WWALS paddled from Troupville Boat Ramp to Spook Bridge (thanks to The Langdale Company for access to take out there) on February 3, 2019. That’s the path planned for Paddle Georgia Day 1, coming up two weeks from now.
![[Catching up, 11:08:10, 30.85035, -83.34855]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2019-02-03--troupville-spook-outing/20190203_110810.jpg)
Catching up, 11:08:10, 30.8503500, -83.3485500
![[Every outing is a cleanup, 10:50:14, 30.8516814, -83.3469376]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2019-02-03--troupville-spook-outing/20190203_105014-0.jpg)
Every outing is a cleanup, 10:50:14, 30.8516814, -83.3469376
We passed the famous Mayor John Gayle Withlacoochee Wastewater Treatment Plant Outfall: Continue reading
This Saturday, four shoals (Battery, Wipe-Out, Deer, and Melvin) and four springs (Powerline, Fairy, Corbett, and second-magnitude Suwannacoochee), all on the Withlacoochee River, from Allen Ramp to Suwannee River State Park.
Location of shoals from Chris Mericle, Blackwater River Guide. River mile calculations for them by Shirley Kokidko, both in the interactive map of the Withlacoochee and Little River Water Trail.
For outing details, see: Continue reading
Update 2019-05-30: Map of shoals and springs along the way.
Wild and beautiful Withlacoochee River to the Confluence. We will pass numerous rocky shoals requiring some skills so this outing may not be appropriate for beginners and young children. There are clear springs to explore, such as Suwannacoochee Spring at Ellaville. This is a preview of part of Paddle Georgia 2019. #PaddleGA2019
When: Gather 8:00 AM, launch 9:30 AM, Saturday, June 1, 2019
Put In: Allen Ramp, From Jasper, travel north on US 41 to SR 6; turn left; travel south on SW CR 141 to SW CR 143; turn right and follow SW CR 143 to SW 64 Way and follow to ramp. Also known as CR 143 ramp (SRWMD).
Take Out:
Suwannee River State Park Ramp, 3631 201st Path, Live Oak, FL 32060, in Suwannee County.
Taking out requires a very brief paddle upstream on the Suwannee River.
Bring: the usual personal flotation device, boat paddles, food, drinking water, warm clothes, and first aid kit. Don’t forget a rope in case you need to drag your boat across shoals. 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. We recommend you support the work of WWALS by becoming a WWALS member today!
Park: Remember to have $5 cash for the state park fee, for each vehicle that will be shuttled to the take out at Suwannee River State Park.
Photo: Gretchen Quarterman, Allen Ramp, 2014-09-21.
Thanks and invitations from WWALS to the Lowndes County Commission, delivered in a letter via email and on paper Monday morning and in Citizens Wishing To Be Heard Tuesday evening.
I invited the Commissioners to pass Water Trail resolutions (see below).
And I invited them to Paddle Georgia and the Suwannee Riverkeeper Songwriting Contest.
Thanks, GA-EPD, for another very useful online dataset: GOMAS, the Georgia Environmental Monitoring and Assessment System, with a plethora of water data.
![[Front page]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2019-05-16--gomas/gomas-front-page.jpg)
Front page of
GOMAS.
GOMAS seems to have all the water quality data reported by permitted wastewater facilities throughout the state, including some not required, apparently including at least some of Valdosta’s creek monitoring data.
GOMAS lets you find locations with data either Continue reading
Confirmed today by telephone: FDEP is analyzing DNA and human tracers such as sucralose monthly at at least three stations: on the Withlacoochee and Alapahoochee Rivers at the Georgia-Florida line, and at the Withlacoochee River Confluence with the Suwannee River at Ellaville. Those are the top center left blue stars on this map.
Confirmed by: Darlene Velez, Water Resources Chief, Suwannee River Water Management District (SRWMD).
This is what Waterkeepers Florida (WKFL) heard in Orlando on April 15th from Continue reading
Thanks to Jim Tatum of OSFR for reporting from the April 25th meeting of the twelve-Florida-county Rivers Task Force meeting in Lake City. His Task Force on Valdosta Spills says the Task Force is asking Florida Senator Rubio to speed permitting for Valdosta’s WWTP catch basin. It doesn’t say whether they get the point that the other third of Valdosta’s December spills would not be affected by that.
