Valdosta City Council Meeting
The following article is from the WWALS website. John Quarterman has been doing the job of reporting the mishaps, the spills, the UNDER-REPORTING of the sins, the lack of transparency, and on top of that, the job of Georgia and Florida in sampling the water.
He and Merrillee Malwitz-Jipson have continually requested sampling to find out what is contaminated, where it is, and where it is coming from. The agencies responsible are way behind the curve and do not seem to have a handle on it.
The long history of Valdosta’s inability to contain their wastewater and been documented time after time. The Valdosta City Council’s reluctance to cooperate and communicate is described below.
The meeting on March 31 is an opportunity to express concern regarding this issue which has continued far too long.
Comments by OSFR historian Jim Tatum.
-A river is like a life: once taken, it cannot be brought back-
Valdosta said no. So delegates from all dozen counties are going to come to the March 21, 2019, Valdosta City Council Regular Session and speak in Citizens to Be Heard, three minutes each, some time after 5:30 PM that Thursday evening.
Movie: Approval of Resolution (115M) Task Force, clockwise from front: Scott R. Koons (NCFRPC), Ken Cornell (Alachua County), Anthony Adams (Lafayette County), Don Hale (Suwannee County), Gene Higginbotham (Dixie County), Kenrick Thomas (Gilchrist County), Danny Riddick (Bradford County), Thomas Demps (Taylor County), Beth Burnam (Hamilton County), Rick Davis (Chair, Madison County)
Apparently Valdosta told them that Valdosta doesn’t do workshops or joint meetings, which is curious, since Valdosta’s city council members a month earlier met with council members from all the other Lowndes County cities and the Lowndes County Commissioners about their Service Delivery Strategy, which includes wastewater. Last year, members of Valdosta Mayor and Council met with elected officials from other cities and counties throughout Central south Georgia T-SPLOST Region 11. Maybe it’s a state line thing. But back in 2015, the Valdosta Mayor, at least one Council member, the Utilities Director, etc. met with people from Florida about Valdosta wastewater, at WWALS’ request. So Valdosta’s refusal to hold a workshop with the downstream Florida counties is curious.
More came up in this meeting, including Florida SB 1100 that authorizes water well testing by the Florida Department of Health. Maybe there’s still time for a bill to fund more frequent and closer-spaced river water testing, as well.