WWALS has made a good try with home-made trash booms. They don’t work with heavy rains: trash goes under and over, and sometimes they come loose. Trash the boom doesn’t catch washes downstream into the Withlacoochee River, right past where Valdosta and Lowndes County propose to fund building the Troupville River Camp and Nature Park, and on to Florida.

Need stronger trash booms with nets to help fix this public health trash problem. Fortunately, several of those are available at reasonable prices.

Valdosta has spent far more money on fixing its sewage problem, with much progress (and still room for improvement). Buying a few trash traps and cleaning them out would cost less than fixing one sewer line. Stopping the trash upstream at its source in fast foot parking lots would not cost much, either, since Valdosta already has excellent trash ordinances. WWALS is discussing solutions with Valdosta.

Boom, trash caught, trash not caught

And maybe some of the obvious sources of this trash would like to be part of the solution: Jackson Hewitt, Chick-fil-A, Zacadoo’s, Polar Pop (Circle K), KFC, Bud Light (Anheuser-Busch), Coca-Cola, Dr. Pepper, Murphy USA, Gator Aid (PepsiCo), and all those water bottle manufacturers, starting with Nestle, oh, I mean BlueTriton. Local companies or franchises can clean up their parking lots, put out trash cans, and keep emptying them. Bigger companies can sponsor trash traps and other solutions.

For a summary of the trash problem, see: https://wwals.net/issues/trash/

Boom replaced 2022-03-20

Thanks to Russell Allen McBride for these pictures and his continued efforts with the WWALS trash boom in Sugar Creek. Quotations are from him.

“Our boom broke free from the far side sometime during the rain event. Got it back in place today.”

Boom

We’ve been seeing these Jackson Hewitt footballs for more than a year. Maybe Jackson Hewitt would like to be part of the solution.

Trash: Jackson Hewitt football

Boom not catching enough 2022-03-26

“Time to upgrade we gave it our best shot. Not catching but a fraction of trash during high flow.”

Chick-fil-A, Bud Light, Dr. Pepper

“Just down from where last trash pile was caught. It moved farther down and closer to river.”

Trash piles not caught by boom 2022-03-27

“All this is different floating trash piles the barrier did not get.”

In a later post, I will discuss the several better booms available for reasonable prices.

Styrofoam, softball, glass, plastic

“Since we already know a huge amount of trash is coming from Sugar Creek. We start with 1 there. Sugar Creek just has too much volume of flow after a quick 1 in of rain. ”

Other likely locations are Two Mile Branch at Berkley Drive (which is owned by Valdosta both upstream and down), and Three Mile Branch at Country Club Drive (Valdosta owns the creek downstream from there). See map.

Map: Two Mile Branch and Three Mile Branch in the WWALS map of the Withlacoochee and Little River Water Trail (WLRWT).

Cleaned boom before rain 2022-03-31

“Cleaned the barrier before rain on Thursday. I didn’t have kayak. Had to wade to other side untie and pull to near bank. Deer and all.”

Trash in boom: Zacadoo’s

“Styrofoam was Chick-fil-A, Zacadoo’s and Polar Pop (Circle K). Plastics mostly Gator Aid and Power Aid and unknown water bottles.”

Chick-fil-A, Zacadoo’s, Polar Pop (Circle K), Gator Aid, water bottles

Boom after rain 2022-03-31

Movie: 2022-03-31–sugar-creek-after-rain (5.9M)

 -jsq, John S. Quarterman, Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®

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