The Sante Fe River was familiar with Joanne Tremblay, with their morning routine, lying still as she waded calf-deep to collect a sample of its water.
It was a warm shade of tangerine.
She knew children would play on the riverbank come midday, bright and alive like the blue E. coli colonies that thrived on her water quality test plates.
“The place where I just recorded very high [E. coli] levels, I know for a fact that children play there,” Tremblay said. “They swim there.”
Following an April 12 raw sewage spill originating in Valdosta, Georgia, the North Central Florida Regional Planning Council greenlit the reactivation of a dormant Middle and Lower Suwannee River and Withlacoochee River Task Force May 23. The mobilization effort, comprised of 12 Florida county commissioners, aims to collaborate with Georgia state and local authorities to improve wastewater infrastructure and reduce river contaminants.
North Central Florida Regional Planning Council Executive Director Scott Koons said the task force was originally created in 2018, later entering a period of dormancy from 2020 to 2024 due to a decrease in incidents correlated with the installation of a Valdosta wastewater catch basin. However, heavy rain in the days leading to April 12 unleashed 6.7 million gallons of liquid from the basin — including about 1.3 million gallons of raw sewage — sending an onslaught of E. coli across state lines and through Florida’s network of interconnected waterways.
“Valdosta … had a history and a number of major sewage spills into the Withlacoochee River, which then flows south into the Suwannee River, which flows through the heart of our region,” Koons said.

The promise of rivers teeming with wildlife and a cold swim in crystal-clear springs draws what Levy County Commissioner and task force Chair John Meeks described as the basis of Florida’s economy: tourism. While frequent sewage spills cause environmental damage, he said they also strike a chord financially.
“Whenever there’s a report out there that there’s the potential for sewage in a body of water, it makes people not want to get in the water,” Meeks said. “You have less visitors. It’s less people spending money in your community. That’s less tax dollars, less business.”
As water quality testing continued to reveal a spike in bacterial E. coli concentrations, Meeks said the Suwannee River was branded with a “dirty” stigma, engineering a “nightmare” for those who depend on it for economic and environmental stability.
The river task force, engaged in Tallahassee lobbying, will carry its efforts north to Valdosta in collaboration with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and Georgia Environmental Protection Division along with Georgia local and state legislative authority to strengthen wastewater treatment infrastructure in light of the most recent raw sewage spill, Meeks said.
“It’s bad for wildlife, it’s bad for plants and it’s bad for people who are swimming in the water,” he said. “One gallon of sewage in the Suwannee River is one gallon too many.”
The Middle and Lower Suwannee River and Withlacoochee River Task Force’s reactivation will help Valdosta further “focus their attention,” said Suwannee Riverkeeper John S. Quarterman.
Valdosta has made significant strides to address the situation, which he said included the appointment of a new city manager and utilities director. The additional approval of a city budget allocating $67 million toward preventative pipeline repairs and other sewage issues is a step in the right direction, but he said there’s still more work to be done.
Through WWALS Watershed Coalition, Inc., he engages in advocacy for the entirety of the Suwannee River Basin, including the Georgia and Florida interconnected stretch of the Withlacoochee, Alapaha, Santa Fe and Ichetucknee Rivers. The nonprofit was formed in 2012 in response to Valdosta sewage and pollution.
Though the less frequent spills have been thoroughly monitored by authorities and communticated to downstream communities, Quarterman said there’s a remaining threat of contaminated water seeping through the Suwannee River Basin’s sandy soil and porous limestone foundation into community wells on its way to the Gulf of Mexico. Coming into contact with or ingesting water high in bacterial E. coli from raw sewage can cause severe illness, posing a heightened risk for vulnerable individuals, according to the Mayo Clinic.
“This problem needs to be fixed,” he said. “What can you do in the short term? Stay away from the river. Keep testing until you determine it’s clean.”
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Above: Tremblay measures the Santa Fe River's electrical conductivity based on the presence of sediment detected by a conductivity meter and separates a sample for an E. coli concentration test. (Rylan DiGiacomo-Rapp/WUFT News) |
WWALS volunteer water quality testers aim to monitor weekly readings scattered across North Central Florida. While the bacterial E. coli alert limit is 1,000 colony-forming units per 100 milliliters, Quarterman said results closely following sewage spills or exposure to other contaminants have reached the tens of thousands.
Tremblay waded calf-deep into the Sante Fe River and tossed a bucket, pulling it back toward her through the water with a string. In partnership with WWALS, she serves as president of Our Santa Fe River, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to protecting the river through clean-ups and advocacy.
The water she collected would later undergo a panel of tests, including analyses of temperature, pH levels, dissolved oxygen, conductivity and E. coli uploaded to a publicly accessible WWALS database.
“We want to be able to nip any kind of problematic E. coli in the bud,” Tremblay said.