Always fun at the Courthouse in Quitman, at the Brooks County Skillet Festival.
We’ll be back there Saturday, October 15, 2022. Maybe you’d like to help at the WWALS booth.
The Little River and the Withlacoochee River form the eastern boundary of Brooks County, in the Withlacoochee and Little River Water Trail. Continue reading
Update 2022-10-14: Good water quality 2022-10-13.
So far as we know, from WWALS test results for Thursday, happy fishing, swimming, and boating this weekend.
No new sewer spills have been reported in Georgia or Florida in the Suwannee River Basin.
The most recent results we have from Valdosta are from Friday a week ago. And those illustrate a problem; see below.
WWALS tester Elizabeth Brunner got good results at her usual GA 122 sites: Folsom Bridge on the Little River, Hagan Bridge on the Withlacoochee River, and Lakeland Boat Ramp on the Alapaha River.
The rivers are so low she got a picture of the pilings of Old Hagan Bridge. Continue reading
Thanks to the dozen WWALS volunteers who helped at the WWALS booth and in the parade at the Hahira Honeybee Festival, September 30 and October 1, 2022.
That’s Scotti Jay in the truck and Sara Jay on the raffle kayak in the parade. Continue reading
Thanks, sponsors, Packaging Corporation of America and Wisenbaker’s Garage.
You or your organization can become a sponsor for the WWALS Boomerang paddle race on the idyllic blackwater Withlacoochee River, Saturday, October 22, 2022, from State Line Boat Ramp into Florida and back upstream into Georgia.
If you clean up before you paddle, you will get a Rivers Alive t-shirt. Continue reading
Update 2023-11-09: GA-EPD Consent Order on Valdosta for One Mile Branch fish kill and sewage spills 2023-09-15.
Valdosta had yet another small sewage spill, this time on Friday, September 23, 2022, into Lake Sheri, which drains into the Withlacoochee River just upstream from I-75.
![[Report and map: Valdosta Lake Sheri sewage spill 2022-09-23]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2022-09-29--wq/2022-09-23--spill-and-map-valdosta-lake-sheri-sewage-spill.jpg)
Report and map: Valdosta Lake Sheri sewage spill 2022-09-23
Most likely that spill was too small to affect the river, but those poor people who live on Lake Sheri, which already had three sewage spills upstream this summer.
The GA-EPD Sewage Spills Report for Monday, September 26, 2022 shows that 1,250 raw sewage spill as Continue reading
Good news! Valdosta Engineering has added a net to the home-made Valdosta City trash trap in the Lee Street detention pond on One Mile Branch, upstream of Ashley Street, Drexel Park, VSU, Sugar Creek, and the Withlacoochee River.
Bobby McKenzie opened an issue in Valdosta’s Click ‘n’ Fix smartphone app on September 11, 2022. Valdosta officials closeed it twice, but he persisted, reminding them that a year ago in July 2021, at the invitation of WWALS, trash trap company Osprey met with WWALS and Valdosta Stormwater Manager Angela Bray and then-City Engineer Pat Collins, presenting their Litter Gitter, which has a net in addition to a boom. Bobby also sketched the idea on an image of the current Lee St. trap.
Apparently current City Engineer Benjamin O’Dowd got the picture, because yesterday Bobby sent a picture of that trash trap with a net on top of it.
Valdosta so far has not said in the Click ‘n’ Fix thread that they have done that, but I’m going ahead and announcing this good news.
Thank you, City Engineer Benjamin O’Dowd, for the net on Valdosta’s Lee Street detention pond trash trap!
And thanks to Bobby McKenzie for his persistence.
Yes, I know Continue reading
Update 2023-11-09: GA-EPD Consent Order on Valdosta for One Mile Branch fish kill and sewage spills 2023-09-15.
Update 2022-10-01: Good Water Quality, Withlacoochee, Little, Alapaha Rivers 2022-09-29.
Update 2022-10-01: Equipment next to One Mile Branch at VSU was put there by Valdosta to route around a sinkhole.
