’re in a drought.
It rained a bit the last day or so, and more is predicted.
But so far that has made almost no difference in the level of the Suwannee River
at Fargo, GA.
WWALS tester Suzy Hall for Wednesday got TNTC (Too Numerous to Count) at the WaterGoat,
just before the river.
Downstream on the river,
Valdosta Utilities for Thursday got 2,670 at GA 133 and 1,035 at US 84,
both higher than the 1,000 alert limit for E. coli.
Yet WWALS tester Russ Tatum got zero (0) for Wednesday at Holly Point, on the Withlacoochee River in Florida a few miles upstream from the Suwannee River.
Also for Wednesday,
WWALS tester Heather Brasell got OK results for the Alapaha River at Sheboggy Boat Ramp at US 82.
WWALS testers Bob Mills and Kurt Hurzeler got good tentative results at their Santa Fe River site upstream from Poe Springs.
Of course, the high results could be due to the so far unknown
source upstream of St. Augustine Road on Hightower Creek.
No other sewage spills have been reported in the Suwannee River Basin in the past week in
Georgia
or
Florida,
so far as we can tell, although FDEP’s Pollution Reports web page
and map are both not working corectly.
At least we didn’t get any emailed reports for Florida this week.
No rain is expected for the next ten days.
So I’d avoid Sugar Creek and the Withlacoochee River near it.
Other than that, happy paddling,
swimming,
fishing,
and boating this weekend.
If you can find enough water to do those things.
Maybe far downstream on the Withlacoochee or Suwannee Rivers.
Follow this link for the WWALS composite spreadsheet of water quality results
rainfall
and sewage spills in the Suwannee River Basin in Georgia and Florida:
https://wwals.net/issues/testing/#results
The image below is a current excerpt from that spreadsheet.
Continue reading →
Looks like you could paddle through the Suwannee River Sill, but it’s not clear how far you would get through the Narrows below Stephen C. Foster State Park Ramp
before you got to the Sill.
Yesterday Shirley Kokidko checked on water levels in the Suwannee River in the Okefenokee Swamp.
She says there is enough water to paddle to Billys Island or Minnies Lake.
Until we get some rain to break this drought, paddling
from SCFSP to Griffis Fish Camp will be doubtful.
Here is a video Shirley sent from the First Gate at the Suwannee River Sill,
the 4.5-mile-long earthen dam that was supposed to keep water levels up
in the Okefenokee Swamp to prevent fires, but did not work.
Actually, the Suwannee River Sill Gates are always open.
This was a facebook comment yesterday, “Open the dam in the swamp.”
It was on this WWALS facebook post:
Very low water, Fargo Ramp, Suwannee River 2025-11-12 Video by Shirley Kokidko for WWALS Watershed Coalition, Inc. (WWALS):
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1946665392780126
The Sill itself was an experiment in fire prevention that did not work,
and also turned out to be a bad idea, because the Okefenokee Swamp
needs fire to regenerate itself.
The Santa Fe River and the Withlacoochee River downstream tested clean for Wednesday.
But WWALS got too-high results at the WaterGoat on Sugar Creek for Monday,
and both WWALS and Valdosta Utilities got too-high results upstream on Hightower Creek at St. Augustine Road.
In addition, Valdosta Utilities got too high at GA 133 on the Withlacoochee River downstream from Sugar Creek.
These continuing high Sugar Creek results are still mysterious,
especially given no rain to wash residue downstream.
No sewage spills have been reported in the Suwannee River Basin in the past week in
Georgia
or
Florida,
except a small spill from a force main break Monday in downtown Chiefland, Levy County, Florida.
No rain is expected for the next week.
So I’d avoid Sugar Creek and the Withlacoochee River near it.
Other than that, happy paddling,
swimming,
fishing,
and boating this weekend.
If you can find enough water to do those things.
Maybe far downstream on the Withlacoochee or Suwannee Rivers.
