Category Archives: Law

FERC rubberstamps FSEIS, FPL backstops, GA Rep Debbie Buckner and Sierra Club object 2018-02-05

In less than three hours since I submitted the WWALS motion to deny Sabal Trail’s sketchy request for emergency certificates, four more major filings appeared: FERC rubberstamped a Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (FSEIS), FPL cheered on the so-called emergency request, Georgia State Rep. Debbie Buckner objected, and Sierra Club objected. Sabal Trail said it best:

The Commission should decline the Applicants’ invitation to subvert the Court’s determination that the Project cannot operate pending compliance with NEPA.

FERC rubberstamps Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (FSEIS)

Continue reading →

WWALS Motion for FERC to reject Sabal Trail et al. request for reissued or emergency certificates 2018-02-05

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Hahira, GA, February 5, 2018 — Suwannee Riverkeeper objects to Sabal Trail’s last-minute Request to make an end run around an impending mandate from the D.C. Circuit Court that could shut that pipeline down. Granting the Applicants’ Request for reissued or emergency certificates would amount to the same kind of “multi-billion dollar bailout” that FERC recently rejected for the failing coal and nuclear industries, this time targeted at the natural gas industry. The Applicants for that Request claim need for the pipeline, yet they cite themselves for evidence, in a massive conflict of interest, with internal contradictions, and replete with conflicts with other sources deriving from some of those same Applicants.

If, as U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson recently said in Warsaw, Poland, the Nord Stream 2 pipeline being built by Russian gas giant Gazprom PJSC is “undermining Europe’s overall energy stability and security,” and Europe should seek to diversify energy supplies, the same applies to the Sabal Trail natural gas pipeline Canadian gas giant Enbridge is now seven months late building through the U.S. Southeast. The Sunshine State already gets 60% of its electricity from existing pipelines, and it should get on with solar power.

The Applicants listed in Friday’s Request are 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 →

Reclaiming Florida’s Future, Tallahassee 2018-01-31

We visited every Florida statehouse member who represents any part of the Suwannee River Basin, Wednesday in Tallahasse, we the people attending ReThink Energy Florida’s event.

Suwannee Riverkeeper Banner in Waller Park; thanks Kristin Rubin.

And a primary goal of that lobbying was achieved: the fracking ban bill is sheduled for a committee vote Monday.

When: 4:30 PM – 6PM, Monday, February 5, 2018

Where: Mallory Horne Committee Room, 37 Senate Office Building,
400 Monroe Street, Tallahassee, Florida

Event: facebook.

Stand with us and Continue reading →

Court rebukes Sabal Trail in pivotal case, may shut it down next week 2018-02-01

Yesterday FERC rubberstamped Sabal Trail’s five-month construction delay, but that same day the DC Circuit Court rejected all arguments by FERC and the pipeline company, and could mandate vacating the pipeline’s permit next week. Meanwhile, Sabal Trail already has been shut down, shipping mostly zero gas since mid-November, when it apparently lost one of its only two customers.

According to an industry publication the case by Sierra Club, Flint Riverkeeper, and Chattahoochee Riverkeeper is “the strongest legal rebuke of FERC’s oversight since the rush to build out natural gas pipelines began several years ago” and “a pivotal moment in the evolution of pipeline opposition and broader climate accountability.”

How much delay, lack of gas, loss of customers, and legal setback does it take for a pipeline’s financial backers to pull the plug? Reject, shut off, and revoke. Then go solar, like even Duke Energy is doing in Florida, starting with Hamilton County!

D.C. Circuit Court January 31, 2018, order denying petition for rehearing en banc.

Ellen M. Gilmer, E&E News, 1 February 2018, D.C. Circuit ruling could shut down pipeline, Continue reading →

Hotchkiss Road Landing, Old State Road, and Naylor Boat Ramp

Common question: isn’t Hotchkiss closed? Answer: the old Hotchkiss Landing in Lowndes County is closed, private, and don’t go there! But Hotchkiss Road Landing in Lanier County is open as always, do go there to get to the Alapaha River. And there’s a new park at US 84, with a Naylor Boat Ramp being built by Lowndes County, as urged by WWALS.

