Category Archives: Politics

Call Senators now to stop FERC nominees 2017-08-03

Update 2017-08-03: The Senate already did it. But there are more nominations to oppose and other things you can do.

FERC could suddenly get a quorum. Another FERC nominee went to the Senate Wednesday: no FERC rubberstamp Richard Click, general counsel to the minority party, the Democrats, on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Even the two nominees already forwarded to the full Senate June 6, 2017 if confirmed, added to the one still at FERC, would produce a quorum of 3 out of 5. So please call your Senators now and ask them not to vote to confirm any FERC nominee who does not vow to turn the agency to solar and wind power on a smart grid.

No, this won’t stop or turn off Sabal Trail. But it could stop further pipeline boondoggles from being confirmed. That’s good in itself, and could also erode the credibility of Sabal Trail with its creditors.

Here are telephone numbers for Georgia and Florida Senators, and there’s a script farther down. Continue reading →

Support the Clean Water Act for our rivers and aquifer

This Fourth of July holiday, you can help promote continued independence of clean water by opposing the EPA’s attempt to repeal the Clean Water Rule and then undermine the Clean Water Act. FLoridians in the seven counties that have asked the EPA to do something about Valdosta’s wastewater: here’s your chance to make sure the EPA can still do anything. Georgians who don’t want coal ash in landfills or industrial waste in our waters: you can help save the Clean Water Act. Everybody in the Suwannee River Basin: the water we drink from the Floridan Aquifer interchanges with surface waters, and we need the EPA to help protect all those waters.

How to Comment

Continue reading →

WWALS adds evidence, again asks FERC to stay Sabal Trail, revoke its permit, plus do a SEIS 2017-06-05

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

June 5, 2017, Hahira, GA — Citing the sea change of solar power overtaking natural gas in new U.S. electricity last year, and generational damage to the fields of farmers such as Randy Dowdy, WWALS Watershed Coalition today filed more evidence and reasons to stop the Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline from going into service and to revoke its permit. WWALS filed the same Monday that Sabal Trail Friday asked FERC to authorize turning on the gas. Plus WWALS explicitly requested FERC do a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) to take into account LNG export from Sabal Trail, copious environmental permit violations, and especially new scientific evidence about the Floridan Aquifer.

Suwannee Riverkeeper John S. Quarterman said: “Such irreparable harm outweighs a few billion dollars spent in error by a few companies.”


And that’s without even getting into risks to education, such as Sabal Trail only a mile from Clyattville Elementary School.

WWALS filed the document today with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). The WWALS cover letter is included below in this message, and the FERC filing is available online.

WWALS wrote in Attachment 1:

“Solar power has actually more than doubled every two years since 2013. Yet FERC only counts utility-scale solar power. Adding rooftop and community solar panels, already a sea change has occurred.

Continue reading →

U.S. Chamber wants FERC nominees approved 2017-05-31

The key phrase is actually exactly why FERC nominees should not be approved: 170531 FERCNominations-PowellChatterjee Murkowski Cantwell-0001

“…but of increasingly vital importance, also oversees the permitting and construction of natural gas pipelines, gas storage projects, and liquefied natural gas terminals.”

Funny how the Chamber didn’t mention fracking or LNG export. We don’t need more pipelines taking people’s property and risking our water and lives for the profit of a few fossil fuel executives cashing out before their industry goes belly-up.

WWALS recommends a swift vote to deny these FERC nominees and any others who do not vow to “to develop the new energy infrastructure necessary to ensure future domestic energy security” by rapidly deploying sun and wind power with no more new pipelines. Please call your Senators or members of that Committee to recommend they get on with real renewable energy, not 20th century fossil fuel stranded assets.

U.S. Chamber letter to U.S. Senate Energy Committee

Continue reading →

Call U.S. Senate Energy Committee about Sabal Trail and FERC violations

Update 2017-08-03: The Senate already confirmed those two nominees. But there are more nominations to oppose and other things you can do.

Update 2017-06-15: On 6 June 2017 the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee forwarded two FERC nominees, but the full Senate has not voted on them, so you can lobby your Senators to vote no.

You can follow up after five people were arrested Thursday protesting confirmation hearings for FERC nominees in the U.S. Senate Energy Committee. The committee hasn’t made any decisions yet, so there’s still time to tell your Senator or members of that committee what FERC or its rubberstamped pipelines have done, so they can refuse to confirm any nominee who does not vow to turn FERC away from more pipelines and towards sun, wind, and a smart grid.


Photo: Energy and Natural Resources Committee. The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee considered the nominations of (left to right) Dan Brouillette to be deputy Energy secretary and Neil Chatterjee and Robert Powelson to fill vacancies on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

They’re also considering a nominee for deputy Secretary of the Department of Energy, which department’s Office of Fossil Energy rubberstamped half a dozen LNG export operations in Florida. You can tell the Senators that you don’t want him, either, unless he will turn to the sun.

