Here are maps of the Suwannee River Basin in the EPA EnviroAtlas, with shadings and boundaries for Hydrologic Unit Codes (HUCs). HUC-8 (eight digits) is big river basins; in this case Little, Withlacoochee, Alapaha, Santa Fe, Upper Suwannee, and Lower Suwannee. HUC-12 is more local.
What are the odd HUC-12s that are not shaded in? At least some of them, such as around Lake Octahatchee are endorheic basins. Continue reading
If you want to see water levels throughout the Suwannee River Basin, for example after a hurricane, there are at least three ways:
They all get their data from the USGS gauges.
What’s your favorite way? One of these, or something else?
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) provides this color-coded map: Continue reading
Update 2024-08-02: Three more Ashburn sewage spills reported more than a week late 2024-07-20.
Pictures of flooding in Valdosta are circulating on social media.
![[Flooding in Valdosta, Three inches of rain 2024-07-28, No sewage spills yet. Other contaminants?]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2024-07-28--rain-valdosta/fbmany.jpg)
Flooding in Valdosta, Three inches of rain 2024-07-28, No sewage spills yet. Other contaminants?
As usual, people are commenting that Valdosta must be spilling wastewater.
So I called Valdosta Utilities Director Jason Barnes. He says there have been no spills from this rain.
Sometimes WWALS members spot them first.
So if you see or smell a spill, please let us know.
https://wwals.net/report/
The Valdosta Utilities Director didn’t mention, because he’s not in charge of this: there may be E. coli from other sources, such as pets, livestock, and wildlife.
And of course there will be trash washed into creeks and rivers, especially from all the parking lots that do not yet have trash cans. Much of that trash converges onto Sugar Creek, along with any sewage spills, because something like 80% of Valdosta drains into that creek.
I commend Anetra Riley and Valdosta City Marshalls for Continue reading
Valdosta’s widening of Old Clyattville Road will affect a drainage ditch out of the SAFT America battery plant on Gil Harbin Road, which is currently hiring. The drainage ditch goes into Mud Swamp Creek, which joins Grand Bay Creek east of Valdosta to form the Alaphoochee River, which flows into the Alapaha River just across the GA-FL line, and then into the Suwannee River.
The project will require mitigation bank credits, probably from the Cherry Creek Mitigation Bank, half of which was previously denied deannexation by the Valdosta Mayor and Council. The city hired TTL to do most of the application work, and apparently also Lovell Engineering Associates to plan the actual road work.
WWALS did not file any comments with GA-EPD, because we did not find any irregularities in the actual project. We did find some interesting tidbits in the application, such as a historic cemetery, railroad, and archaeological sites.
Also, the USGS Hydrologic Unit Code (HUC) boundary for the Upper Mud Swamp (HUC 031103021001) is incorrect. We may contact USGS about that. Continue reading
“What does “action stage” mean?” asked Christy Yates on facebook about Paddling in the treetops 2023-02-13 and for real two years ago 2021-02-27 2023-02-13.
This is relevant to the upcoming Fourth Annual Mayor and Chairman’s Paddle, Withlacoochee River 2023-03-04.
I answered: Basically, watch out, the river is high. More formally: “Action Stage – the stage which, when reached by a rising stream, represents the level where the NWS or a partner/user needs to take some type of mitigation action in preparation for possible significant hydrologic activity. The type of action taken varies for each gage location. Gage data should be closely monitored by any affected people if the stage is above action stage.
![[Stages, US 84 Gauge, Treetop paddling]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2023-02-16--action-stage/many.jpg)
Stages, US 84 Gauge, Treetop paddling
See below for National Weather Service (NWS) terminology, which also defines several stages of flooding: minor, moderate, and major. That definitions web page is from Alaska, and it includes something called “bankfull stage” that I’ve never seen used around here. The rest of it is the same as in the Suwannee River Basin.
Right now paddling the Withlacooche River would be up in the branches like this picture, but higher. Don’t worry: the water level will probably go back down before March 4th. Continue reading
To send your comments to Georgia officials,
follow this link:
https://waterkeeper.org/news/help-suwannee-riverkeeper-save-okefenokee-swamp/
![[Great Blue Heron flying, Suwannee River, Okefenokee Swamp, 2019-12-07]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2020-11-17--gwc-dd/2019-12-07--jsq-gbh-suwannee-river-okefenokee-with-boaters.jpg)
Great Blue Heron flying, Suwannee River, Okefenokee Swamp, 2019-12-07
Julia Widmann, Waterkeeper Alliance, March 18, 2021, Help Suwannee Riverkeeper Save Okefenokee Swamp,
Today, you can take action to help Suwannee Riverkeeper protect Okefenokee Swamp and the surrounding community in Southern Georgia and northern Florida from the risk of dangerous mining pollution.
Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge is home to the beloved blackwater Okefenokee Swamp, a Wetland of International Importance and a proposed World Heritage Site. Okefenokee Swamp is an ecologically diverse wetland, loved by boaters, fishers, and birders, as well as alligators and blue herons, and hunters on nearby property. It’s an important tourist attraction for members of the public all across the country and provides great economic benefits to the local area. Suwannee Riverkeeper John S. Quarterman has helped lead the way in protecting this special place.
