Valdosta Watergoat installed in Sugar Creek 2022-06-21

Two years of politics and less than an hour to install. And a fun summer solstice celebration!

Today the WaterGoat the Valdosta Mayor announced a month ago was installed on Sugar Creek, where it should stop trash from getting into the Withlacoochee River.

This first trash boom (a steel cable with floats and a 12-inch mesh below it) is a good start.

Jeff Mills of WaterGoat said he’s “hoping this will do good things for Valdosta.”

Many thanks to Bobby McKenzie (who was at work), Russell Allen McBride, and Suzy Hall, who have been involved in this effort for the past year or more, and all the other volunteers who have helped.

Say WaterGoat

As Russell said, “A long time coming, but better late than never.”

Nobody showed up on the clock from the City of Valdosta. But I will thank Mayor Scott James and the entire City Council, including Andy Gibbs, in whose district we installed the WaterGoat, and who showed up and helped on a recent cleanup.

Now Valdosta needs at least two more trash booms, on Two Mile Branch and Three Mile Branch, and Valdosta needs to stop the trash at its sources upstream by getting parking lot owners to keep it from getting off their property and putting in the trash cans required by city ordinances. I look forward to Valdosta setting an example by putting trash cans in its own parking lots near City Hall.

This all started in April 2020 when a landowner on Two Mile Branch reported rafts of trash. Although Valdosta knew of it at least since its 2010 Stormwater Master Plan, which describes and depicts trash along multiple creeks and says something must be done “immediately.”

Suzy Hall remarked, “A lot of work has gone into this day. It should have been done twelve years ago.”