Tag Archives: Alapaha

Ask Georgia Power to conserve our water –Garry Gentry for WWALS @ GA PSC 2013-06-18

Garry Gentry read the WWALS Watershed Coalition letter at the Georgia Public Service Commission meeting Tuesday 18 June 2013.

The recent rains have swollen our blackwater rivers, Withlacoochee, Willacoochee, Alapaha, and Little, under our longleaf pines and Spanish-moss-covered oaks, and filled up the tea-colored tannin waters in our frog-singing pocosin cypress swamps here in central South Georgia. But that was only a dent in our protracted drought that ranges from mild to extreme, with projections not much better….

There is no need to use our Floridan Aquifer water to build more baseload power plants while Georgia lags behind Michigan, Massachusetts, and even tiny New Jersey and Maryland in solar power.

WWALS calls on the PSC to ask Georgia Power to conserve our water and to bring jobs to south Georgia through solar power and wind off the Georgia coast.

You can read the complete letter. Here’s the video:


Ask Georgia Power to conserve our water –Garry Gentry for WWALS
Georgia Power proposed closing of coal plants,
Administrative Session, GA Public Service Commission (GA PSC),
Doug Everrett (1: south Georgia), Tim Echols (2: east Georgia), Chairman Chuck Eaton (3: metro Atlanta), Stan Wise (5 north Georgia), Bubba McDonald (4: west Georgia),
Video by John S. Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),
244 Washington Street SW, Atlanta, GA, 30334-9052, 18 June 2013.

-jsq

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:

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County response to 10 inches of rain —Ashley Tye @ LCC 2013-02-26

Emergency Services Director Ashley Tye spoke about Local weather conditions at the 26 Febuary 2013 Lowndes County Commission meeting. He said the Withlacoochee River at Skipper Bridge Road was expected to crest at 20 feet within hours. He didn’t expect Valdosta’s Withlacoochee Wastewater Treatment Plant to flood.

He said most of the rain fell to the west of Valdosta, so the Little River actually absorbed more water than the Withlacoochee this time. Only Shiloh Road and a few other roads were closed.

The boat ramps at Langdale Park were closed in conjunction with Parks and Rec.

A few schools were closed, but all expected to reopen the next day.

Commissioner Demarcus Marshall asked Continue reading →

What does Lowndes Comprehensive Plan say about river corridor protection?

Future Development Map Lowndes County 2030 Comprehensive Plan Is the Lowndes County Commission a “Qualified Local Government”? Georgia state law says perennial river corridors shall be protected, all of the major rivers in Lowndes County (Alapaha, Withlacoochee, Little) qualify as perennial, and GA EPD rules say to be a “Qualified Local Government” a comprehensive plan including River Corridor Protection Plans with protection for a natural vegetative buffer area bordering each protected river is required.

GA DCA keeps a list of all the comprehensive plans in the state. Here’s Lowndes County’s 2030 Comprehensive Plan. The main document is the Community Agenda and here is the map. Hm, the map shows a light blue color for “Park/Recreation/Conservation” for parts of the Little, Withlacoochee, and Alapaha Rivers in Lowndes County, but not all. What about the rest of those rivers in the county?

What does the Community Agenda say? It doesn’t mention any River Corridor Protection Plans. However, it does say this:

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Putting conservation into conservatives —John S. Quarterman

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

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Plant the seeds for viable water future

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 2010-2030 Change in Population of Georgia Counties 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

Continue reading →

Video Playlist @ LCC 2012-10-09

The big item at Tuesday’s Lowndes County Commission Regular Session was, same as at Monday’s Work Session, the waste management railroad, terminating in a decision. Other topics included citizen Karen Noll speaking against the charter school amendment.

Here’s the agenda with links to the videos and a few notes, or links to separate posts. Apologies for the poor sound on the first videos; we didn’t have the usual camera. Of course, if the Commission did its own videoing and posting, that problem would be unlikely to occur.

