Category Archives: History

Green Amendment book talk in Gainesville, FL, Delaware Riverkeeper 2018-03-26

Join veteran environmentalist Maya van Rossum at the Working Food Community Center in Gainesville as she discusses her new book, The Green Amendment: Securing our Right to a Healthy Environment, followed by Q&A and signing. Come out and meet Maya, pick up a copy of the book, and learn about the future of environmental advocacy.

When: 6-8 PM, Monday, March 26, 2018 (doors open 5:30 PM)

Where: Working Food Community Center
219 NW 10th Avenue
Gainesville, FL 32601

Event: facebook Continue reading →

FERC inadvertently clears path for renewable energy via storage 2018-02-15

FERC just let slip the wolves of sun and wind by enabling the storage that those sunny twenty-first-century “aggregated distributed energy resources” (DER) will use to blow down the straw houses of traditional twentieth-century so-called baseload capacity coal, oil, and nuclear power plants.

FERC Commissioner Robert F. Powelson called out the “participation model” Thursday’s twin orders enable, bypassing many traditional charges by accounting for physical characteristics that do not change over time, recognizing that batteries, sun, and wind power are basically different from old-style dinosaur power plants. Commissioner Neil Chatterjee named Senators Ed Markey and Sheldon Whitehouse as proponents of these new rules, which is very interesting since both have long been proponents of renewable energy, and Sen. Whitehouse called out FERC for failing to implement the DC Circuit Court’s Order on greenhouse gases. Commissioner Cheryl A. LaFleur said “Electric storage is like a ‘Swiss army knife’”. Maybe more like the South Australian storage utility player that has already out-responded natural gas during coal plant outages. Commissioner Richard Glick says sun and wind power “no less than energy storage, have the potential to play a leading role in the electric grid of the future”. None of the Commissioners could bring themselves to say what they all know: sun, wind, water power with storage will be the electric grid of the future. Former FERC Chair Jon Wellinghoff and I were right in 2013: solar power will provide more U.S. electricity than any other source by 2023, on the way to complete conversion of everything to sun, wind, water, and storage by 2050.

Giles Parkinson, Reneweconomy, 23 January 2018, Tesla big battery moves from show-boating to money-making.

Gavin Bade, UtilityDive, Feb. 15, 2018, FERC issues storage, reliability orders, calls conference on aggregated DERs, Continue reading →

Emergency! Cries Sabal Trail 2018-02-02

Desperately seeking loopholes, at 4:58 PM today on a Friday, Sabal Trail claimed “Applicants would face irreparable financial harm,” which is pretty rich for the company that stuck the Bell Brothers with $47,000 in Sabal Trail legal fees for fighting eminent domain from that same FERC certificate the DC Circuit Court is likely to void next week.

It wants to “avoid the irreparable impacts of a system shutdown,” says the company that destroyed world-record-holding soybean farmer Randy Dowdy’s soybean fields. As Randy Dowdy said last May, and Sabal Trail’s own reports then say they have done nothing to correct:

“We’ve got loss of production for the future that will take not my lifetime, Continue reading →

Same Excuse: FERC rubberstamps PennEast like Sabal Trail 2018-01-19

Precedent agreements for 90+% of the pipeline’s capacity was FERC’s excuse for PennEast yesterday, the same as for Sabal Trail two years ago. Yet Sabal Trail apparently already lost 4/7 of its supposedly solid customer base and is not even shipping any gas. Even a dissenting FERC Commissioner spelled out that such shaky “need” does not justify environmental damage nor invasion of property rights through federal eminent domain. Sure, Commissioner LaFleur, we should trust PennEast with the Delaware River like FERC told us to trust Sabal “Sinkhole” Trail about the Suwannee River?

On New Year’s Day Sabal Trail removed Duke Energy Florida (DEF) from its customer index. On November 14, 2017, Sabal Trail’s gas flow dropped to zero, and Sabal Trail increased its Uncommitted Capacity by 300,000 Dekatherms per day, exactly the same as DEF formerly contracted for, and thirty days after DEF’s initial contract expired. That leaves FPL as Sabal Trail’s only customer, with its 400,000 DTH/day. Four sevenths of of 93% is only about 53%, which is not even the 75% Commissioner Richard Glick also mentioned in in his Friday dissent from the 4:1 FERC rubberstamp of the PennEast pipeline, which also happens to be a feeder for Sabal Trail through Transco. Meanwhile, during freezing weather in Florida, Sabal Trail shipped zero gas for much of November and January (and hardly any in December): how is that need?

Lost Duke Energy Florida, Sabal Trail?

No Balance

Commissioner Glick’s opening paragraph also sums up the recent WWALS motion to FERC to reject, shut off, and revoke Sabal Trail: Continue reading →

Flash in the pan, Sabal Trail? 2018-01-06

Where did that gas go for that one day, Sabal Trail? You didn’t do a very good job of demonstrating customers by dropping back to less than 2% Nom/Cap today. Did you break something? Again? Explain to us, FERC: why is this pipeline needed?

