Anticipating water and wastewater needs, coordinating with Florida and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, comparing water usage to available resources in the face of droughts, floods, and climate change, Georgia’s regional water management council for this area considered all this and more when it met in Valdosta to finalize a document: Regional Assessment of Implementation Status. Here are videos of the whole meeting.

• Introductions

  Video. Attendees included:

  • Cliff Lewis, Assistant Branch Chief: GA EPD Watershed Protection Branch,
    Agricultural Permitting Unit
  • Jeff Larson, Assistant Branch Chief – EPD Watershed Protection Branch,
    (Altamaha/ Ocmulgee/ Savannah/ Ogeechee/ Suwannee­Satilla/ St. Marys River Basins)
    He noted he’d been involved at the beginning, “and now I’m back”.
  • R.R. Rusty McCall, Valdosta, Lowndes County
    He said he was a local businesman. He’s McCall Construction.
  • Darvin Eason, Lenox, Cook County
    He’s with Lenox Agricultural Services, and he said he was past chairman.
  • Joe Lewis, Tifton, Tift County
    He said he a retired research scientist at the Tifton UGA campus, and he had been on the council since its inception, plus he had been on the Tifton City Council for sixteen years.
  • Eugene Dyal, Alma, Bacon County,
    he also has been on the board since its inception. I think he was also on the Bacon County Commission at one point.
  • Michael E. Edgy, Waynesville, Brantley County
  • Scott Downing, Fitzgerald, Ben Hill County,
    Chairman

  Quite a few council members were not present. The members seemed to have changed little since 2010. Several of them told me they planned to hold a meeting later after they finished this assessment document they were working on.

  Others present included:

  • John S. Quarterman, Vice President, WWALS Watershed Coalition
  • Ashby Nix, Satilla Riverkeeper
  • Pat Collins, City Engineer, Valdosta, sitting in for his employee Emily Davenport, Stormwater Manager.
  • Henry Hicks, Utilities Director, Valdosta
  • Michael ?, District Field Rep., Georgia Farm Bureau, for seventeen counties
  • Angela Bray, Planner, Valdosta, Southern Georgia Regional Commission
  • Carl Rowland, County Manager, Brantley County
  • ?, Georgia Department of Community Affairs
  • Leigh Elkins, Carl Vinson Institute, UGA
    Facilitator

  No Lowndes County Commissioners or staff attended.

• Executive Summary

  Video.

• Litigation between states impedes joint meetings in Florida

  Video.

• Wastewater and water anticipation

  Video.

• Army Corps flooding studies: WWALS and Satilla areas

  Video.

• Two Army Corps studies

  Video.

• Funding Source Map

  Video.

  

• Reading silently

  Video.

• Water Demand Management

  Video.

• Reliable sources of water: lost revenue and aging infrastructure

  Video.

• Wastewater and water quality investments: not just Valdosta

  Video.

• New EPD rules on water quality and stream impairments

  Video.

• Valdosta water quality project update

  Video.

• Ways gathering data and information currently

  Video.

• Usage vs. resources, droughts, floods, and climate change

  Video.

• Largest region in the state yet things are getting done

  Video.

• John S. Quarterman for WWALS

  Video.

• Angela Bray for SGRC

  Video.

Here’s a video playlist:

Videos: Regional water council meeting in Valdosta
Regular Session, Suwannee-Satilla Regional Water Planning Council (SSRWPC),
Video by John S. Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 21 May 2014.

-jsq

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