You can ask the Senate Energy Committee to go beyond that: it can Continue reading →

Sabal Trail slips its in-service request to June; FERC classifies WWALS shutdown request as motion 2017-05-26

They finally admit to FERC the Sabal Trail boondoggle is a month late! And FERC reclassifies the WWALS filing as a motion for all three SMPP pipelines.

Susan Salisbury, Palm Beach Post, 26 May 2017, Sabal Trail seeks new pipeline start date; group wants shutdown,

Sabal Trail Transmission on Friday asked federal regulators for an early June in-service date for its portion of the Alabama-to-Florida natural gas pipeline, a later date than it had requested earlier this month.

With segmented KMI FGT JEP to Jacksonville to Eagle LNG export:

On May 17 Houston-based Sabal Trail had asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for permission to start sending gas through the pipeline by today — May 26.

Also Friday, the Georgia-based WWALS Watershed Coalition asked FERC to deny all requests to place the pipeline into service, and said FERC should revoke the permit and shut it down.

The Sierra Club recently asked FERC to delay the pipeline’s operation until after pending litigation is resolved.

FERC has yet to act on either of Sabal Trail’s start-up date requests or on The Sierra Club’s request.

Maybe FERC staff have noticed Continue reading →

WWALS asks FERC to deny Sabal Trail’s in-service request and to revoke its permit

Update: 2017-06-05: WWALS files with FERC against Sabal Trail again, about sea change from fossil fuels to sun and wind power.

Update 2017-05-27: Sabal Trail slips its in-service request to June; FERC classifies WWALS shutdown request as motion 2017-05-26.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Hahira, GA, May 26, 2017 — WWALS Watershed Coalition today asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to “stay, stop, or deny all requests to place any project facilities into service” for the Southeast Markets Pipeline Project (SMPP) including Sabal Trail. Further “WWALS as an intervenor formally requests FERC to revoke its Certificate of Convenience and Necessity for SMPP.”

In its thirteen-page filing (available online and in PDF), WWALS listed six reasons, each with its own attachment of details:

  1. The alleged need for this pipeline project, which has been refuted by its funding organization in FPL’s 2016 Ten Year Plan and by other evidence; and
  2. FERC has taken jurisdiction of at least one LNG export chain from Sabal Trail, despite FERC’s own assertion in its February 2016 Certificate; and

    3. Major Gas Pipelines Serving Jacksonville, Florida
    See Sabal Trail to export through Jacksonville, FL.

  3. Failure to assess risks to Floridan Aquifer, the primary water supply for the region; and
  4. Numerous permit violations during construction; and
  5. Failure to address especially egregious violations such as the destruction of Randy Dowdy’s world-record soybean fields; and
  6. The legal challenges recited in the Sierra Club letter of May 18, 2017, FERC Accession Number 20170519-5018, are all completely litigated.

WWALS president and Suwannee Riverkeeper John S. Quarterman said, “It’s not too late for FERC to do its job and actually evaluate all the new evidence that has come to light. Even more, FERC should look at how the world has changed Continue reading →

Sabal Trail Pipeline Forum, Hollywood, FL 2017-05-23

Let the sun rise by the sea, down where Sabal Trail would ship LNG.

When: 6PM Tuesday, May 23, 2017

Where: Hollywood Beach Culture Center
1301 S. Ocean Drive, Hollywood, FL 33019

Event: facebook

Flyer: Follow this link to PDF, and JPG image below.

Flyer

Continue reading →

Videos: Coal Plant Public Hearing in Albany, GA 2017-05-04

You can still comment by tomorrow, Monday, May 8, 2017 on Georgia Power’s NIMBY plan for the coal ash it generated, to send it away from Plant Mitchell to local landfills, maybe yours.

Here are WWALS videos of the GA-EPD public hearing Thursday May 4, 2017 in Albany, GA, which we attended at the invitation of our neighbor Flint Riverkeeper Gordon Rogers, who said at the hearing he is lawyered up, and his attorney Chris Bowers of SELC also spoke.

Comment

You don’t have to hire an attorney; you can send in written comments by tomorrow, May 8, 2017, according to the the GA-EPD announcement of March 31, 2017: Continue reading →

Coal Plant Public Hearing in Albany, GA 2017-05-04

Our neighbor Flint Riverkeeper Gordon Rogers requests people to come to Albany, GA for a coal ash public hearing. If you can’t go, please send in comments.

When: 7PM, Thursday, May 4, 2017

Where: Albany Technical College
Kirkland Conference Center
1704 S. Slappey Blvd.
Albany, GA 31701

What: Public Hearing about draft
National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit
for Georgia Power Company’s Plant Mitchell.

Why: It’s about coal ash.


Plant Mitchell (Georgia Power Co.) near Albany, GA 7/14/94. Photo courtesy of USGS. T.W. Hale, in Pamela P. Holliday, Sherpa Guides, unknown date, The Albany Levee: Trying to Tame the Flint.

Georgia Power proposed Continue reading →