Bret Wagenhorst, Dave Hetzel, Gretchen Quarterman, at Hotchkiss Road (open, do go there ), in Alapaha River Outing, by John S. Quarterman, for WWALS.net, 24 August 2014.

Previously there was some discussion of using a different name for Hotchkiss Road Landing in the Alapaha River Water Trail, but then nobody would know what we were referring to, since that’s what it’s always been called, down at the end of Hotchkiss Road off of US 84.

For those relatively new to WWALS, WWALS was heavily involved in Continue reading →

Biggest city in Suwannee River Basin passed resolution for dedicated state fees @ VCC 2018-01-25

Hear it from the Mayor, Acting City Manager, and Council of Valdosta, Georgia, and just in time for them and the Lowndes County Chairman, Manager, and Commissioners to attend their annual Bird Supper in Atlanta to discuss it with state legislators: fees collected by the state of Georgia should be dedicated to the purposes for which they were collected. Below are LAKE videos are from the Valdosta City Council, Thursday, January 25, 2018, including a few words I said about which local governments already passed this resolution.

3.a. Resolution to support GA HR 158 for dedicated fee collections Continue reading →

Biggest county in Suwannee River Basin passes resolution against Georgia state fee diversions 2018-01-23

Monday the Lowndes County Chairman spoke for it, Tuesday the Lowndes County Manager spoke for it, and then they passed it: a resolution to stop the Georgia legislature from diverting funds collected by state fees. This was the fourth such local resolution in the Suwannee River Basin in Georgia. Thursday Valdosta also passed it (video to come) and more after that.

5.f. Resolution Supporting HR 158 to Stop Diversion of State Fees

Video. County Manager Joe Pritchard said the resolution “really is supporting Continue reading →

Lowndes County Chairman speaks for stopping state fee diversions 2018-01-22

The Lowndes County Commission votes tonight, 5:30 PM, on a resolution Chairman Bill Slaughter put on the agenda yesterday morning in support of stopping diversion of state fees, just after a report about a tire amnesty that was apparently funded by the Georgia Solid Waste Trust Fund, which has had fees diverted upwards of $50 million. Valdosta and Hahira also have that resolution on their agendas, after Lanier County, Adel, and Atkinson County passed it recently. If you can attend one of these meetings and thank these elected officials for doing this, I’m sure they would appreciate it.

Video. Chairman Bill Slaughter said Continue reading →

Atkinson County passes Alapaha River Water Trail resolution 2018-01-18

It probably didn’t hurt that Lace Futch was Mayor of Willacoochee before he became Chairman of Atkinson County. During a brief discussion, I pointed out that the resolution includes this clause, to fix the last landing name before we update and reprint the Alapaha River Water Trail brochures:

Section 3: The public access to the Alapaha River at GA 135 south of the city of Willacoochee is hereby named Willacoochee Landing;

The Commissioners passed it unanimously.

WWALS board member Shirley Kokidko, who lives in Atkinson County and who had asked for this resolution to be on the agenda, thanked the Commissioners afterwards, and invited them to come on the Hike to the Dead River Sink, noon Saturday, January 27, 2018, explaining that this first outing on the Alapaha Quest was originally scheduled to start at Sheboggy Landing at US 82 and to end up at Willacoochee Landing, but was rescheduled due to low water. Shirley is near the center of each of the pictures below, each taken at Willacoochee Landing on different WWALS outings.

See also the resolution in support of the Alapaha River Water Trail (ARWT) passed by Lanier County 2018-01-08.

Photo: Gretchen Quarterman for WWALS at Willacoochee Landing 2016-02-20.

Text of the resolution