  1. Call to Order
  2. Invocation
  3. Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag
  4. Minutes for Approval
    1. Work Session — September 24, 2012
    2. Regular Session — September 25, 2012
  5. Public Hearing — REZ-2012-15 Glenn O’Neal, Pecan Plantation Rd. & US Hwy 84 W E-A to C-H, County Water & Septic, ~4.5 acres
  6. For Consideration
    1. Bevel Creek Lift Station Pump Repair
    2. Alapaha Waterline size Increase
    3. Beer License — Naylor’s Pantry — 8777 E. Hwy 135
    4. Refunding Revenue Bonds
    5. Solid Waste Management Request for Proposal
  7. Reports
    1. Community Planning Month Proclamation
      Plus recognition of two planners from Moody AFB.
    2. Employee Health Fair
    Chairman Ashley Paulk interjected not on the agenda
    • some comments about recently deceased former VSU president Hugh C. Bailey,
    • and noted the fire chief had a new fire truck, which was parked outside.
  8. Citizens Wishing to be Heard Please State Name And Address
    • Karen Noll spoke against the charter school amendment, saying it would implement taxation without representation Karen Noll @ LCC 2012-10-09 and would take more tax dollars from our public schools to give twice as much money to special charter school students.
    • Ken Klanicki never actually even approached the podium. After being asked by the chairman to come to the podium or leave the room, he wandered to the back of the room and was escorted out by a deputy sheriff. He called me by name as he left, but I have no idea what he was trying to accomplish. He called me later, but when I asked him that, he had no explanation.

Here’s a video playlist. It shifts from the first camera (good video, poor sound) to the second camera (video with no closeups, good sound) in the middle, when I arrived with the second camera. The rest of the first camera videos are tacked onto the end. Next time we’ll attempt to have the good camera.

Video Playlist
Regular Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Video by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE), Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 9 October 2012.

-jsq

 

Videos: Water, water, water, waste! and planning? @ LCC 2012-10-08

The big news was the waste disposal railroad, but the Lowndes County Commission also heard about three water issues (one a rezoning), plus a beer license, revenue bonds, community planning month, and a health fair at its Work Session this morning.

Here’s the agenda, with links to the videos and a few notes, or links to separate posts.

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2012, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2012, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street — 2nd Floor
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A rezoning, wastewater pump repair, solid waste RFP, and community planning month @ LCC 2012-10-08

2974 Pecan Plantation Road A rezoning for well and septic, Bevel Creek is back with a lift station pump repair, and something about an Alapaha waterline: water, water, water. Plus a beer license, refunding revenue bonds, and the long-awaited waste management RFP. And an employee health fair, whatever that is, and apparently this is community planning month. All that at the Lowndes County Commission, Monday morning and Tuesday evening.

Here’s the agenda.

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2012, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2012, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street — 2nd Floor
Continue reading →

Watershed seminar tomorrow in Tifton

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

10:00 – 10:20 Dave Hetzel, WWALS President
Welcome/Introductions
10:20 – 10:35 Karen Hendrix, WATER MATTERS: Co-Chair
WATER MATTERS: Focus & Function
10:35 – 11:10 Neill Herring, Veteran Conservation Lobbyist at the GA General Assembly
The Political Economy of Water Conservation in Georgia
11:10 – 11:45 Jesslyn Shields, Georgia River Network
River Protection Success Stories in Georgia
11:45 – 11:55 Break
11:55 – 12:10 Bret Wagenhorst
Water Trails: Conservation and Development
12:10 – 12:45 Babe McGowan, Forester
Best Management Practices for Riparian Ecosystems
12:45 – 1:00 Karan Rawlins, University of Georgia
SEEDN smartphone app
1:00 – 2:00 Dave Hetzel
Open Discussion and Pot Luck Lunch
2:00 – 4:00pm Walk to the Arboretum and Practice SEEDN App
WWALS Watershed Seminar
10:00 am Saturday
22 September, 2012
Seminar Room
NESPAL Building
2360 Rainwater Road
Tifton Campus
University of Georgia
WWALS
WWALS Watershed Coalition is an Advocacy Organization working for watershed conservation of the Willacoochee, Withlacoochee, Alapaha, and Little River Systems watershed in south Georgia and north Florida through awareness, environmental monitoring, and citizen advocacy.
Introducing WWALS Board
Dave Hetzel — President
John S. Quarterman — VP
Brittney Hull — Treasurer
Nathan Wilkins — Secretary
Gretchen Quarterman
Bret Wagenhorst
Garry Gentry
Karan A. Rawlins
Al Browning
Pot Luck Lunch
All Attendees, please bring your favorite dish to share
WWALS is Providing the Main Course
In the spirit of conservation please bring your own set up: Plate, fork, knife, spoon, cup