Category Archives: Pipeline

Sierra Club meeting against Sabal Trail, Suwannee River State Park 2016-01-16

Update 2016-01-17: Report with pictures.

This Saturday, 11AM to 1PM, come to Suwannee River State Park for an educational and organizational meeting about why and how to stop the Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline and to promote solar power instead, hosted by Suwannee-St Johns Group, Florida Sierra Club. At 1PM the media are invited to a hike to the river with signs!

Do we want a fireball like a mere 4″ FGT spur made in Bell, Florida in 2012 when a tree fell on it? Sabal Trai would carry 80 times as much fracked methane. Or like FGT’s 2009 explosion between the Florida Turnpike and I-95, flying a 104-foot piece of 18-inch pipe through the air, shutting down both roads, and fortunately missing a high school? Or like Spectra’s pipeline blowout under the Arkansas River in Little Rock last May? The same Spectra Energy that wants to drill a 36″ pipeline under the Suwannee and Santa Fe Rivers. The same industry that’s caused Los Angeles County and the state of California to declare a state of emergency after four months of the Porter Ranch fracking well blowout causing sickness and evacuations near Los Angeles.

When: 11AM-1PM, Saturday, 16 January 2016

Where: Continue reading →

Where pipelines already cross rivers into Suwannee County, Florida

Update 2017-03-31: Newer version of PHMSA pipeline maps.

Two pipelines, one by Southern Natural Gas (SONAT), and one named Florida Gas Transmission (FGT), both owned by Kinder Morgan (KMI), already cross under the Suwannee and Santa Fe Rivers into Suwannee County: FGT does so twice under the Suwannee River and once under the Santa Fe River. All these pipelines carry “natural” gas, which is to say fracked methane. When they were originally built, economically they made some sense. Now that solar power is cheaper, easier and faster to build, and far safer and cleaner, there is no excuse for any more such pipelines, neither Kinder Morgan’s Jacksonville Expansion Project (JEP), nor Spectra Energy’s Sabal Trail.

SONAT

Continue reading →

At What Cost? Pipelines, Pollution and Eminent Domain in the Rural South 2016-01-15

It’s about Kinder Morgan’s Palmetto petroleum products pipeline, but eminent domain for Spectra’s private profit from its proposed Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline. From the facebook event by our sibling Satilla Riverkeeper:

When: 7PM Friday 15 January 2016

Where: Theater by the Trax, 100 Osborn Street, St Marys, GA 31558

Join Satilla Riverkeeper, St. Marys Earthkeeper and film maker Mark Albertin for the release of a new documentary called “At What Cost? Pipelines, Pollution and Eminent Domain in the Rural South”. This is a FREE event but limited to the first 160 attendees.

This film discusses Continue reading →

Sabal Trail response to WWALS exceptions to ALJ’s Order in WWALS v Sabal Trail & FDEP 2016-01-04

Does this sound like a level playing field to you? Basically Sabal Trail claims “reasonable assurances” mean the pipeline can be completed and that’s a public good for the state of Florida, nevermind any destruction or hazards, while WWALS would have had to demonstrate specific direct damages to many of its members because of pipeline installation just to get standing. A Spectra Energy executive from Houston, Texas automatically has standing to claim safety using evidence from other pipelines and even other pipeline companies,explicitly referencing the U.S. Pipeline & Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, while WWALS and its local members in Florida are precluded from introducing any evidence about safety in the same case, or so Sabal Trail seems to say in its objections filed today 4 January 2016 (PDF) to the judge’s Order in WWALS v Sabal Trail & FDEP.

Seems like the limestone underlying the Floridan Aquifer are not the only cracks and fissures in Florida.

-jsq

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

Ask Congress to have GAO investigate FERC

It’s time to throw a spotlight on FERC’s favoratism. Maya K. van Rossum, the Delaware Riverkeeper, who has been fighting pipeline projects for years, asks all of us to sign a petition to ask two Senators to get the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to “conduct an official investigation into the operations of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC”).”.

Or ask your member of the House of Representatives Continue reading →

WWALS exceptions to judge’s recommended order in WWALS v. Sabal Trail & FDEP

Who could achieve standing or win a case with these criteria?

The judge’s Recommended Order applied the wrong standard as to whether the pipeline is in the public interest (Exception 25), applied an incorrect standard of proof (Exception 16), ignored the additional protections due the Outstanding Florida Waters of the Suwannee and Santa Fe Rivers (Exception 17), and ignored evidence that the granting of a Sovereign Submerged Lands Easement would adversely affect the lands under those rivers (Exception 19), not to mention the Floridan Aquifer.

In alleging WWALS does not have standing, the judge ignored a case previously cited by FDEP (Exception 23), and added an unprecedented factor of “potential injury” that would prevent associations from ever achieving standing unless they could prove the ultimate facts of the case (Exception 14).