The City of Valdosta says “a fuel spill may be a contributing cause” of the One Mile Branch fish kill.
Meanwhile, WWALS finds E. coli counts too high even upstream of the fish kill, but more than doubling in the fish kill.
WWALS rescheduled our Chainsaw cleanup, which was supposed to be this morning, on the Withlacoochee River downstream from Sugar Creek, which is downstream of One Mile Branch.
I recommend everyone else also avoid One Mile Branch, Sugar Creek, and the Withlacoochee River from Sugar Creek at least down to the Little River Confluence, until there is some resolution of this fish kill, the high E. coli counts, and the alleged fuel spill.
Scotti Jay collected water samples Friday and Sara Jay plated them. The results are:
Drexel Park Bridge: 966 cfu/100 mL
One Mile Branch Waterfall: 1,100 cfu/100 mL
West Gordon Street: 2,566 cfu/100 mL
The Georgia Adopt-A-Stream (GA-AAS) one-time sample limit for E. coli is 410. The GA-AAS alert limit is 1,000. Continue reading
Rescheduled due to fish kill.
We need volunteers to pick up trash while a few people chainsaw some deadfalls.
We aim to collect the trashjams we didn’t have room for last time, and to chainsaw the remaining Withlacoochee River deadfalls between Sugar Creek and the Little River Confluence. Then we’ll paddle up the Little River to take out at Troupville Boat Ramp.
Unlike last time, we’re scheduling seven hours for the shuttle, for chainsawing and trash collecting, and for the four-mile paddle. With luck, nobody will get stuck this time.
All dependent on the weather, of course. Could be hurricane season finally by then, or could be plenty low to make this easy.
When: 9 AM to 4 PM, Sunday, October 16, 2022
Put In: Meet at the back of the Salty Snapper parking lot, 1405 Gornto Rd, Valdosta, GA 31602.
![[Trashjam, deadfall, chainsaws]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2022-09-25--chainsaw-withlacoochee/many.jpg)
Trashjam, deadfall, chainsaws,
2022-07-30; Photos: John S. Quarterman.
Update 2022-09-25: High E. coli near One Mile Branch fish kill, and maybe fuel spill 2022-09-23.
Update 2022-09-24: Clean Withlacoochee River water quality test results then One Mile Branch fish kill 2022-09-22.
Scotti Jay says, “I’m glad my dog doesn’t like to get in the water.”
The One Mile Branch water full of dead fish from Oak Street at VSU down to West Gordon Street and Sugar Creek in Remerton. Sugar Creek goes on down to the Withlacoochee River.
A sewage bypass pipe starts just downstream (west) of Patterson Street and ends near the VSU practice football field west of Oak Street, near where the dead fish start. Such equipment could only have been put there by Valdosta Utilities or its contractors.
I saw such equipment at Patterson Street after Continue reading
Update 2022-10-03: Pictures: Hahira Honeybee Festival and Parade 2022-10-01
Arts, crafts, food. Often 25,000 people see the WWALS booth. You can help at the booth, or on Saturday you can join us in the parade at noon.
![[Honeybee, Suwannee Riverkeeper in parade, WWALS booth]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2022-09-30--hahira-honeybee/many.jpg)
Honeybee, Suwannee Riverkeeper in parade, WWALS booth
![[WWALS Booth]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2021-10-16--brooks-co-skillet-fest-pictures/20211016_094453.jpg)
![[Chart, Rivers, Swim Guide]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2022-10-06--wq/many.jpg)
![[Parade and Booth 2022-10-01]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2022-10-01--honeybee/many.jpg)
![[Flyer]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2022-10-22--boomerang/WWALS-Boomerang-Flyer-2022-0001.jpg)
![[Before and after]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2022-09-28--valdosta-trash-trap-net/many.jpg)
![[One Mile Branch sites]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2022-09-23--one-mile-branch-fish-kill-e-coli/many.jpg)
![[Fish kill and equipment]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2022-09-23--one-mile-branch-fish-kill/many.jpg)