Today is the last day of the $20 online registration for the
Big Little River Paddle Race, cosponsored by WWALS Watershed Coalition
and Friends of Reed Bingham, to be held Saturday March 23rd
at Reed Bingham State Park.
WWALS blog post;
event flyer PDF, and much of the flyer text is below.
Received today from Valdosta City Council Tim Carroll, who
sent it to a long list of people,
apparently responding to
the VDT's recent article and editorials.
All,
During my tenure as a city councilman, I have tried to keep everyone
updated on events and issues with our city. I want to share and
email I sent out recently that hopefully you will agree is important
information. In regards to today's paper — the story has some
serious errors and omissions. First of all in 2009- all we saved
from the flood was the pump station. No sewage treatment was taking
place and contrary to what the VDT says, then as we are now —
raw sewage was going into the river. It lasted about a month in
2009. With the decision to pull equipment/tanks etc so they would
not be destroyed this year — we not only saved a lot of tax
payer money….but we will be able to bring the plant back on line
in about a week. Reducing by several weeks the amount of sewage
going into the river. In regards to city water systems being
compromised — considering our water plant is 10-15 miles north
of the WWTP and the amazing fact that the river flows south —
your water is completely safe. Do we like discharging raw sewage
into the river? Of course not. During the flood it was going to
happen either way.I want to add one other note — the men and women in our
Utility department, fire, police, sanitation, engineering etc, etc
have been working long days this past week trying to manage flooding
issues. They deserve our thanks. It is very frustrating for those
whose homes and businesses were threatened by the flood. It is very
frustrating to our city employees who have worked so hard to manage
this crisis.So as Paul Harvey says — “here is the rest of the
story”.
I think Council Carroll is a bit cavalier about
the city's wells being upstream of the wastewater treatment plant,
because while the river may flow south, it's not clear how
the Floridan Aquifer flows, especially with multiple 800 foot
deep wells sucking water out of it.
Also I wonder what people downstream of the Withlacoochee Wastewater
Treatment Plant think of all that raw sewage coming down at them,
especially considering some of them have wells downstream.
However, he makes a number of points that the VDT omitted,
including a plan to do something about the situation,
and appended is his "rest of the story".
Here are pictures and videos of the Withlacoochee River at GA 122
on
18 February 2013
(on the left when the river was rising)
and
27 February 2013 (on the right,
when it was clearly in flood stage).
Pictures and videos of the Withlacoochee River at GA 122
by John S. Quarterman and Gretchen Quarterman for
WWALS Watershed Coailition.
 Brandon Powers for the VDT |
And the Valdosta Daily Times has discovered video!
VDT posted 25 February 2013,
The effects of rain,
which includes video of numerous locations around Lowndes County.
This is all relevant to the
Withlacoochee Wastewater Woes for Valdosta and Lowndes County.
-jsq
This letter demonstrates many public uses of the Alapaha River at
Hotchkiss Crossing by everyone from Boy Scouts to doctors,
and indicates economic benefits of water trails. -jsq
February 4, 2013
Lowndes County Board of Commissioners
327 North Ashley Street – 3rd Floor
Valdosta, GA 31601
RE: Hotchkiss landing closureDear Commissioners:
I have lived in the
South Georgia region for the past 16 years. I am also a practicing
physician and have a love of the out of doors, especially canoeing,
camping and hiking. I also serve on the board of
WWALS Watershed Coalition,
a local river advocacy group trying to promote awareness
and preservation of our local rivers. It has recently come to my
attention that you are considering the potential closure of the
Hotchkiss landing site along the Alapaha River near Naylor. I would
like to put in a word in favor of keeping the landing site open.I have canoed dozens of
different sections of the Alapaha River from north of Tifton all the
way to Statenville, as well as portions that join with the Suwanee
River in Florida. Without a doubt, one of the most fun and scenic
sections to paddle is from the put-in near Burnt Church outside of
Lakeland down to the Hotchkiss landing. I have taken various groups
The good news: they didn’t close the road to Hotchkiss Crossing
at the Alapaha River.
They tabled it until their next meeting, which is in two weeks,
26 February 2013. Video will follow tomorrow, in which you will
see the room was packed, mostly with people opposed to the road closing,
some from as far away as Tifton.
All concerned now have two weeks to absorb all the new information
and work out a solution.
Below is what I sent to the Lowndes County Commission at
Commissioner Joyce Evans’ request before the meeting tonight,
followed by a bit more information.
