Clean Withlacoochee River 2023-04-06 | WWALS Watershed Coalition (WWALS) is Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®

Update 2023-04-15: Clean Little, Withlacoochee, and Alapaha Rivers 2023-04-13.

According to all the recent test results we have, the Withlacoochee River is pretty clean from E. coli. However, it’s raining upstream now, and predictions are for more rain tomorrow.

I’m still planning to paddle on Yet Another Cleanup Knights Ferry to Nankin, Withlacoochee River, 2023-04-08. If we’re quick, we may be finished before more than a drizzle falls.

If you want to paddle, swim, or fish this weekend, I’d recommend do it Saturday morning before the rain has much time to wash contamination out of creeks.

Chart, River, Swim Guide Map 2023-04-06

No new sewage spills have been reported in the Suwannee River Basin in Georgia or Florida since the tiny inland High Springs spill Thursday a week ago.

There is the matter of Valdosta’s followup testing after their February sewage spills, but the only bad results from that were Wednesday and Thursday a week ago, and that was in the Alapaha River basin.

Clean Withlacoochee River, Charts 2023-04-06
For context and the entire WWALS composite spreadsheet of water quality results, rainfall, and sewage spills, see:
https://wwals.net/issues/testing

The most recent results we have from Valdosta are for Wednesday, and they concur with the WWALS results.

Thanks to WWALS tester Cindy Vedas for her three Thursday Withlacoochee River sites: Franklinville, Staten Road, and US 41, plus her new site on Crawford Branch @ Skipper Bridge Road. Crawford Branch runs into the Withlacoochee River immediately downstream of Skipper Bridge.

Thanks to Amy Meyers and Will Hart for their preliminary Withlacoochee River Thursday results for Knights Ferry Boat Ramp and Sullivan Launch. Preliminary because out here in the backwoods we’re having a variety of Internet access issues.

Thanks to Suzy Hall for herding the testing cats, and to Gretchen Quarterman for training them and delivering supplies.

I’ve marked green all the WWALS “beaches” for which we have recent data, on

Map: Clean Withlacoochee River, Swim Guide 2023-04-06

Valdosta followup testing

Valdosta posted some followup testing after their February three times sewage spills at E. Park Ave. and US 84 into Knights Creek. Mostly they got results well below the single test limit of 410 cfu/100 mL. Until Wednesday a week ago, March 29, 2023, when they got absurdly high results: 131,600 Fecal coliform and 112,800 E. coli. That’s 112 times the alert limit of 1,000 cfu/100 mL E. coli. That was at their downstream test site at Inner Perimeter on Knights Creek. Their upstream test site at E. Park Ave. was similar to many previous tests there.

The next day’s results were better, but still above the one-time test limit of 410: 560 Fecal coliform and 695 E. coli.

There’s a footnote on all four of those numbers:

*3/29/23: high results for BELOW sample. Additional sample collected/analyzed from BELOW sample point. Results showed lower counts of fecal and E. coli. Possible cause of high results on 3/29 was substantial rainfall in area.

Indeed there was rain the previous day. But what did it wash into Knights Creek? Could it be Valdosta sewage?

We have seen this before, back in December 2019, when that infamous Valdosta spill when there was no rain washed down the Withlacoochee River in three successive rains a week apart, reaching Florida on Christmas Day.

Knights Creek runs into Mud Swamp Creek, then the Alapahoochee River, before reaching the Alapaha River just upstream from Sasser Landing in Hamilton County, Florida.

Thanks to Joe Brownlee and Georgia Power for a generous grant for water quality testing equipment and materials.

You or your organization could also donate to the WWALS volunteer water quality testing program.

Or maybe you’d like to become a WWALS water quality tester; please fill out this form: https://forms.gle/DzWvJuXqTQi12N6v7

There are more images below.

-jsq, John S. Quarterman, Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®

You can help with clean, swimmable, fishable, drinkable, water in the 10,000-square-mile Suwannee River Basin in Florida and Georgia by becoming a WWALS member today!
https://wwals.net/donations/

-jsq, John S. Quarterman, Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®

You can help with clean, swimmable, fishable, drinkable, water in the 10,000-square-mile Suwannee River Basin in Florida and Georgia by becoming a WWALS member today!
https://wwals.net/donations/

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