Come on down!
Picture by Patrick Kunes, who set up the booth this morning. Details here.
-jsq
You can join this fun and work by becoming a WWALS member today!
WWALS at Alapaha Station Celebration tod
Monthly Archives: November 2015
WWALS @ Alapaha Station Celebration today 2015-11-14
Patrick Kunes has opened the WWALS booth in Alapaha, Georgia, near the start of the
Alapaha River Water Trail in Berrien County.
Come on down for music, food, parade, beauty queen, and meet WWALS people!
If you are a WWALS member, please come to the booth and sit a spell and help introduce WWALS to the people.
When: 9AM to 5PM Saturday November 14, 2015
Where: 245 NE Railroad Street, Alapaha, GA
31.381532,-83.223416, just east of Main Street, US 129.
What: Alapaha Station Celebration.
-jsq
You can join this fun and work by becoming a WWALS member today!
Continue readingSabal Trail resolution at Suwannee County Board of Commissioners Tuesday 2015-11-17
ACTION ALERT! SBOCC will be drafting a resolution concerning the Sabal Trail pipeline and compressor station at the next meeting. (facebook event)
When: 6PM Tuesday, Nov 17, 2015
Where: 218 Parshley Street Southwest, Live Oak, Florida 32064
Directions: Turn right at post office, go through stop sign, next building on right.
Please attend and show your support for this very important initiative by our county officials. Your input would be greatly appreciated.
-Debra Johnson
This item is not on the Suwannee BOCC agenda yet. However, we have reason to believe it will be discussed and probably voted on.
This is huge, because Continue reading
Sabal Trail through Lowndes past Clyattville Elementary School
The invading pipeline would pass within about one mile of Clyattville Elementary School
where it would cross
Clyatt Mill Creek and then Railroad Avenue, at about
30.680638, -83.326501.
This would be after crossing the Withlacoochee River from Brooks into Lowndes Counties just north of US 84, and before crossing Jumping Gulley Creek and the state line into Hamilton County Florida, where the hearing was held in Jennings for WWALS v. Sabal Trail & FDEP.
You can see the general route in the Cover Map. After crossing the Withlacoochee River, Sabal Trail would cross Martin Lane and Tiger Creek, then Continue reading
Pictures: Lakeland to Hotchkiss Road, WWALS Outing –Gretchen Quarterman 2015-07-11
Update 2023-06-22: More Pictures: WWALS on The Rocks between Lakeland and Hotchkiss, Alapaha River 2015-07-11.
Pictures by Gretchen Quarterman of the
11 July 2015 WWALS outing on the Alapaha River.
Happy paddlers and an owl!
Lots more outings coming up, from the Little River to the Suwannee, the Alapaha again (continuing our exploration of the Alapaha River Water Trail), to Grand Bay, the Okefenokee Swamp, and of course the Withlacoochee River, where we went most recently last month.
-jsq
You can join this fun and work by becoming a WWALS member today!
From Gretchen’s facebook album.
EPA letter could change pipeline path –Jasper News
Sabal Trail won’t comment in Florida about the EPA letter to FERC that validates what WWALS and many others have been saying, although Sabal Trail did comment in Georgia.
Carl McKinney, Jasper News, 5 November 2015,
front page, apparently not online,
EPA letter could change course of gas pipeline,
…In an Oct. 20 letter, the EPA maintained it always had serious concerns about the project, and recommends the approximately 515-mile-long pipeline’s path be redrawn to avoid environmentally sensitive areas in Florida.
Now, the WWALS Watershed Coalition environmental group has filed to get the letter admitted as evidenm in a legal challenge to prevent the Florida Department of Environmental Protection from issuing a permit for the project, said WWALS president John Quarterman.
“It validates everything we’ve been saying,” he said.
Here is that EPA letter to FERC.
Last month, WWALS and Tallahassee attorneys representing Sabal Trail met face-to-face at Continue reading
Long Alapaha River Paddle, GA 135 to Berrien Beach 2016-02-20
Update 2016-02-19: Water is high and fast, so expert paddlers only, come early, and be ready.
Continuing our exploration of the entire
Alapaha River Water Trail,
we’re into the longer stretches, including this one.
When: 8AM Saturday 20 February 2016
Put In: GA 135, MILE 106.5, Atkinson County side, 2.8 miles south of Willacoochee, GA, Atkinson County.
Take Out: GA 168 (Berrien Beach), MILE 88.24, N side of GA 168, west side of Alapaha River; float downstream under the bridge to the sand beaches, Berrien County
Duration: 18.25 miles. This paddle could take as long as 9-10 hrs.
Shuttle: Probably more than 30 minutes due to distance.
End time: Around 6PM. Yes, really all day.
This outing is Free! But we encourage you to join WWALS today to support our fun outings and important work: /donations/. Continue reading
Pictures: Easy Outing on the Alapaha River at GA 135, 2015-03-14
Paddling upstream was pretty easy, and downstream even easier,
on the Alapaha River from GA 135, Atkinson County side.
Here are a few pictures.
And in February, we paddle much farther, starting at GA 135 again, this time downstream all day to Berrien Beach, Saturday February 20, 2016.
-jsq
Paddling upstream
Boaters
Cable Route
Why are they laughing? 31.3040114, -83.0529619
Sabal Trail can leak into rivers and cause sinkholes according to its own Karst Mitigation Plan
You can believe
what Spectra’s Andrea Grover said in the VDT today,
or you can believe more from
Sabal Trail’s own Karst Mitigation Plan,
which says they already lost drilling fluids from test drillings under the Withlacoochee River between Brooks and Lowndes Counties, and if they cause a sinkhole they can’t fill they’ll “monitor” it.
How will they do that if a sinkhole forms under the pipeline under the river, or it breaks or explodes, like a Spectra pipeline did in Little Rock, Arkansas in May of this year?
As filed in the FERC DEIS, Karst Mitigation Plan, in Section 7.3.2., on page 31 of 31:
- If drilling fluid loss downhole affects nearby springs or rivers and complete drilling fluid loss to the formation cannot be prevented, reaming operations will continue and the affected waterbody will be monitored in accordance with the Best Drilling Practices Plan for the Sabal Trail Project.
Not just for pilot holes: drilling fluid loss is quite possible during reaming for the actual pipe hole. And this drilling fluid can contain lubricants with unspecified ingredients.
Sabal Trail knows about fracture traces such as Continue reading
Sabal Trail on Dirty Dozen again in VDT
In which Spectra Energy’s Andrea Grover claims “The pipeline will not contaminate water or aquifers,”, despite Spectra’s own SEC 10-K and Sabal Trail’s own Karst Mitigation Plan.
Joe Adgie, Valdosta Daily Times, 5 November 2015,
Sabal makes Georgia Water Coalition’s Dirty Dozen,
The proposed Sabal Trail Pipeline made the Georgia Water Coalition’s Dirty Dozen list for the second consecutive year.
The proposed pipeline made the list for its path through sinkhole-prone regions in Georgia and Florida, including Lowndes County.
Here’s GWC Dirty Dozen 2015 #11: Sabal “Sinkhole” Trail.
John Quarterman, WWALS Watershed Coalition president, said there is some hope for opponents of the pipeline, in the form of a strong letter from the Environmental Protection Agency to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which will have the final say on construction of the pipeline.
“We got a federal agency actually doing its job, and I don’t mean FERC, I’m talking about the EPA,” Quarterman said. “They filed an amazing letter that validates pretty much everything the opposition’s been saying about this pipeline.”
Last week, the EPA recommended Continue reading