Update 2021-05-08: Clean upstream and downstream, Withlacoochee River 2021-05-06.

Clean Withlacoochee River Friday downstream, according to WWALS tester Gus Cleary, and upstream, according to Valdosta. There’s been no rain since then (except far upstream on the Suwannee River), so most likely the Withlacoochee River and probably all the other rivers in the Suwannee River Basin are good for boating, fishing, and swimming.

We don’t actually know about the Suwannee or the Alapaha or Santa Fe Rivers, because the state of Florida is not testing those. If Valdosta can test three times a week on forty river miles to the state line, Florida should be able to do the rest to the Gulf. Floridians, maybe you’d like to ask your statehouse delegation to make that happen.

As previously mentioned, Madison and Hamilton Counties probably won’t lift their health advisory until they see a second clean report from testing by Madison Health. They usually test on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so we probably won’t see results until Wednesday. Meanwhile, you saw clean results here first.

Chart, River, Plates

Gus Cleary says the Withlacoochee was about seven feet above normal low levels Friday.

Seven-foot Withlacoochee River

The closest gauge to Gus Cleary’s testing site, which is between Allen Ramp and the Suwannee River, is the Lee Gauge, which went up another five feet from Friday to Monday.

Lee Gauge rising

Farther upstream at CR 150, near Sullivan Launch, the peaked Monday between Action stage and minor flood. So probably downstream at Gus’ place the peak will be later today or tomorrow.

Pinetta Gauge peaked Monday 2021-05-03

Meanwhile, Friday Gus’ plates were pretty clean.

66 cfu/100 mL: only two E. coli colonies

Here’s the chart with the Friday Valdosta and WWALS data.

Still clean Friday 2021-04-30-
For context and the entire WWALS composite spreadsheet of Georgia and Florida water quality results, rainfall, and spills, see:
https://wwals.net/issues/testing/

Everything is still green on Swim Guide, except Knights Ferry and Nankin Boat Ramps, and Gibson Park Ramp, because we have no new water quality test results for those. Chances are they’re actually also clean, but we don’t know.

Swim Guide greener 2021-04-29

 -jsq, John S. Quarterman, Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®

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