Once again, as during Hurricane Irma, recent rains are causing flooding on Suwannee River tributaries.
The Withlacoochee River at Skipper Bridge and at US 41 (North Valdosta Road) is in Near Flood Stage, as is the Suwannee River at Fargo, and the New River near Lake Butler.
Already in Minor Flooding are Continue reading
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).
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
Looks like we may finally see Action stage tomorrow on the Withlacoochee River above Valdosta @ Skipper Bridge Road. This is upstream from Valdosta’s Withlacoochee Wastewater Treatment Plant, so it’s a good thing that didn’t spill during Irma. The Alapaha River at Statenville peaked Tuesday and probably would be a fine ride (what shoals?) today. The New and The Santa Fe Rivers are still flooding, and that’s still raising the Suwannee River all the way to the Gulf, and there’s minor flooding all the way up at Fargo, so another surge of high levels may follow on the Suwannee. The I-75 Santa Fe River bridge never did close.
2017-09-17 Withlacoochee River above Valdosta @ Skipper Bridge Road
The Suwannee River at White Springs peaked Continue reading
Update 2017-09-15: On the seventh day.
Update 2017-09-15: Added Suwannee River at Wilcox @ US 19, plus another image for the Gage Map.
Hurricane Irma flooded the Suwannee River at White Springs, the Santa Fe River especially at Fort White, with a new record for the New River new Lake Butler. It did not flood the Withlacoochee or Alapaha Rivers.
2017-09-14 Suwannee River at White Springs
FDOT says the I-75 bridge over the Santa Fe River Continue reading
Update 2017-09-15: On the seventh day.
Hurricane Irma is bringing flood levels on on most of the rivers in the Suwannee River Basin. Here are the gages with projections from downstream to upstream, since Irma is coming from the south. The images here are static to show this moment, but click on any image to go through to the live gage.
Salt water intrusion inland is worse than you think, including the “Apalachicola salinity feature” up to the GA-FL line and east through Lowndes County, with a special additional brackish Valdosta feature. Central north Florida is an island of fresh groundwater surrounded by entire saline Florida coast around from Alabama plus across to Brunswick, GA, then again from Savannah up past Charleston. South of Lakeland, FL the map is all red for saline.
Apparently using the data preliminarily mapped earlier in the Florida Well Salinity Study, geologists from three states connected the dots in Revised Hydrogeologic Framework of the Floridan Aquifer System in Florida and Parts of Georgia, Alabama, and South Carolina, By Continue reading
The crowd was very attentive to every word about
wastewater and flood prevention,
with officials from the City of Valdosta presenting in
the first of a new quarterly WWALS speaker series.
If you didn’t come, you can see and hear in these videos
Henry Hicks
about wastewater,
Emily Davenport
about flood prevention,
Tim Carroll
about solar power,
and Sementha Mathews
about how to get more information from Valdosta.
WWALS Treasurer and acting Executive Director Gretchen Quarterman
opened
and
closed the meeting.
Each talk had many small but important stories, so we will probably blog more posts about those. Meanwhile, here are the videos: see for yourself! Continue reading
Update 2016-10-23:
Seen from the air.
Update 2016-10-19: PDF flyer.
Come hear about the $60 million in wastewater fixes Valdosta just finished,
what remains to be done, and what they’re doing about flood prevention for the entire Suwannee River Basin in Georgia and Florida.
You can ask questions in this first of a new WWALS Quarterly Speaker Series,
and the people organizing this work will be there to answer:
When: 6PM Thursday October 27th
Where: Valdosta City Hall Annex
Multipurpose Room
300 N Lee St.
Valdosta, GA 31601 Continue reading
Valdosta already had an airplane fly over Lowndes County and collect
Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) data for flood mapping.
Will Lowndes County step up and match Valdosta on this project
that affects everybody in the county (and downstream into Florida)?
Valdosta
started this LiDAR project in March 2015, and
Valdosta fronted the entire cost to get it done,
we know because Valdosta Assistant Director of Utilities Emily Davenport
and Valdosta City Council Tim Carroll told us at a meeting Valdosta held
at the request of WWALS for interested parties downstream in Florida
and from as far away as Atlanta.
On the agenda for the 8:30 AM Monday morning Lowndes County Commission Work Session, item 7.d. Continue reading
Update 2016-03-24: Pictures.
A few potholes never stopped us from paddling!
Come on down to Staten Road Bridge 9AM tomorrow, Sunday 20 March 2016;
follow
this link for details.
Yes, Langdale Park will be closed, but VLPRA has made arrangements for us to get in.
(facebook event, meetup)
Staten Road has always been a put-in for carrying boats Continue reading
