Tag Archives: Withlacoochee River

2020 ANNUAL REPORT, Lowndes County Impaired Streams Monitoring 2020-04-07

Update 2022-08-23: 2021 ANNUAL REPORT, Lowndes County Impaired Streams Monitoring 2021-04-07.

Some good news: “Low level mercury levels are well below acute standards at all sampling points.”

Some bad news: “fecal coliform sampling results indicated all sampling points exceeded water quality standards for the June and September sampling events.”

[Cover, Franks Creek and Mud Creek]
Cover, Franks Creek and Mud Creek

That’s in the 2020 ANNUAL REPORT from Lovell Enginnering Associates to Lowndes County for its Impaired Streams Monitoring project that the Georgia Environmental Protection Division (GA-EPD) required the county to do.

Thanks to Lowndes County Engineer Mike Fletcher for sending this report in response to a WWALS open records request. I don’t know why Lowndes County did not publish this report themselves. Maybe they did, and I just haven’t found it online yet.

Working through this data, so far it seems that Franks Creek, which comes down west of Hahira to the Little River, shows spikes in Fecal coliform after rains. Those spikes usually occur downstream of Hahira’s wastewater treatment facility. Continue reading →

Earth Day Rivers Alive Cleanup: Joree Millpond, Withlacoochee River 2021-04-17

Pick from a pair of floating Georgia Rivers Alive cleanups for Earth Day, and bring your boat!

Gretchen Quarterman will lead a floating cleanup on Joree Millpond in Valdosta, Georgia, starting at 913 Millpond Road (PDF flyer for Joree Millpond). You can return whenever you want to, but we expect this boating cleanup to last about two hours. If you have a jon boat and are willing to take a volunteer onto the pond to remove litter, please contact either Gretchen Quarterman (229-834-1945) or Austin Fiveash (229-563-6262). You can also participate in your kayak or canoe. Volunteers will remove litter from along the edge of the pond and from near the spillway. The City of Valdosta is providing a large trash receptacle at the site, thanks to Valdosta Stormwater Manager Angela Bray.

Bobby McKenzie will lead a paddle cleanup from Sugar Creek behind the Salty Snapper off of Gornto Road, down the Withlacoochee River, and a short hop up the Little River to Troupville Boat Ramp. That’s less than 4 river miles, and even with stops for trash collection should take less than three hours. We will leave the bagged trash at that destination, where Lowndes County Public Works will pick it up Monday.

When: Gather 9 AM, launch 9:30 AM, end 12:30 PM, Saturday, April 17, 2021

Millpond put in: 913 Millpond Road, Valdosta, GA, Take Country Club Drive to Mill Pond Road. Turn right and 913 is last house on left before right-only exit onto Jerry Jones Road.
Drop your boat at the water, then park near the street.
Millpond GPS: 30.867375, -83.309558

River paddle put in: The Salty Snapper parking lot, 1405 Gornto Road, Valdosta, GA.
Go to the back of the parking lot to drop off your boat at Sugar Creek.
Sugar Creek GPS: 30.861785, -83.318793

River Paddle Take Out: Troupville Boat Ramp, 9664 Valdosta Hwy, Valdosta, GA 31602. Go west on St. Augustine Road across I-75 (exit 18) and cross the Withlacoochee River. At the light for Val Tech Road, turn left, which takes you down to the boat ramp.
Troupville Boat Ramp GPS: 30.851842, -83.346536.

Safety: All volunteers must sign a WWALS liability release, which makes WWALS insurance cover them, and must wear a life jacket at all times while in boats.

Bring: the usual personal flotation device, boat, paddles, snaks, drinking water, warm clothes, and first aid kit. Also trash pickers and trash bags, and good boots.

Free: This outing is free to everyone, because it is a cleanup.

We recommend you support the work of WWALS by becoming a WWALS member today!
https://wwals.net/donations/#join

Event: facebook, meetup

[Joree Millpond, trash, Withlacoochee River]
Joree Millpond, trash, Withlacoochee River
Photos: Russell Allen McBride.

Continue reading →

Alligator snapping turtle threatened status: another reason to protect the Okefenokee Swamp 2021-04-07

Let’s put the end of the story up top:

John Quarterman, who is the Suwannee Riverkeeper with the WWALS Watershed Coalition, Inc., said he hopes potential new federal protections will highlight the need to shield part of the turtle’s potential habitat from a proposed mining project near the Okefenokee Swamp. The [Georgia] state Department of Natural Resource[s] is weighing whether to issue mining permits to Twin Pines [Minerals LLC of Alabama].

The Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge is included in the turtle’s range outlined by the Fish and Wildlife Service.

“It’s yet another reason to protect the swamp,” Quarterman said this week.

Please send your comments to Georgia officials asking them to thoroughly review and then reject the five permit applications from the miners:
https://waterkeeper.org/news/help-suwannee-riverkeeper-save-okefenokee-swamp/

Suwannee alligator snapping turtle
Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) listed the Suwannee alligator snapping turtle as State Threatened in September 2018.

Jill Nolin, Georgia Recorder, 7 April 2021, Feds propose protection for hefty Suwannee alligator snapping turtle,

A rare prehistoric looking turtle only found in south Georgia and north Florida might soon gain federal protection after struggling to rebound.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced this week that it has proposed listing the Suwannee alligator snapping turtle as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. The announcement kicks off a public comment period that will wrap up this June.

The turtle is the largest found in north American rivers, with some males weighing in at more than 200 pounds. The Suwannee gator snapper makes its home in the waterways flowing through Tifton and Valdosta before emptying into the Gulf of Mexico.

The federal agency reported Tuesday that only about 2,000 of the turtles remain across the two states. The Suwannee alligator snapping turtle was only recently split off as its own species.

“The science that the Service has gathered on this turtle indicates Continue reading →

Trash Trap, Sheri Run at Baytree Road near Twin Street, Valdosta, GA 2020-12-08

Update 2022-02-21: For updates on the Valdosta trash situation, see https://wwals.net/issues/trash/.

Turns out the City of Valdosta already has a trash trap on one creek. It’s next to Baytree Road, upstream from Lake Sheri, on what I’m calling Sheri Run. The creek ends up in the Withlacoochee River, just upstream from the I-75 bridge. But, because of the trash trap, most of the trash does not reach Lake Sheri or the river, because it gets caught after it comes down from Valdosta Mall and all the restaurants and stores on St. Augustine Road.

[Outfall of trash trap, 10:16:37, 30.8471573, -83.3288788]
Outfall of trash trap, 10:16:37, 30.8471573, -83.3288788

Continue reading →

GA-EPD GORA response about Ray City wastewater permit violations 2021-04-05

Ray City has had a long string of wastewater violations, many each year, going back years, at its wastewater treatment plant on Cat Creek, just below Beaverdam Creek, and 8.36 Cat Creek miles upstream from the Withlacoochee River.

[Catwalk, Outfall, Fecal coliform]
Catwalk, Outfall, Fecal coliform

Most of them did not involve fecal bacteria, but two did, on monthly average, for December 2018 (see page 57), for August 2017 (see page 73). Curiously, none of these violations ever showed up in GA-EPD’s Sewage Spills Report, nor in its underlying spreadsheet going back to 2015, which is as far back as I have it. We have some idea why not about the January and February 2021 Total Suspended Solids (TSS) overflows, but not about the previous incidents.

In response to a Notice of Violation of September 22, 2020, on November 2, 2020, the City of Ray City told GA-EPD it was “in the process of developing a Corrective Action Plan (CAP) to address the issue of non-compliance with the 85% Minimum BOD removal rate stipulated in our NPDES Permit.“ The City proposed to change its sampling method to deal with “periodic low influent BOD levels”, and also to get on with dealing with the “high volumes of infiltration and inflow“ it says is the cause, including filing an application for a CDBG grant before the end of March 2021.

Thanks to Jay Howell of the EPD Southwest office in Albany for scanning and emailing to me the documents of my Georgia Open Records Act (GORA) request of last week. I asked for all the enforcement actions on Ray City that I found listed on EPA ECHO, (see the previous post) together with related correspondence. documents and emailing them to me yesterday. They are on the WWALS website. Update 2021-04-07: website page labels fixed for this GORA document.

This November 2020 CAP is apparently a new one, after the CAP accepted by GA-EPD on June 19, 2019, and submitted by the City on May 2, 2019: Continue reading →

Little Rain, Still Clean, Withlacoochee River 2021-04-01

Update 2021-04-10: Clean week, Withlacoochee River 2021-04-08.

The rain came gently Wednesday, and the Withlacoochee River was still clean Thursday, April 1, 2021, no joke.

