More about that in a previous post.
-jsq, John S. Quarterman, Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®
You can join this fun and work by becoming a WWALS member today!
Brooks County Comprehensive Plan Workshop
Category Archives: Aquifer
Workshop, Greater Brooks 2030 Comprehensive Plan, 2017-02-07
First on the list of Areas Requiring Special Attention in Brooks County, Georgia:
- Areas of significant natural or cultural resources, particularly where they are likely to be intruded upon or otherwise impacted by development; such as wetlands, groundwater recharge areas and river corridors.
![/pictures/2007-01-01--brooks-compplan/[Map D-4 Water Resource Protection Districts]](/pictures/2007-01-01--brooks-compplan/small/Brooks_County_Community_Assessment-0091.jpg)
Map D-4 Water Resource Protection Districts
The next workshop for the Brooks County Comprehensive Plan will be:
Thursday, February 7th, 2017
9:30 a.m
Brooks County Commission Offices
610 South Highland Street, QuitmanIn this workshop we will work on the Land Use Maps and Character Areas.
We are inviting you to participate to ensure Continue reading
Quarterman: Sabal Trail pipeline already damaging our area
Op-ed Tallahassee Democrat, today, Sunday 29 January 2017:
Floridians are withdrawing money from banks backing the Sabal “Sinkhole” Trail pipeline, and demonstrating daily from Miami to Jacksonville and Tallahassee, sometimes physically blocking pipeline destruction. Fossil fuel profits do not justify eminent domain takings of local lands nor any risk to our waters. Solar power is cheaper, faster, and far safer.
Image: Electric power generation employment by technology,
U.S. Department of Energy
The solar industry provides more jobs than coal, oil, and natural gas combined. Sabal Trail’s own figures show Continue reading
Coal ash protection legislation pending in Georgia legislature
The Georgia Water Coalition (of which WWALS is a partner) notes the city of Brunswick, Georgia passed a resolution agaionst coal ash 21 September 2016, and legislation is about to appear in the Georgia House of Representatives. There is already TVA and JEA coal ash in the Pecan Row Landfill in Lowndes County, just outside Valdosta, and in WWALS watersheds other landfills likely to be targetted are in Cook, Tift, Atkinson, Ben Hill, and Crisp Counties (see GWC map), all upstream of the Withlacoochee or Alapaha Rivers, and all upstream of the Suwannee River, all above the Floridan Aquifer from which we all drink. We don’t want the utility company coal ash problem exported to our landfills. The companies that produced this toxic pollutant should be responsible for disposing of it safely at their expense without foisting it on the rest of us.
Coal Ash in Your District — Ash Ponds & Municipal Solid Waste, Published by the GA Water Coalition
See also the GWC position on coal ash.
WWALS recommends all Georgia legislators, especially those in WWALS watersheds, join in to prevent further coal ash contamination. See as an example the PR below by Rep. Jeff Jones of Brunswick, which concludes: Continue reading
Norman Bay resigns, leaving FERC without a quorum 2017-01-26
After
Trump bumped LaFleur over his head today,
former FERC Chairman Norman Bay resigned from the Commission this same day.
That leaves FERC with only 2 out of five Commission slots occupied.
I would guess that means no quorum, although what does it matter?
The FERC Commissioners only ever rejected one pipeline in thirty years.
His resignation letter is a six-page pat on his own back that never once mentions solar power, eminent domain, landowners, water, river, aquifer, or environment. His biggest brag is: Continue reading
Cheryl A. LaFleur again FERC Acting Chairman 2017-01-26
President Trump just brushed aside FERC Chairman Norman Bay,
one of the few FERC Commissioners to show any reservations about
FERC’s rubberstamping of pipelines, and put Commissioner Cheryl LaFleur
back once again as Acting Chairman.
This while FERC has only three Commissions, when it’s supposed to have five,
probably indicates FERC is going to be pushing ahead all pipeline projects.
Of course, that’s not much different from what we’ve seen for years with
Sabal Trail.
Johnathan Crawford and Jennifer A. Diouhy, Bloomberg Politics, 19 January 2017, Trump Picks LaFleur as Chairman of U.S. Energy Regulator, Sources Say, Continue reading
Walk for Water, Speak for the Springs 2017-01-28
With speakers from the far south of Florida (Tim Canova from Miami) and north (Suwannee Riverkeeper John S. Quarterman) and everywhere between, you can come to Dunnellon, Florida, and walk to Rainbow Springs to hear and speak about the destruction the Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline is wreaking right now less than half a mile from Dunnellon High School before it gouges under the other Withlacoochee (south) River from Marion County into Citrus County down to Crystal River, in addition to its main path down past Orlando which with Florida Southeast Connection sends bomb trucks and trains to Miami and Jacksonville.
When: 10:30 AM, Saturday, January 28, 2017
Where: 11012 Williams St, Dunnellon, FL 34432-8319
Event:
facebook
Please sign Tim Canova’s peition to Continue reading
International coverage of Sabal Trail opposition and Suwannee River water protectors –The Guardian 2017-01-24
For once a news story gives the last word to local water protectors, and it plays up our land and our water.
Richard Luscombe, The Guardian, 24 January 2017,
Why a protest camp in Florida is being called the next Standing Rock:
At first glance the quiet town of Live Oak seems an unlikely venue for a stand against Big Energy. But in recent weeks it’s become a centre of opposition,
A north Florida river that attracted the state’s first tourists a century before Walt Disney’s famous cartoon mouse is emerging at the centre of a fight against a contentious 515-mile natural gas pipeline that many are calling America’s next Standing Rock.
One section of the so-called Sabal Trail pipeline is being laid beneath the crystal waters of the Suwannee river, whose pure mineral springs were once fabled to cure anything from marital strife to gout.
The story quotes Continue reading
Videos: NFRWSP Plan passed at joint SRWMD-SJRWMD Board Meeting 2017-01-17
Update 2026-04-13: Stagger SRWMD and SJRWMD Board meetings –Merrillee Malwitz-Jipson 2027-01-17.
The playwright could have added a bit more suspense.
After listening to almost two dozen public comments, many recommending tabling the North Florida Regional Water Supply Plan (NFRWSP) or a moratorium on new water withdrawal permits,
the boards of the Suwannee River Water Management District and the
St Johns River Water Management District each voted unanimously to approve.
Here are WWALS videos of each of the speakers, with a few notes, followed by video playlist of the whole thing. Continue reading
Revoke Sabal Trail Permits 2017-01-14
Water protectors encircle a sign saying “REVOKE SABAL TRAIL PERMITS” on 24th Street on Sabal Trail’s right of way leading to its Suwannee County horizontal directional drilling (HDD) site drilling under the Suwannee River and Suwannnee River State Park. So say we all.
Photograph taken 12:57 PM, January 14, 2017 by Beth Gammie for WWALS from Southwings flight piloted by Roy Zimmer, navigated by Can Denizman. You may reuse this picture provided you cite the source: Beth Gammie for WWALS Watershed Coalition.
-jsq, John S. Quarterman, Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®
You can join this fun and work by becoming a WWALS member today!