Watershed meeting organized by Army Corps of Engineers



The

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) didn’t know there was
a large water problem hereabouts, but now they do, and they want
to take a watershed-wide approach, from the headwaters to the Gulf of
Mexico, including both surface water and aquifer issues,
perhaps starting with redrawing FEMA’s flood maps,
and maybe even including once again funding the state water council.



Thursday 11 April 2013 there was a rather large governmental meeting
organized by USACE in response to

the City of Valdosta’s request of 11 March 2103.
Yesterday,

Valdosta City Council District 5 Tim Carroll sent the appended
list of attendees, augmented by a conversation with him on the phone 13 April
and a blog comment by him later that same day on
the original post on the WWALS blog,
in which he also remarked:

Very good preliminary meeting that hopefully will yield real action on
our region wide water issues. Thanks for sharing this info with WWALS.

We know little else, because no media or private citizens were invited.

  • USACE Savannah office: Jeff Morris, Georgia Silver Jackets Coordinator and Beth Williams, Hydraulic Engineer
  • USACE Jacksonville office: David Apple, Chief, Watershed and Restoration Planning Section
  • GADNR: Christopher Hill and Tom Shillock, GAEPD Floodplain Management Unit
  • GEMA: Dee Langley, Planning Program Manager and Terry Lunn, Director, Hazard Mitigation Division
  • GEMA: Gary Rice – Regional Field Coordinator
  • USGS: Brian McCallum, Supv. Hydrologist/ADir and Keith McFadden, Physical Scientist
  • FEMA Region 4: Susan Wilson, CFM, Floodplain Management and Insurance Branch Chief and Janice Mitchell, Insurance Specialist and Lender Compliance

Those state and national agencies were brought by:

Jeff Morris

Team Leader

Plan Formulation and Economics Branch

Planning Division

Savannah District, USACE

He listed himself as coordinator for the
Georgia Silver Jackets.
Silver Jackets is a national inter-agency program,

“Many Agencies One Solution”,
with programs developed at the state level.

Georgia’s Silver Jacket program is apparently
still getting organized.

Local elected and employed officials included:

Lowndes County:

  • Chairman Bill Slaughter

  • County Engineer Mike Fletcher

  • Emergency Director Ashley Tye

City of Valdosta

  • Mayor John Gayle

  • City Manager Larry Hanson

  • Operations Manager John Whitehead

  • Utilities Director Henry Hicks

    City Engineer Pat Collins

  • Assistant to City Manager Mara Register

  • Storm Water Director Emily Davenport

  • Zoning and Planning Director Matt Martin

  • Public Information Officer Sementha Mathews

  • Council Robert Yost

  • Council Tim Carroll

Tift County

  • Chairman Grady Thompson

  • County Manager Jim Carter

Tifton

  • Two city employees (engineering? planning?)

Others included:

-jsq