Follow this link for the WWALS composite spreadsheet of water quality results
rainfall
and sewage spills in the Suwannee River Basin in Georgia and Florida:
https://wwals.net/issues/testing/#results
The image below is a current excerpt from that spreadsheet.
Continue reading →
Veronica Kelly-Summers, a dedicated Visitor Services Manager with
Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge,
talked about the Okefenokee Swamp, its history, significance, places to go, things to do, and what’s next,
in this largest and best-preserved freshwater wetland in the U.S.
The Swamp is the headwaters of two rivers: the St. Marys that forms the border between Georgia and Florida,
and the Suwannee, which flows through Georgia and the Florida state song.
Here is the WWALS video of Veronica’s webinar, from noon-1 PM, Thursday, September 11, 2025:
https://youtu.be/pvLU8wPLsZc
The WWALS
campout at Floyd’s Island
in the middle of the Okefenokee Swamp
has unfortunately been cancelled due to low water.
So you can watch Veronica’s presentation instead.
WWALS Board Member Janet Martin gave a brief introduction.
In questions and answers at the end,
Veronica elaborated on what it means
for the Okefenokee NWR to become a World Heritage Site:
more visibility, more visitors, but no additional federal funding.
Veronica Kelly-Summers is a dedicated Visitor Services Manager with
over 15 years of experience in protecting natural resources and
connecting people with nature. She holds a bachelor’s and master’s
degree in forestry from Southern Illinois University with a focus on
forest recreation and wildlife habitat management. Her career with
the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has taken her to eight national
wildlife refuges from the woods and swamps of southern Illinois to
the Loess Bluffs of Iowa and Missouri, the Florida Everglades, and
she’s now stationed at Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge in
Georgia. She works closely with staff and partners to provide
leadership and strategic direction for the Visitor Services program
including managing visitor facilities and recreational opportunities
for camping, boating, interpretation, environmental education,
special events, outreach, hunting, fishing, managing volunteers, and
much more. When not at work, she enjoys spending time with her
husband, Jacob, and their pets, a yellow lab named Charlie and a
spicy tuxedo cat named Tino.
![[Okefenokee Swamp leaks water into the Floridan Aquifer --peer-reviewed evidence 2025-12-09, Mining withdrawals would make it worse]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2025-12-09--okefenokee-swamp-floridan-aquifer/fbmany.jpg)
![[Site of Stagecoach Road Bridge at Suwannee Springs 2025-12-12, Upstream from Historic 1931 Graffiti Bridge]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2025-12-12--srwmd-suwannee-springs-bridge/fbmany.jpg)
![[Packet: SRWMD Board, Live Oak, FL 2025-12-09, plus Workshop on Drought Conditions]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2025-12-09--srwmd-board/fbmany.jpg)
![[Suwannee River Sill, Okefenokee Swamp --Shirley Kokidko, Alligator, Second and Third Gates, and Mixons Hammock 2025-11-26]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2025-11-26--sill-mixons-hammock/fbmany.jpg)
![[Filthy Sugar Creek and Withlacoochee River upstream, downstream and Alapaha River OK, 2025-11-20]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2025-11-20--wq/many.jpg)
![[Low water, first gate, Suwannee River Sill, Okefenokee Swamp, Thursday, November 20, 2025]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2025-11-20--suwannee-sill-gate-1/fbmany.jpg)
![[Open the Okefenokee Gates, Suwannee River Sill, Actually always open, Since around 2000]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2025-11-15--open-the-okefenokee-gates/fbmany.jpg)
![[Clean Santa Fe River and Withlacoochee downstream, Dirty Hightower and Sugar Creek, 2025-11-12]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2025-11-12--wq/many.jpg)
![[Okefenokee Swamp by Veronica Kelley-Summers, a WWALS Webinar by Zoom, 2025-09-11]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2025-09-11--okefenokee-swamp-webinar-video/fbmany.jpg)