You can help stop a foolish Florida water lawsuit.
![[FL Atty Genl, WWALS at Alapaha River Rise]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2023-02-23--ashley-moody-fl-atty-genl/many.jpg)
FL Atty Genl, WWALS at Alapaha River Rise
Craig Pittman, Florida Phoenix, February 23, 2023, Florida attorney general tries to make it easier to pave over wetlands: We all should object to Ashley Moody joining this anti-environment lawsuit
I’ve excerpted a few high points from his fine rant:
There’s a case going on right now involving Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody that is more outrageous than entertaining.
Continue reading
WWALS sent EPA some comments on groundwater, which is very important here above the Floridan Aquifer in south Georgia and north Florida.
WWALS also signed on to comments by Waterkeeper Alliance and SELC, but SELC wrote almost nothing about groundwater, and there was more to say than was in the WKA comments. Those other comments are on the WWALS website.
The WWALS comments should appear on regulations.gov, Docket number EPA-HQ-OW-2021-0602, with Comment Tracking Number kzd-8bdc-p6xf, after EPA finishes reviewing it. Here they are in PDF and inline below.
![[Dead River Sink, Alapaha River Rise, WWALS Letter to EPA]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2022-02-07--wwals-epa-groundwater/many.jpg)
Dead River Sink, Alapaha River Rise, WWALS Letter to EPA
The Army Corps’ excuse to abdicate oversight over the strip mine site near the Okefenokee Swamp was overturned in a court case this August, so the Corps should take that back up.
Meanwhile, WWALS asked GA-EPD to impose a moratorium on all mining permit applications until the ramifications of that court case are sorted out, which could take months or years.
You can
ask GA-EPD for that moratorium,
or to deny the permits,
or at the very least to examine them very thoroughly and produce the equivalent of the Environmental Impact Statement that the Corps should be working on.
https://wwals.net/?p=55092
![[Moratorium, please, GA-EPD, since District Court vacated Army Corps' excuse]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2021-09-27--wwals-to-ga-epd-usace-mining-moratorium/many.jpg)
Moratorium, please, GA-EPD, since District Court vacated Army Corps’ excuse
Suwannee Riverkeeper signed on to this Waterkeeper Alliance request for EPA to protect both surface and groundwater.
It includes a mention of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) abdication of oversight over the proposed titanium strip mine far too near the Okefenokee Swamp.
![[Restore WOTUS, mine too near Okefenokee Swamp, groundwater recharge]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2021-09-03--wka-comments-epa-wotus/many.jpg)
Restore WOTUS, mine too near Okefenokee Swamp, groundwater recharge
That USACE decision was based on the EPA and USACE 2020 Navigable Waters Protection Rule (“NWPR”) redefining jurisdictional “Waters of the United States” (“WOTUS”) under the Clean Water Act (“CWA”). On August 30, a U.S. District Court vacated the NWPR. On September 3, Waterkeeper Alliance these lengthy comments on EPA’s WOTUS rulemaking.
Also on September 3, EPA announced that EPA and USACE have halted implementation of NWPR and will be applying the pre-2015 WOTUS definition, which was one of Waterkeeper letter’s requests.
Meanwhile, you can ask the Georgia Environmental Protection Division (GA-EPD)
to reject the five permit applications from Twin Pines Minerals for that
strip mine,
or at least to thoroughly study with independent review potential effects
of that mine on the Okefenokee Swamp, the Suwannee River,
and the Floridan Aquifer.
https://wwals.net/?p=55092
![[Great Blue Heron flying, Suwannee River, Okefenokee Swamp, 2019-12-07]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2020-11-17--gwc-dd/2019-12-07--jsq-gbh-suwannee-river-okefenokee-with-boaters.jpg)
Great Blue Heron flying, Suwannee River, Okefenokee Swamp, 2019-12-07
Update 2021-09-11: This is what the Waterkeeper Alliance letter says about the Okefenokee Swamp and the threatening strip mine:
Additionally, Alabama-based mining company Twin Pines has proposed a heavy mineral sand strip mine between the St. Mary’s River and Okefenokee Swamp, one of the largest and most celebrated wetlands in the country, and home to both a National Wildlife Refuge and a National Wilderness Area.140 The proposed mine would be 50-feet deep on average and would destroy hundreds of acres of wetlands and streams that are critical to the St. Marys River and Okefenokee’s diverse ecosystems, threatening the hydrology of the swamp. Recently, the Corps determined that nearly 400 acres of previously jurisdictional wetlands near the Refuge are now unprotected by the Clean Water Act, allowing the mining company to begin mining without any involvement by the agency.141 For reasons that are unclear, the Corps did not discuss the streams at the site, which appear to be, but not are not being treated as, jurisdictional waters under the CWA.142 This decision has important implications for the initial part of the mine as well as the longer-term expansion of the mine to more than 8,000 acres near the Refuge.
140 St. Marys Riverkeeper and Suwannee Riverkeeper work to protect waters that are impacted by this decision.
141 Corps Approved Jurisdictional Determination, ORM Number: SAS-2018-00554 (Oct. 14, 2020) (Attachment 11).
142 National Wetlands Inventory Map of the Twin Pines Mine Site Area, available at: https://www fws.gov/wetlands/data/Mapper html (Attachment 12).
