Category Archives: River

Protestors inside Sabal Trail pipe, Halpata Tastanaki Preserve, Dunnellon, FL

Update 2017-02-22: And they’re “rescued”: Ocala.com, News4JAX.com, WUFT-FM, ClickOrlando.com, ramping up a spate of anti-Sabal Trail news, putting a crimp in Sabal Trail’s own putsch of “on target to begin operating in June” which is already a month late for the May 2017 in-service date Sabal insisted on for three years.

Skirting the edge of this preserve wasn’t enough, not for local cattle grazers, not for Dunnellon High School less than half a mile from the pipeline, and not for protestors inside Sabal Trail’s pipe this morning. At 8:30 AM I received a copy of this email message, which was sent to John Peconom of FERC by Panagioti Tsolkas:

Good morning. I just received word there are two people inside a stretch of pipeline along FL-200 near the Halpata Tustanaki preserve in Dunnellon. They are refusing to come out until the Environmental Impact Statement is Revisited to fully include environmental justice communities and school children.

Can you please inform the company to keep them safe?
There is a protest near by as well. Details:
https://www.facebook.com/events/393349654372338/?ti=cl
They have sent this statement from inside the pipeline:
Continue reading →

GA HR 281 Water Trails resolution

This bipartisan resolution sounds like a good idea to me. And apparently it also looks good to the Georgia Forestry Association (of which I am a member).

Capitol Forestry Report, GFA, 20 February 2017:

House Resolution 281
Sponsor: Rep. Spencer Frye, D-Athens
This is a resolution with no force of law the supports the use and enjoyment of river trails in the State of Georgia. GFA has engaged with the bill’s author, Rep. Spencer Frye, who is very supportive of private property rights for forest landowners in Georgia.
Status: House Natural Resources and Environment Committee.

WWALS has two water trails, the Alapaha River Water Tral, and the Withlacoochee and Little River Water Trail, both following up on many years of harmony among boaters and landowners dating back to earlier Canoe Trails on the same rivers in the 1970s.

HR 281: A RESOLUTION recognizing and encouraging the proliferation and use of water trails in Georgia; and for other purposes. Continue reading →

Cooperative Coalition for Change in Winter Park, Florida

Tomorrow in Winter Park near Orlando, the Cooperative Coalition for Change (CCC), a new group formed by Alaina Marshall, will have its first semi-annual meeting. I’ll be talking about how solar power is here right now, even FPL admits Sabal Trail is not needed, and how working together about this and much bigger problems with our waters in the Floridan Aquifer, rivers, springs, and swamps is much better than everybody trying to go it alone.

When: 6:30-9PM Monday February 20, 2017

Where: 116 S Semoran Blvd, Winter Park, Florida 32792

Event: facebook

CCC member organizations, affliate organizations, and all members of the community are welcome. This is Continue reading →

Five water items at Lowndes County Commmision + a board appointment @ LCC 2017-02-14

If you care about water and sewage and water quality in wells and rivers, many county commission and city council decisions affect all of those. Here are some examples this week from the Lowndes County Commission (LCC), which represents the most populous county in the Suwannee River Basin, upstream from Florida.

Also, WWALS board member Phil Hubbard was appointed to Continue reading →

Only Valdosta and Tifton spilled sewage in Georgia in Suwannee River Basin in January 2017

GA-EPD’s Atlanta office sent their entire sewage spill database for January 2017 in response to an open records request from WWALS. For the Suwannee River Basin, I see only the known ones by Valdosta, plus a spill from Moultrie’s Carlton Woods Lift Station into the Ocholockonee River, with 36000 gallons, which matches the amount we got directly from Moultrie. That Ochlockonee spill is still not in the Suwannee River Basin.

The Georgia Environmental Protection Division (GA-EPD) Southwest office in Albany handles the other sewage treatment operations in the Suwannee River Basin in Georgia, and that Albany office already told us by telephone that they had no reported spills other than the Tifton spill into the New River which I had gotten directly from Tifton. So I think we can conclude there were no other sewage spills into the Suwannee River Basin in Georgia in January 2017 other than the ones from Valdosta and Tifton.

Interestingly, Valdosta with its 2.2 million gallon Withlacoochee Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) leak (and three manhole spills) was not the winner. Continue reading →

On the Suwannee River, Sabal Trail drill path 2017-02-12

Pipe apparently not connected at Suwannee County HDD (only two caterpillars there, and many odd markings on pipe), pipe apparently already buried at Hamilton County HDD, paddling on the Suwannee River in between, and a guard at Sabal Trail’s CR 141 access even after dark, Sunday February 12, 2017 to show a visiting videographer. For where these pictures were taken, see the Google map.

-jsq, John S. Quarterman, Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®

Continue reading →

Videos: Walk for Water, Speak for Springs, Dunnellon, FL 2017-01-28

See also some previous pictures of Walk for Water & Speak for the Springs, which was organized by Our Santa Fe River (OSFR), Sabal Trail Resistance, and Dylan Hansen.

Below are links to each of the WWALS videos (including the earlier android phone videos), with a few notes, followed by a video playlist. Continue reading →

Berrien Beach Landing (GA 168) to Lakeland (GA 122), WWALS Outing 2017-02-11

12 + 4 boats and about 18 paddlers went even faster down the Alapaha River than we expected: six hours on the water between GA 168 and GA 122, including a lunch stop. That’s about 3 miles per hour on a chilly morning and a fine breezy warm day. And there were bon-bons and kumquats!

WWALS banner at lunch stop; picture by Gretchen Quarterman for WWALS.

Lots of native vegetation, no invasive species, some birds (buzzards, ducks, heron, flycatcher, cardinals), no animals on the land or in the water. People fishing at Lakeland said they didn’t even get a nibble. I did see a few fish beds below a creek confluence.

The water level was Continue reading →

Wide-ranging Sabal Trail opposition article by Molly Minta in The Fine Print

Molly Minta, The Fine Print, 5 February 2017, Rise Against the Machine: In 2013, Marion County residents began to receive letters from Sabal Trail Transmission. Now, they’ve made it their mission to save their land, and stop Sabal Trail.

Photo: Molly Minta.
An oak tree is felled by Sabal Trail construction workers.

…
Months before the town considered bankruptcy in 2013, residents of Dunnellon began to receive letters from a company called Sabal Trail Transmission. The letters were an introduction and explained why the company was coming to the area: to build a natural gas pipeline and compressor station. The letters were part of the first step in the process of getting a pipeline approved.

Only landowners within 600 feet of the pipeline received a letter, so not many people in Dunnellon are aware of it. But the ones who are fear it could completely disrupt their way of life.

The pipeline will pass within a mile of the Rainbow River; residents fear Continue reading →

Brooks County Comprehensive Plan Workshop

WWALS Watershed Coalition (WWALS) is Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®

A healthy watershed with clean, swimmable, fishable, drinkable water.