It says they’re still agonizing about direct notification of spills. Our experience with Valdosta and that of many others is that it’s not worth wasting time expecting Valdosta to notify anybody except the state of Georgia, which is why it’s so useful that GA-EPD publishes Sewage Spill Reports each business day. That’s been going on since December 20, 2018, after 30 organizations in Georgia and Florida, including OSFR, signed a resolution asking GA-EPD to do that.
Photo: Jim Tatum for OSFR;
Darlene Velez of SRWMD explains the water quality missions of the state agencies.
The hot button at the moment is water quality monitoring and sampling. Thanks to OSFR’s Merrillee Malwitz-Jipson and WWALS ‘ John Quarterman, it was revealed some time ago that water sampling has been less than adequate by our (and Georgia’s) agencies, lacking even a baseline for comparison in places.
Once called out, the agencies have been scrambling and Ms. Velez’ PowerPoint covered this wonderfully. Your writer did not know that Continue reading
Agenda (PDF):
AGENDA
MIDDLE AND LOWER SUWANNEE RIVER AND
WITHLACOOCHEE RIVER TASK FORCEApril 25, 2019
4:00 p.m.Holiday Inn Hotel & Suites
213 Southwest Commerce Boulevard
Lake City, Florida
- INVOCATION
- PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE
- INTRODUCTIONS
- APPROVAL OF MINUTES – February 28, 2019*
- REPORT ON ACTIVITIES
- Florida Senate Environment and Natural Resources Committee Testimony
- Florida Department of Environmental Protection Secretary and Governor’s Staff Meeting
- Joint Task Force and City of Valdosta City Council Workshop
- WATER SAMPLING SCHEDULE AND DATA
- NEXT STEPS
* See Attachments
See also:
Welcome, Georgia Beer Co.!
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (PDF)
Georgia Beer Company Sponsors Suwannee Riverkeeper Songwriting Contest
Hahira, Georgia, April 22, 2019 — The first brewery in the Suwannee River Basin is the top-level sponsor of the Suwannee Riverkeeper Songwriting Contest. When the finalists compete for the judges and music lovers at The Salty Snapper on August 24, 2019, at the top of the sponsor banner will be Georgia Beer Company. This maker of brews, such as Cypress Knee – Single Hop Mosaic, understands clean water is essential to every beer. So Georgia Beer Company, as the Aria level sponsor, supports Suwannee Riverkeeper for fishable, swimmable, drinkable water.
![[Sponsor package]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2019-08-24--suwannee-riverkeeper-songwriting-contest/sponsor.jpg)
Photo: Sara the bartender;
Left to right: Bartender, Suwannee Riverkeeper John S. Quarterman receiving sponsor merchandise and check from Jack “J. Ryce Martin” and Chris Jones, founders of Georgia Beer Co.
“When I was a reporter in Madison, Florida, I wrote about Valdosta sewage frequently,” said Georgia Beer Co. co-founder Chris Jones. “Unfortunately, that is still a story. We support Suwannee Riverkeeper to help stop that problem, and to clean up other things getting into our rivers.”
“I’m thrilled for this support of our water quality testing program by Georgia Beer Company,” said WWALS lead tester Sara Jay. “We can buy more testing materials and Continue reading
All of Valdosta’s water quality sampling stations were below the Georgia state limit for E. coli for the first week of April. Valdosta no longer samples weekly, only once a month. It also no longer samples at the state line.
We got this monthly Valdosta WQ data via open records request, as usual. As I said at the April 10, 2019 meeting between Valdosta and the dozen Florida counties, I also filed the next day open records requests for Valdosta’s permit-required spill-followup test data, and for the engineering study they said they had related to how big the new catch basin needs to be. Yesterday I got the latest monthly data a day late, but only a “working on it” about the other two requests. I will now Continue reading
![[Shoals and springs]](https://wwals.net/pictures/2019-06-01--allen-ramp-srsp-withlacoochee-river/2019-05-30--allen-ramp-srsp-smaller.jpg)
![[Surface water Trend Stations]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2019-04-25--srwmd-fl-rivers-task-force-wq-monitoring/20190425-Water-Quality-Monitoring-Final-0005.jpg)