In 2019, Twin Pines Minerals LLC, an Alabama-based company, first proposed a titanium mine beside the swamp. Twin Pines’ proposed mine poses dangerous risks Continue reading
Update 2020-10-17: Very clean Withlacoochee River 2020-10-15.
Ashburn, Georgia, spilled 210,000 gallons of raw sewage spread over three times in September and the public only got notified Wednesday, four weeks after the first spill. There’s not enough water quality testing data downstream from those spills to know what effects they may have had for example on Reed Bingham State Park.
![[Charts and Map: Ashburn spills to GA-FL line]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2020-09-27--ashburn-spills/many.jpg)
Charts and Map: Ashburn spills to GA-FL line
Ashburn spilled once into Hat Creek, which runs into the Alapaha River, and twice from its MLK Lift Station into a tributary of Ashburn Branch, which runs into the Little River. We don’t have any data downstream on the Alapaha for that time period, so we don’t know anything about downstream effects. We do have quite a bit of downstream data for the other two spills, but so far downstream and with so many other things going on that it’s hard to tell if there were any effects showing up in that data.
About the only thing we know for sure is it would be great for Ashburn to get a grip on its chronic sewage spill problem, starting by at least reporting spills in a timely manner. That and it would be great if the state of Georgia or the federal government would resume testing on the Little and Alapaha Rivers as they apparently used to do up until about 1998, so we would know, for example, did this spill affect Reed Bingham State Park.
These are the spills, as reported in the Georgia Environmental Protection Division (GA-EPD) Sewage Spills Report. WWALS commends GA-EPD for those online reports. GA-EPD can’t publish spills until it receives reports from the spilling organizaiton. Maybe Ashburn could be a bit more timely in reporting. Continue reading
How is the mysterious Vickers Branch south of Hahira related to the Hahira Land Application Site? What is that creek the rest of that LAS is on? And what does all this have to do with Lowndes County’s new IMPAIRED WATERS MONITORING AND IMPLEMENTATION PLAN? Why do we care about all this for the Withlacoochee and Little River Water Trail?
About six weeks ago, the bridge on Old US 41 North just south of Hahira broke and Lowndes County fixed it. Revealing that nobody knew a name for it. Except Phillip Williams, who says, “Some maps show it as Vickers Branch. The Vickers family were the ones who owned most of the land in the area back in the 1800s.”
![[Map: Vickers Branch, Hahira LAS]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2020-05-11--vickers-branch-hahira-las/map-vickers-branch-hahira-las.jpg)
Map: Vickers Branch, Hahira LAS
in the WWALS map of the Withlacoochee and Little River Water Trail (WLRWT).
The Vickers Branch Bridge marker south of Hahira looks slightly too far south, but it’s where google street view and aerials show the bridge. It seems that the USGS stream trace I used in this map is not quite right.
![[Photo: Lowndes EMA, of broken Vickers Branch Bridge]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2020-05-11--vickers-branch-hahira-las/broken-vickers-branch-bridge.jpg)
Photo: Lowndes EMA, of broken Vickers Branch Bridge
Upstream of that Vickers Branch US 41 bridge, several branches or runs that drain quite an area. I have named them after Continue reading
Flood Inundation Maps (FIM) are related to Lowndes County taking over funding from Valdosta of the Skipper Bridge Withlacoochee River gauge, said EMA Director Ashley Tye.
Joint funding of $135,000 from Valdosta and Lowndes County started work on FIM for Skipper Bridge in 2016, with completion announced 22 May 2018.
The item about joint funding with USGS and SRWMD to fund the Skipper Bridge Withlacoochee River Gauge, in addition to the Folsom Bridge Little River Gauge, was the longest item at five minutes yesterday morning. Continue reading
All the Suwannee River Basin USGS gages in Georgia just got a new flood level reporting system (except they missed one).
They’ve added a level measurement from sea level,
probably not coincidentally about the same as the Florida gages
added a level measurement from dry riverbed,
so both Georgia and Florida gages now have both measurements.
This actually does not affect the WWALS level charts for the
Withlacoochee and Little River Water Trail
nor for the
Alapaha River Water Trail,
because those continue to display water levels from dry riverbed.
To see this change at all, you have to drill down to the USGS detail pages,
for example on the Withlacoochee River
at Skipper Bridge Road in Georgia,
or
near Pinetta, Florida.
National Weather Service Weather Forecast Office, Tallahassee, FL, unknown date, Suwannee River Basin Datum Changes in South Central Georgia,
Starting on October 14, 2015, the National Weather Service in Tallahassee and Jacksonville will make adjustments to the reporting method for water level in the Suwannee River System. This includes river gages in the following rivers or creeks: Continue reading
![[HUC 8 and 12 150%]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2024-11-29--epa-enviroatlas/2024-11-29--epa-enviroatlas-huc-12-150pc.jpg)
![[River Water Levels, Suwannee River Basin, NOAA, USGS, SRWMD, WWALS, Action Stage, Flood, Georgia, Florida]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2024-08-07--noaa-gauges/many.jpg)
![[Collage of Valdosta application for Vegetative Buffer Encroachment on Mud Swamp Creek for Clyattville Road Widening]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2023-10-19--ga-epd-buffer-variance-bv-092-23-01/many.jpg)
![[19.7feet]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2019-10-21--fim/19.7feet.jpg)