Category Archives: Law

Supreme Court rules on cost against EPA coal plant emission limitations

The EPA should account for all costs before making a ruling on mercury or other coal plant emissions, according to a 5:4 majority of the Supreme Court. The dissenting minority points out not only are costs usually figured in during the follow-on process for specific limits, but that actual costs can’t even be computed without knowing those limits. So Coal Plant Scherer mercury in the Alapaha River can’t be limited without figuring all the costs first, says the SCOTUS majority, although EPA and the Court minority point to numerous well-known medical problems caused by mercury. Are profits for a few big utilities and coal companies more important than clean water and public health, especially now that there are cleaner, safer, faster-to-build, and less expensive renewable energy sources available in solar and wind power?

According to today’s SCOTUS ruling, Continue reading →

This sister earth now cries out to us –Pope Francis

Pope Francis makes a religious, ethical, humane, scientific, and practical case for stewardship of this earth and its waters, with moral and ethical bases for “the choices which determine our behaviour”. His case does not require any reader to be Catholic or Christian, as the Pope integrates his faith with the science of an integral ecology. You don’t have to agree with everything he wrote (I don’t) to agree with the gist of it, in the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.:

“all life is interrelated”

Tiber River, vatican.va

Pope Francis’ letter to the world is long but well worth reading in full, and these excerpts I hope will encourage everyone to do that.

ENCYCLICAL LETTER LAUDATO SI’ OF THE HOLY FATHER FRANCIS ON CARE FOR OUR COMMON HOME, 18 June 2015, Vatican City. Continue reading →

Petition GA Gov. Deal to oppose Sabal Trail pipeline

Please sign this petition to Please Ban The Sabal Trail Fracked Gas Pipeline.

Congratulations to Push Back the Pipeline for convincing GA Gov. Deal and Lt. Gov. Cagle to oppose Kinder Morgan’s Palmetto Project and the Georgia Dept. of Transportation to deny KMI a permit.

Now it’s time for the same for the Sabal Trail Pipeline. The permitting process is different, but opposition from the state of Georgia could stop this invader, too.

While Sabal Trail has moved off our Withlacoochee River in Florida, it still wants to cross the Withlacoochee in Georgia at the Continue reading →

For development, or not needed? US 84 widening from Homerville to Waycross

This paragraph sums it up:

300x388 Wetlands 29 and 31, in RE: SAS-2014-00862, Proposed U.S. Highway 84 Widening, by Gilbert B. Rogers, for WWALS.net, 28 May 2015 The project’s stated purpose in the EA is “economic development,” as part of the Governor’s Road Improvement Program created in the 1980s. See EA at 4. The NEPA regulations promulgated by the Council on Environmental Quality (“CEQ”) require agencies to examine the indirect impacts of projects — those growth-inducing impacts caused by a project, such as changes in land use and development patterns. 40 C.F.R. § 1508.8(b). Yet over and over, when purporting to examine the project’s potential for indirect impacts on various natural resources, the EA repeats, “The proposed project is not expected to precipitate substantial development along the corridor.”

Other questions include, why not use a narrower median? Why not leave trees on the median?

Below is the full text of the letter Continue reading →

EPA Clean Water Rule finalized

I still see EPA’s new Clean Water Rule as a good thing, since it protects drinking water, paddling, and fishing, while opponents remain quite vague about what might be wrong with it.

After last year’s comment period, U.S. EPA has posted a prepublication version of its final Clean Water Rule.

Katie Shepherd, L.A. Times, 27 May 2015, Under new EPA rule, Clean Water Act protections will cover all active tributaries, Continue reading →

Floridan Aquifer more important than Sabal Trail pipeline –WWALS Amicus Brief to Leesburg

IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF LEE COUNTY

STATE OF GEORGIA




SABAL TRAIL TRANSMISSION, LLC,


Plaintiff,


vs.


JAMES E. BELL, II and ROBERT A. BELL,

Defendants.

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Civil Action No.

14-CV-208RS


300x413 Cover, in Wwals leesburg, by John S. Quarterman, for WWALS.net, 13 April 2015 AMICUS CURIAE OF WWALS WATERSHED COALITION, Inc.

IN SUPPORT OF DEFENDANTS THE BELLS

PDF

COMES NOW WWALS WATERSHED COALITION, INC. (WWALS), as friends of the court and concerned citizens in the above-entitled action in support of the Defendants and file this their brief with the court in the above referenced case and states as follows and provides in support thereof the following:

Continue reading →

Summary judgement sought by Sabal Trail pipeline company in Leesburg, GA

Come to the courthouse Leesburg, GA Tuesday at 11:30 AM or write a letter, if you want help stop the unnecessary, destructive, and hazardous Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline.

Remember last July when landowners countersued a Houston pipeline company in Leesburg, Georgia? When the judge refused to grant any judgement for the pipeline, while protesters from as far as nine hours away watched attentively? WALB TV covered the hearing and three newspapers carried the WWALS op-ed that followed.

This Tuesday morning the same pipeline company will be back asking for a summary judgment for eminent domain against the same landowners.

If you can’t come in person, for letters here is contact information Continue reading →

Capitol Conservation Day 2015

It’s the annual Georgia Water Coalition Capitol Conservation Day, Wednesday, February 18, 2015.

Save the date for the Georgia Water Coalition’s Capitol Conservation Day on Feb. 18, 2015. While there, you can meet with your state legislators and tell them what you expect them to achieve during the 2015-2016 sessions. Bring your fellow members and other friends with you to support environmental and conservation causes!

The day will begin at 8:00 a.m. with Continue reading →

Property rights, agriculture, karst limestone, Withlacoochee River –Don Thieme to FERC about Sabal Trail pipeline

Last in before FERC closed 5PM Wednesday for the holidays was local geologist Don Thieme, commenting about our Withlacoochee River and the fragile karst limestone that underlies it, among other concerns. It’s likely that FERC will continue accepting comments and motions to intervene after yesterday’s deadline.

Filed with FERC 24 December 2014 as Accession Number: 20141224-5109 “Comment of Donald M. Thieme in Docket(s)/Project(s) CP15-17-000 Submission Date: 12/24/2014”,

Donald M. Thieme, Valdosta, GA.

As a local resident and head of household in Lowndes County, I have concerns about the rights of landowners to continue agriculture and other economically productive uses which may be incompatible with the proposed Sabal Trail pipeline. I have also heard many concerns voiced regarding loss of property value, particularly where new pipe may be laid on land which presently has no existing line. As a professional geologist, however, Continue reading →

WWALS moves to intervene with FERC about Sabal Trail pipeline

This legal action should reserve the right of WWALS to participate in legal hearings, file briefs on legal actions by others, or even to bring legal action. In addition to all the county and city resolutions listed here, Hamilton County, Florida also just moved to intervene.

Filed with FERC 16 December 2014 as Accession Number: 20141216-5051, “Motion to intervene and request for extension of filing deadline, by WWALS Watershed Coalition, Inc. under CP15-17.” Continue reading →