![[Multiple Streams and Wetlands, including Wetlands Intersecting Streams]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2021-09-03--wka-comments-epa-wotus/big/Attachments-Volume-5--Exs.-11-14-0011.jpg)
Multiple Streams and Wetlands, including Wetlands Intersecting Streams
PDF
The entire Waterkeeper comment letter is on the WWALS website, along with its exhibits: Continue reading
The Lowndes County Commission started the process of taking over two flooded private roads, they adopted a fire department millage rate for all real and personal property in the unincorporated parts of the county, and they discussed how that millage was to aid population growth in the unincorporated areas, apparently including building closer to and perhaps in wetlands that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had recently decided were not Waters of the U.S. (WOTUS). All these actions at their August 24, 2021, Regular Session, at least taken together, would seem to support sprawl.
![[Mud Swamp Road and Swamp Edge Drive adopted by Lowndes County, GA]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2021-08-24--mud-swamp-road/map-mud-swamp.jpg)
Mud Swamp Road and Swamp Edge Drive adopted by Lowndes County, GA,
in the lower left corner of this map, between two arms of Mud Swamp Creek,
in the WWALS
map of all public landings in the Suwannee River Basin.
Better would be to build only close in to existing services, instead of sprawling farther out, where no taxes will ever pay enough for sending school buses, Sheriff, and Fire. See this report the County commissioned: The Local Government Fiscal Impacts of Land Use in Lowndes County: Revenue and Expenditure Streams by Land Use Category, Jeffrey H. Dorfman, Ph.D., Dorfman Consulting, December 2007. As Dr. Dorfman summarized in a different presentation,
Continue readingLocal governments must ensure balanced growth, as
sprawling residential growth is a certain ticket to fiscal ruin*
* Or at least big tax increases.
Approved at the Sunday WWALS board meeting and filed last night via regulations.gov as PDF.
April 15, 2019
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
EPA Docket Center
Office of Water Docket
Mail Code 28221T
1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20460
Re: Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OW-2018-0149,
Revised Definition of Waters of United States
To Whom it May Concern:
WWALS Watershed Coalition, Inc. (WWALS), also known as Suwannee Riverkeeper, submits the following comments on the United States Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) and Department of Defense, Department of the Army, Corps of Engineers (“Corps”) proposed rule entitled “Revised Definition of Waters of United States,” 84 Federal Register 4154-01 (February 14, 2019) (hereinafter “Proposed Rule”).
In addition to supporting the comments of Waterkeeper Alliance and the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC), WWALS adds these comments on groundwater.
The Proposed Rule’s categorical exclusion of groundwater makes no sense here above the Floridan Aquifer where surface water and groundwater constantly interchange, and pollutants travelling through groundwater are a frequent source of health, environmental, and economic problems.
This proposed exclusion of groundwater is called out repeatedly in the Proposed Rule, starting with this:
Continue readingThe new water rule EPA plans to propose may be much more about all our drinking water underground in Florida and south Georgia than about anybody’s private pond.
Stacey H. Mitchell, David H. Quigley and Bryan Williamson, Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP, 11 December 2018, United States: Dipping Its Toe In The Groundwater? Supreme Court Eyes Expedited Review For Clean Water Act Case,
Specifically, the Court aims to address a circuit split among the 4th, 5th and 9th Circuits in determining whether only direct discharges to “navigable waters” (rivers, lakes and other surface waters, for example) are covered or whether groundwater that is “hydrologically connected to surface water” is subject to Clean Water Act (CWA) pollution discharge requirements.2 Groundwater—that is, water held beneath the soil or in between rock structures—does not fall under CWA jurisdiction. Nevertheless, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), for many years, maintained that pollutants that flow with a direct and immediate hydrologic connection through groundwater into surface waters are properly regulated under the CWA.3 Environmentalists agree with EPA’s long-standing position, while many in industry say that the agency is reaching beyond its scope.
Surface water interchanges with groundwater all the time here in the southeast coastal plain, where we all drink with straws from the groundwater.
Figure from same USGS study as below.
This SCOTUS case appears to be related to the forthcoming EPA rule change proposal that has been all over the news lately. More from the same article: Continue reading
Suwannee Riverkeeper is among the signatories on the comments Waterkeeper Alliance sent in the rulemaking on redefining Waters of the U.S. (WOTUS). Protecting feeder streams and wetlands is important also to prevent floods such as we had in 2009 and 2013, which caused massive sewage overflows.
Waterkeeper Alliance, PR, 28 September 2017, Proposed Revisions to WOTUS Reduce Clean Water Protections: EPA and the Corps’ attempts to revoke Clean Water Act protections from waters is an illegal effort that puts drinking water and public health at risk
Waterkeeper Alliance, Center for Biological Diversity, Center for Food Safety, Turtle Island Restoration Network, and 115 Waterkeeper Organizations and Affiliates submitted comments to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) urging Continue reading
![[2019-04-15--WWALS-to-EPA-0001]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2019-04-15--epa-rule-deadline/2019-04-15--WWALS-to-EPA-0001.jpg)