[Clean results, Withlacoochee River down and up, Swim Guide]
Clean results, Withlacoochee River down and up, Swim Guide

Thanks to WWALS testers Michael and Jacob Bachrach for testing Knights Ferry, Nankin, and State Line Boat Ramps, and to Gus Cleary for testing at Cleary Bluff below Allen Ramp. All came out zero or within one E. coli colony of zero. Can’t ask for much better than that.

We have no new results from Madison Health since Thursday a week ago, and nothing new from Valdosta since Monday.

So according to the data we have, all from WWALS, happy boating, swimming, and fishing in the Withlacoochee River this weekend, at least if you don’t mind a bit of chill! Continue reading →

The rest of the at-water signs, Withlacoochee and Little River Water Trail 2021-04-02

In time for Dan Phillips and the Trails Committee to install before the BIG Little River Paddle Race on Saturday, April 24, 2021, we have the last of the at-water signs for the WWALS water trails.

[A dozen locations, Little and Withlacoochee Rivers]
A dozen locations, Little and Withlacoochee Rivers

WWALS Executive Director Gretchen Quarterman picked these up from Session Signs Company the other day. We paid for them back in October. These are the last items purchased using the GA-DNR Educational Recreational Trails Program grant.

To see what’s on them, follow this link: https://wwals.net/?p=54243.

 -jsq, John S. Quarterman, Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®

You can join this fun and work by becoming a WWALS member today!

FERC gets inland LNG half right, for Puerto Rico, and maybe more soon 2021-03-18

FERC actually told New Fortress Energy (NFE) it has 180 days to file an application for authorization to operate its Puerto Rico liquid natural gas (LNG) facility. I’m happy to admit I did not expect this.

[FERC Order and WWALS LNG facilty map]
FERC Order and WWALS LNG facilty map

Yet FERC failed to tell NFE to shut down meanwhile: “We also find that allowing operation of the facility to continue during the pendency of an application is in the public interest.” Translation: it would cost a fossil fuel company income.

But the best part is in a concurring letter. Continue reading →

Ray City sewage spill in Berrien Press 2021-03-24

Update 2021-04-07: GA-EPD GORA response about Ray City wastewater permit violations 2021-04-05.

The bad news: Ray City, Georgia, had not one, but two wastewater spills this year. The good news: they were both mostly treated effluent, and Fecal coliform levels were well within limits.

[Process Flow, Spill Report, Map: Ray City, Cat Creek, Withlacoochee River]
Process Flow, Spill Report, Map: Ray City, Cat Creek, Withlacoochee River

Why was it a spill, then? It exceeded limits of total suspended solids (TSS).

How did we find out about this? Informants (who shall remain nameless unless I confirm they want to be named) told us that Ray City Council minutes for January and February mentioned water quality tests being within GA-EPD limits, but did not say why this was relevant. But this appeared in the Berrien Press on March 24, 2021: Continue reading →

No fooling: Song submissions are open, Suwannee Riverkeeper Songwriting Contest 2021

Hahira, Georgia, April 1, 2021 — You can send in your song now, April 1 (no fooling) through July 7, 2021, for the Fourth Annual Suwannee Riverkeeper Songwriting Contest, with a $300 cash First Prize, plus one day of recording studio time.

[Entry form banner]
Use the entry form to send in your song.

In addition to the First Prize, there will also be two $50 prizes, one each for best song from inside the Suwannee River Basin, and best song from outside. Plus plaques to winners in each musical genre.

The studio time is new this year. Also new this year, we will have online voting for finalists. The Contest Committee will take those votes into account when selecting finalists.

The Finals will be at the Turner Center for the Arts in Valdosta, Georgia, 7-10 PM, Saturday, August 22, 2021. Tickets for $10 will be available online soon, or $12 at the door. Headliners play, and three judges will each play a song themselves.

There will be food, cash bar, silent auction, and a kayak raffle. There will be brief talks about outings and advocacy, so you can know what your money is going to, in this fundraiser for WWALS Watershed Coalition, Inc. Sponsors will speak, and any elected officials present; briefly, of course.

Everyone will listen to the finalists, as the judges select winners.

“Georgia Beer Co. is back as our top-tier sponsor, which helps us get these new songs about our rivers, swamps, springs, and sinks,” said Suwannee Riverkeeper John S. Quarterman. “Brian Blount of WKUB asked me to talk about the Suwannee Riverkeeper Songwriting Contest on 105.1 FM.”

Here is that radio interview: Continue reading →