Update 2018-12-21: GA-EPD daily online Sewage Spill Reports!
Update 2018-12-14: Now plus a petition individuals can sign.
Update 2018-12-12: Four more Georgia groups make 31: Georgia Women (And Those Who Stand With Us), Atlanta Audubon Society, Chattahoochee Parks Conservancy, and No Ash At All—Wayne County.
![[More Signatures]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2018-10-31--ga-epd-spill-resolution/Resolution-Requesting-GA-EPD-to-timely-publish-spill-reports-0003.jpg)
Florida groups: you can sign on, too, like some already have!
Update 2018-11-15: Three more Georgia groups make 27: GARC, Ogeechee Riverkeeper, and SELC. Plus slides: Continue reading
WCTV came to Hagan Bridge Landing at GA 122 on the Withlacoochee River to interview Suwannee Riverkeeper John S. Quarterman about what Madison County and 10 more Florida counties are doing about Valdosta sewage spills into local rivers. Don’t forget the Tour of Valdosta wastewater treatment plants 9:30 AM this morning, Wednesday, October 3, 2018.
Emma Wheeler, WCTV, 2 October 2018, North Florida communities look to solve sewage spills in Valdosta, Continue reading
Update 2018-12-21: GA-EPD has started publishing online each business day a Sewage Spills Report! So that’s item 1 from the Petition. We thank GA-EPD and we await items 2 and 3.
Update 2018-12-14: Now plus a petition individuals can sign.
Update 2018-12-12: Four more Georgia groups make 31: Georgia Women (And Those Who Stand With Us), Atlanta Audubon Society, Chattahoochee Parks Conservancy, and No Ash At All—Wayne County.
Florida groups: you can sign on, too, like some already have!
Update 2018-11-15: Three more Georgia groups make 27: GARC, Ogeechee Riverkeeper, and SELC. Plus slides.
Yes, your organization can still sign on for further signature deliveries until we see daily spill updates on the GA-EPD website.
Update 2018-11-12: Four more Georgia groups make 24:
GA-EPD Richard E. Dunn did answer on November 2, 2018, saying they would look into telling everyone when anyone spills. Yes, your organization can still sign on for further signature deliveries until we see daily spill updates on the GA-EPD website.
Update 2018-11-01: Now plus Paddle Florida, for six Florida signers and fourteen Georgia signers. A copy with all twenty signers went today to GA-EPD Director Richard E. Dunn and Assistant Director Lauren M. Curry. Yes, your organization can still sign on for later delivery.
Update 2018-10-30: Three downstream Florida groups ask the state of Georgia to tell everyone when sewage gets into Georgia rivers. To get in the November 1st copy to GA-EPD, sign here by Halloween. Yes, you can still sign on later.
Update 2018-10-18: Two Florida signers makes sixteen so far. You can still sign here to ask GA-EPD to tell us so we’ll know when they happen.
Update 2018-10-17: Fourteen signers so far. And here are the forty spills since last time. You can still sign here to ask GA-EPD to tell us so we’ll know when they happen.
Update 2018-09-03: The WCTV report and the text of the letter establishing the Middle and Lower Suwannee River and Withlacoochee River Task Force.
On WCTV tonight, Emma Wheeler will report about wastewater, Valdosta, and how at least eight downstream counties in Florida are organizing about it. She asked me for suggestions. My suggestions start with: sign a resolution asking GA-EPD to timely publish spill reports, and help WWALS with its new water quality testing program. And the Florida Basin Management Action Plans (BMAPs) could have more effect on the Suwannee River Basin than sewage.
Plus let’s not forget the Tour of Valdosta wastewater treatment plants 9AM tomorrow morning, October 3, the WWALS Troupville Boat Ramp Cleanup October 13, the WWALS Boomerang paddle race November 3 from Langdale Park Boat Ramp to Sugar Creek and back, and 300 of our closest friends coming to the Withlacoochee River mid-June 2019 in Paddle Georgia.
The resolution asks the Georgia Environmental Protection Division (GA-EPD) to do what Florida and Alabama already do: publish pollution spill reports online the same day they receive them, with signup for email notices. The first step in fixing pollution is Continue reading
Valdosta sewage discussed yesterday morning in Madison, and in the evening on TV and in the WWALS Water Quality Testing Committee meeting in Valdosta, and again this evening at the Madison BOCC. Emma Wheeler, WCTV Eyewitness News, 21 August 2018, Sewage spills prompt concern over Withlacoochee River safety,
MADISON, Fla. (WCTV) — A North Florida community is fighting for cleaner water.
