Bobby McKenzie reported yesterday, “Well again without wanting to and without trying…I found yet another mother load…”

This one is behind the Target, 1801 Norman Driver, Valdosta, GA 31601.

Trash, drain, Hightower and Sugar Creeks

It drains into Hightower Creek, then Sugar Creek, then the Withlacoochee River.

Sure, the WaterGoat near the bottom of Sugar Creek, will probably catch this trash when it gets that far. We thank Valdosta again for buying that WaterGoat, and we look forward to Valdosta’s plan for cleaning it out.

And we are still looking for Valdosta to come up with a plan for education and enforcement of its quite good trash ordinances to get parking lot owners to keep trash from getting off their property and to put out trash cans and keep them emptied, as their own 2010 Stormwater Master Plan said they should do “immediately” twelve years ago.

Sure, people shouldn’t litter. But the fast food outlets sell this single-use packaging, and the parking lot owners let it get into the creeks despite the city ordinances. They should bear responsibility.

The City of Valdosta doesn’t expect volunteers to clean up sewage spills, even though city employees do not produce most of that sewage. Why should volunteers be expected to clean up Valdosta’s ongoing trash spills?

Bobby noted, “Definitely no trash cans around like all the others.”

Store gutter trash

Bobby: “Just follow the trash couldn’t be a truer statement.”

Parking trash

Bobby, &ldrquo;The trail of trash is visible from the public viewing of the parking lot…”

Gutter trash

“down the drainage into the detention pond.”

Trash drain

And out of the pond into Hightower Creek, just above where it joins Sugar Creek, which drains into the Withlacoochee River. Then down to the trash jams a bunch of us just cleaned up all the way past the planned site of Troupville River Camp, to the Little River Confluence.

Drains to Sugar Creek

“More, more, more….”

The Dollar Tree is on 2.28 acres owned by LEPAUL WATSON PROPERTIES LLLP, P O BOX 2919, VALDOSTA, GA 31604, according to the Lowndes County Tax Assessors online map.

Sure, that’s private property. But Valdosta Stormwater Division convinced a different private detention pond owner to fix its drain, so they can do something about this one, too.

Lowndes County Parcel 0084A 052, in Lowndes County Tax Assessors Map, 2022-08-01

People going in the storefront off Norman Drive don’t see the 0.57 acres of “DETENTION/DRAINAGE AREAS” with the trash. Unless they go back there and leave their fast-food trash.

Dollar Tree storefront by Lowndes County Tax Assessors

That Dollar Tree trash appears to drain into Hightower Creek, although maybe it goes through the woods below Target directly into Sugar Creek.

Map: Dollar Tree, Hightower Creek, Sugar Creek in WWALS map of the Withlacoochee and Little River Water Trail.

Here you see the trash site bottom center, and Hightower Creek joining Sugar Creek, which going north to the Withlacoochee River.

Dollar Tree to Withlacoochee River in WWALS WLRWT Map.

For more about the trash situation, see:
https://wwals.net/issues/trash/

 -jsq, John S. Quarterman, Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®

You can join this fun and work by becoming a WWALS member today!
https://wwals.net/donations/

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