Subject: River Corridor Protection Plan
Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2013 16:49:50 -0500Dear Commissioners and County Planner,
When I was talking to Joyce Evans just now, I mentioned the
100 foot natural vegetative buffer state law requires
local governments to establish next to perennial rivers.
Here is a summary of the state law, the definition it contains,
the GA EPD rules, and some notes on the relevant parts of
the Lowndes County Comprehensive Plan.
Here is a list of the letters I have copies of that oppose
closing Old State Road to the Alapaha River; probably more have been sent.
The
vote is tonight 5:30 PM
12 February 2013 at 327 North Ashley Street 2nd Floor,
Valdosta, GA.
According to state law and the public hearing notice,
Any citizen of Lowndes County or any person wherever residing may be
heard by the Lowndes County Board of Commissioners during the
aforesaid public hearing.
That means anyone from anywhere may speak.
Here’s the list.
Seen today on the
WACE facebook page
is an image of an op-ed in the VDT, and alongside it I include here
Michael Noll’s initial comments, plus a few links.
There is good reason why Stephen Hawkins once said “the greatest
enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of
knowledge.” When entities like Fox News can claim that “solar won’t
work in America because it’s not as sunny as Germany”, we shouldn’t
be surprised by the results of such “educational” efforts. The fact
is that we have a number of clean and renewable forms of energy
(e.g. wind, solar, geothermal) that already work. Just go to
Spain,
Germany,
Denmark, Iceland, or simply stay in the US and visit places
like from
New Jersey
and
New York
to
California
and
Arizona. Combine
these pieces of a larger energy puzzle with meaningful initiatives
of
energy conservation and energy efficiency, and we find a way out
of our current predicament (i.e. continuing dependence on finite and
dirty sources of energy), while saving money (see
solar vs. nuclear),
preserving our natural resources (e.g. water, forests),
and providing clean, healthy and safe environments to live in (e.g.
wind and solar do not produce radioactive waste, pollute our air and
groundwater).The guest columnist appearing above is the same individual who
thought
My op-ed in the VDT today. -jsq
Gov. Deal
(WABE, 14 Nov 2012)
temporarily forgot that “conservative”
includes conserving something,
like
Theodore Roosevelt and national parks,
or when
Franklin D. Roosevelt established the Okefenokee National Wildlife
Refuge which also
administers Banks Lake, when
Richard Nixon started the EPA,
and when
Jimmy Carter signed the Soil and Water Conservation Act.
If Gov. Deal wants to call conservation “liberal”, I’m happy to
be a liberal working for water for our state!
Georgia Water Coalition’s Dirty Dozen
listed the biggest boondoggle
of all as
#11: the nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle
suck up more water from the Savannah River than all local agriculture and almost
as much as the city of Savannah.If the new Plant Vogtle nukes
are ever completed, all four will use more water than Savannah. In
2009 the legislature approved and Gov. Deal signed a law
letting Georgia
Power charge its customers in advance for building that boondoggle,
to the tune of
about $1.5 billion so far!Let’s not forget
This AJC op-ed is about coastal wetlands, but
much of it applies to wetlands such as cypress swamps and streams
in Lowndes County and the rest of central south Georgia,
especially since
our state water plan for the Suwannee-Satilla Region
points us at
County-Level Population Projections from the Governor’s Office of Planning and Budget
that project 45% growth in Lowndes County population in 20 years to 156,650 people by 2030,
which means near doubling in 30 years to 2050. -jsq
David Kyler wrote for the AJC 29 December 2006,
“Plant the seeds for viable coastal future”,
Recent population projections for the Georgia coast issued by
Georgia Tech say nothing new. We’re growing at almost 20 percent a
decade, meaning a near doubling every 35 years.The Center for a Sustainable Coast projected a population of about 1
million by 2030 for the 11 counties in the coastal region as defined
by the Department of Natural Resources, somewhat higher than the
844,000 predicted by Georgia Tech. This compares with a population
of 538,469 reported in the 2000 Census report.But the accuracy of projections is not the point. Increased
population will result in more land clearing and environmental
disturbance than in the past—there will be larger homes,
bigger lots and fewer people per household.National studies show up to twice as much land is
Boating, walking, birding, hunting, fishing: our watersheds provide
us all that, plus what goes in upstream comes out in your drinking
water. Withlacoochee, Willacoochee, Alapaha, and Little Rivers: WWALS
Seminar tomorrow in Tifton. Good talks, good food, good water. Y’all come!
-jsq
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