Community members in Madison are pushing for safer waterways. It stems from concerns over sewage spills at Valdosta’s Withlacoochee Treatment Plant. The most recent of the spills happened in June.
Many of those concerned said their goal is to have no sewage spill into the river.
“These are public resources, they belong to us,” said Thomas Potter with the WWALS Watershed Coalition. “It’s our duty and our responsibility to make sure that they remain clean.”…
Emma Wheeler shot some footage Continue reading
Noelani Mathews of WCTV stopped off at the origin of the AGL pipeline that goes to Homerville, on her way to the site of the Friday explosion. Her story should be on the air at 5PM and 6PM tonight.
WARNING
HIGH PRESSURE
NATURAL GAS
Atlanta Gas Light,
An AGL Resources Company
She asked me pipeline context questions, which I answered as best I could, given that the origin is on my property in Lowndes County, Georgia.
She remembered reporting from that same location back in 2016. Continue reading
Gas from a tiny pipeline demolished a business and sent three women to the hospital yesterday with third-degree burns, plus it shut down Homerville, Georgia, for a day.
Hosing down remains of Coffee Corner,
Clinch County News, photo by Laura Nipper.
First and most detailed with this story is Clinch County News, and it has been carried by the Associated Press all over the U.S. and beyond.
Apparently only WCTV thought to ask about the pipeline, which is owned by Atlanta Gas Light, aka AGL Resources, and since Southern Company bought that in 2016, Southern Company Gas. Unless Southern Company comes back with a different route, the maps say that pipeline starts in Lowndes County, Georgia, on my property.
Here is Noelani Mathews of WCTV reporting about the Sabal Trail pipeline in January 2016, from where that AGL pipeline takes off from the Southern Natural Gas (SONAT) pipeline to Nashville, Georgia, which was broken by Continue reading
Valdosta spilled again, and again bigger than any recently from Albany or Tifton. This news was first seen on WALB TV out of Albany 5:10 PM last night. Valdosta sent email to WWALS at 10:17 PM.
Should Suwannee Riverkeeper have to watch WALB in Albany to learn first about a wastewater spill in Valdosta, the biggest city in the Suwannee River Basin?
More importantly, if “Spills of any nature are unacceptable,” why do you keep having them, Valdosta? Especially with only 1.5 inches of rain? What will you do in another tropical storm or hurricane? And how and when will we know?
Krista Monk, WALB TV, 5:10 PM, 14 August 2018, City of Valdosta reports 135K gallon sewage spill, Continue reading
Emma Wheeler, WCTV, 27 June 2018, Landowners, environmentalists celebrate ‘small victory’ over Sabal Trail,
The Sabal Trail natural gas pipeline was granted eminent domain in order to run through some of the private properties along its path. In doing so it was required to offer what the defense calls ‘just compensation.’
One Moultrie land owner was offered around $20,000 for an easement on his property. This week a jury, siding with the land owner, decided that was not enough.
Sabal Trail is now ordered to pay five times that amount, more than Continue reading
Reporting before
last night’s meeting,
Noelani Mathews, WCTV, 2017-01-12,
Water protectors protest pipeline,
LIVE OAK, Fla. (WCTV) — More than a dozen environmentalist groups across the region met in Live Oak tonight to discuss efforts against the Sabal Trail Pipeline.
The group Suwanee Riverkeepers is calling all water protectors to talk about their plans to protest the pipeline.
The underground natural gas pipeline is Continue reading
Update 2016-12-09: Here are directions to Suwannee River Campsites at 30.414, -83.159167. Facing the boat ramp, up to your right you’ll see a trail head. Follow the trail into the woods along the river bank. The river bends left, then right. Shortly after the right bend is the crossing, at 30.407379, -83.156494. Sabal Trail has marked its path in the woods; stay off of their easement but follow it until you come to a field where you should be able to see the HDD site. Send back lots of pictures. For maps and aerial pictures, see Sabal Trail maps digitized. Much more information here. And you may want to ask the CEO of college-savings mutual fund Virginia529 why her company is the biggest mutual fund stockholder in the stranded investment of Spectra Energy.
Yes, Sabal Trail wants to cross the Suwannee River IN Suwannee River State Park.
How many pipelines do we want? Continue reading