Did the judge really mean to imply FDEP’s and Sabal Trail’s own witnesses were not competent when they upon questioning provided testimony that FDEP failed to acquire reasonable assurances that the issuance of an environmental resource permit and easement on sovereign submerged lands would not be contrary to the “public interest” (Exception 15)? If those public servants’ testimony wasn’t competent, how can those same personnel be competent to evaluate permit applications?

These are just a few of the 25 exceptions filed Monday 28 December 2015 by WWALS Counsel William R. Wohlsifer and Leighanne C. Boone. See also the WWALS video of Attorney Wohlsifer’s concluding statement in the hearing.

Here is PDF of the judge’s Recommended Order and PDF of the WWALS Exceptions. Below is the text of those exceptions. Continue reading →

Suwannee County Commissioners lack resolve against Sabal Trail –Lori McCraney in Suwannee Democrat

“Apparently, rural lives matter less than urban lives,” she wrote, giving reasons why county commissions such as in Suwannee County should represent their citizens, not pipeline companies from somewhere else.

Speaking to the Suwannee Board of County Commissioners
Lori McCraney speaking to the Suwannee Board of County Commissioners 17 November 2015.

She sent the whole thing directly, so here it is (I’ve added a few links), along with a link to where it’s published. Lori McCraney, Suwannee Democrat, 24 December 2015, Opinion: Suwannee County commissioners lack resolve against Sabal Trail,

The Suwannee County Commissioners held an emergency meeting earlier this month to finalize a strongly worded letter to the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers opposing the Sabal Trail natural gas pipeline. I am puzzled as to why its contents was, apparently, a surprise to several board members. The commissioners inexplicably reversed their stance and did not approve the letter. Who got to them in the 24 hours leading up to the meeting?

Continue reading →

Waterkeeper Annual Report

Cover Here’s a glimpse of the sea in which WWALS this year became a minnow: the Annual Report of Waterkeeper® Alliance, which has 258 members and affiliates (like WWALS) in 33 countries.

Our coastal Georgia siblings, Savannah Riverkeeper, Ogeechee Riverkeeper, Altamaha Riverkeeper, and Satilla Riverkeeper, are mentioned on page 22 as “beat back Kinder Morgan pipeline”. St Johns Riverkeeper of Jacksonville, Florida was also involved in that.

Waterkeeper and numerous Riverkeepers have also been helping in the fight against the Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline, as well as with numerous other matters WWALS is involved in. Continue reading →

FERC, EPA rubberstamp Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline: opposition continues –VDT

The FERC FEIS isn’t a permit, the Army Corps hasn’t issued a permit, GA-EPD is still considering an air quality permit for the Albany, GA air compressor, and it’s still possible to stop the GA-DNR easements for drilling under Georgia rivers including the Withlacoochee and Okapilco Creek. This is all regardless of whether FDEP issues its drilling permit for the Suwannee and Santa Fe Rivers. You can still help stop this invasion by the “Sinkhole Trail” of our local lands, water, and air.

Among the press recently by Politico, Law360, Natural Gas Intelligence, the Suwannee Democrat, the Ocala StarBanner, the Palm Beach Post, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Valdosta Today, and others, is this long local piece. Joe Adgie, Valdosta Daily Times, 20 December 2015, EPA reverses stand on impact pipeline would have on aquifer,

In addition, according to FERC, Sabal completed analysis of the subsurfaces where the pipeline is proposed.

That’s what FERC’s announcement of its Final Environmental Impact Statment (FEIS) said, but where is the LiDAR, as Continue reading →

EPA stepped back, while opposition ramps up against Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

EPA stepped back, while opposition ramps up against Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline

Hahira and Albany, Georgia, December 18, 2015— (PDF) Mysteriously contradicting a substantive October letter from U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Region 4 in Atlanta, a different EPA branch last Friday sent a brief and sketchy letter to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers uncritically accepting what Sabal Trail’s attorney’s told it, even as multiple environmental and landowner organizations filed objections with the Corps and multiple state agencies against that invading natural gas pipeline.

“I smell a skunk,” said Frank Jackalone, senior organizing manager, Sierra Club of Florida.

Tim Carroll, Valdosta City Council member, said, “I don’t understand how EPA and FERC can say there will not be a negative impact on our environment, aquifer, streams and rivers. A number of experts testified and spoke up saying the likelihood is very high that there could be damage to the aquifer and the environment. Why would we want to allow this to happen, to run the risk of seriously degrading one of the best water resources in the world.,” Valdosta, Moultrie, and Albany, the three biggest cities along the pipeline path in Georgia, all passed resolutions against Sabal Trail, as did the counties of Terrell, Dougherty, Colquitt, Brooks, and Lowndes, in Georgia, and Hamilton and Suwannee Counties in Florida.

“The one government agency actually defending our drinking in the Floridan Aquifer and the many rivers in Georgia and Florida just stifled itself,” Continue reading →