January 2018

Also, FERC, if you did your job, we wouldn’t have to draw graphs like this. The best way to do your job would be to shut down Sabal Trail. Continue reading →

Sabal Trail admits Duke not customer, ramps up gas anyway 2018-01-04

Duke Energy Florida is no longer in the Customer Index in Sabal Trail’s FERC-required Informational Postings, as of January 1, 2018. Only Florida Power & Light is listed, still for 400,000 dekatherms per day. So what we’ve been saying since November appears to be true: Duke Energy Florida is no longer a Sabal Trail customer, which means there’s no excuse for Sabal Trail to have a Certificate of Convenience and Necessity, and FERC (or the D.C. Circuit Court) should revoke that permit.

Update 2018-01-05: Duke previously said it did NOT need Sabal Trail for the Crystal River power plant Duke is building, and in any case it could get the gas from Gulfstream or FGT if Sabal Trail failed, then Duke bought part of Sabal Trail, then Sabal Trail’s uncommitted capacity dropped by the same amount Duke was supposedly wanting, and now Duke is missing from Sabal Trail’s customer list. Plus most of Duke Energy Florida’s operational gas-fired power plants are being fed by FGT or Gulfstream, and apparently none from Sabal Trail.

Yet Sabal Trail today just ramped up nominated capacity above operationally available capacity. Where’s that gas going, Sabal Trail? Continue reading →

Motion to reject FERC DSEIS, to take Sabal Trail out of service, and to revoke its permit: WWALS to FERC 2017-12-29

FERC, if it follows its own rules, should reject the DSEIS, stop Sabal Trail, and revoke its permit, says a motion filed today with FERC by Suwannee Riverkeeper.

Followup blog posts will feature major sections and arguments from these 20 pages with their 93 footnotes. The basic arguments are summarized on the first page:

WWALS argues that no SEIS can be complete without accounting for GHG from Liquid Natural Gas (“LNG”) exports, nor without comparing natural gas to solar power, according to precedents already set by FPL, FERC, and others, which also reopen the whole basis of the FERC 2016 Order.

FERC may not care, but the D.C. Circuit Court may, or candidates for office, or the voting public.

-jsq, John S. Quarterman, Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®

You can join this fun and work by becoming a WWALS member today!

Filed with FERC today as Continue reading →

Still low: Sabal Trail gas six weeks later 2017-12-27

Sure you didn’t break something, Sabal Trail? Or did you lose one of your only two admitted customers? If not, why are you still only shipping less than 10% of your stated capacity six weeks after you went to zero for seventeen days? And how can FERC justify eminent domain for taking people’s land and risking our water for a pipeline your own figures persuasively now argue is not needed?

Nom still less than 10% of Cap, 2017-12-27

Remember, on November 14, the same day Sabal Trail’s gas dropped to zero, its uncommitted capacity also dropped by 300,000 Dekatherms per day, which is exactly the same as what Duke Energy Florida said it would buy, with “Contract Primary Term Expiration Date” of “10/15/2017.” That’s thirty days before the gas stopped flowing on November 14, 2017. And there’s been no change in Sabal Trail’s uncommitted capacity since then.

Uncommitted still down 300,000 DTH/Day., 2017-12-27

Continue reading →

Cleanup and outing, Nankin, Mcintyre and Arnold Springs, Mozell Spells, Withlacoochee River 2017-10-14

Update 2025-10-13: replaced by a post in better image format.

Tires and trash cleaned up at Nankin Boat Ramp, swimming and diver tales at McIntyre Spring, a creek, karst, shoals, and rapids, into Florida and back to Georgia all downstream, Valdosta Railway Trestle, Madison County Four Freedoms Trail, and exotic invasive Japanese Climbing Fern, all on a fall day on the Withlacoochee River with WWALS Watershed Coalition, Suwannee Riverkeeper. Thanks to all who came to paddle from as far as two hours from Gainesville, Florida and four hours from Pine Mountain, Georgia.

The Quitman (US 84) Gauge was at about 2.6′ (86′ NAVD88).

Here are some pictures.

This post is just the first part; more pictures ~~will follow~~ are posted with diving and landowners at Arnold Springs, Old Clyattville Road Bridge Horn Bridge, and Mozell Spells (State Line Ramp). and a Google Map, and a few videos are still to come.

These are some of our many favorite spots on the Withlacoochee and Little River Water Trail.

Watch wwals.net for more outings are they are announced, or the WWALS outings and events web page. We have outings at least once a month.

Banner and fourteen picker-uppers, 09:55:21,, Georgia Adopt-A-Stream Cleanup 30.6749200, -83.3939200