Category Archives: Safety

New hydrology report exposes Sabal Trail pipeline risk to Floridan Aquifer

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Jasper, Florida, July 1st 2016 — Another independent professional geologist reveals more omissions and discrepancies in pipeline company reports and faults in federal oversight of the Sabal Trail pipeline: Figure 7: Locations of the caves and springs mentioned in this study groundflow actually goes the other way, drilling under a river will change water flow in the Floridan Aquifer, and there is very high risk of sinkhole collapse. An indigenous Floridian commissioned this scientific report to protect his mother, the living earth. This geological report provides compelling additional reasons for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) to open a new process to evaluate this and other new information.

Bobby C. Billie, one of the Clan Leaders and Spiritual Leader, Council of the Original Miccosukee Simanolee Nation Aboriginal Peoples, asked professional geologist and hydrologist Peter Schreuder, P.G. to conduct investigations at the proposed Sabal Trail crossing under the Suwannee River from Hamilton County and under U.S. 90 in close proximity to the Falmouth Cave System in Suwannee County.

This Schreuder report concludes about the Floridan Aquifer System (FAS): Continue reading →

Hydrogeologic Issues of Concern, HDD under Suwannee River –Peter J. Schreuder 2016-06-23

See press release, New hydrology report exposes Sabal Trail pipeline risk to Floridan Aquifer, and this report is also available in PDF.

Hydrogeologic Issues of Concern

Schreuder, Inc. Water-Resources & Environmental Consultants

Directional Horizontal Drilling (HDD) under the
Suwannee River
At Suwannee River State Park

Hydrogeologic Issues of Concern

In any review of potential environmental consequences related to the use of Horizontal Directional Drilling (HDD), both the geotechnical and scientific communities can be expected to raise serious concerns when such drilling is done around karst areas, and in regions which over lie the Floridan Aquifer System (FAS), which includes the Upper Floridan Aquifer, and the karstic geologic subsurface features at the location proposed in Continue reading →

CR/T Class 3 Permit Change Meeting Report 2016-06-22

A small but inquisitive group attended the CRT Class 3 Permit Change Public meeting on Wednesday June 22nd at the Public Library on Woodrow Wilson Drive in Valdosta.

The representatives of the company included Ramesh Mulani (Operations Manager for CR/T), Brian Jones from International Paper (apparently International Paper is responsible for the monitoring of the wells), Carol Northern from EarthCon Consultants, a subcontractor to International Paper and a gentleman whose name I failed to record. Ms. Northern gave a detailed overview of the reasons for the two permit change requests.

  1. The first permit change was to Continue reading →

Madison, FL BOCC tonight: WWALS on agenda about Sabal Trail 2016-06-22

Sabal Trail would go far too close to Madison Blue Spring and water wells in Madison County, it doesn’t have all permits, and the Madison BOCC could help stop this unnecessary, destructive, and hazardous fracked methane pipeline boondoggle. I have five minutes to say all that tonight to the Madison Board of County Commissioners.

Madison County, FL Courthouse Annex
Photograph by George Lansing Taylor Jr.

Anybody else who wants to speak, please sign up in advance, according to the Madison BOCC meeting rules. And the more people who come, the more likely they’ll pay attention.

When: 6PM Wednesday June 22nd 2016

Where: Courthouse Annex, 229 S.W. Pinckney Street, Madison, Florida 32340

Excerpt from the agenda. Continue reading →

Sabal Trail reacts to Sanford Bishop GA-02, WWALS, Price P.G.

It’s time for more people and organizations, especially Congress members, to ask the Corps for a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement, after Sabal Trail side-stepped many of the questions Cover letter in a 130-page claim that it had already addressed every recent point from U.S. Rep. Sanford Bishop GA-02, WWALS Watershed Coalition, Flint Riverkeeper, and Dennis Price P.G. in recent letters to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. If karst concerns alone were enough to move Sabal Trail off of the Withlacoochee River in Florida, and the Itchetucknee River, and to move it to a different crossing for the Santa Fe River, they should be enough to move it off the Suwannee River, where the conditions are quite similar.

In case anybody wondered whether Sabal Trail is watching the web for anything posted by its opponents, note where Sabal Trail said in its included 6 June 2016 letter to Mark R. Evans of the Corps that it first saw Sanford Bishop’s letter: Continue reading →

Sanford Bishop GA-02 requests Supplementary Environmental Impact Statement for Sabal Trail from U.S. Army Corps of Engineers 2016-05-27

Rep. Sanford Bishop GA-02 just stood up again against the Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline invader, for the Flint River, the Floridan Aquifer, and his constituents in Albany, and Dougherty and Terrell Counties, pointing out FERC shouldn’t have issued a certificate before all the state Clean Water Act Section 401 permits were in, and asking for a Supplementary Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS).

Many counties and county seats have passed resolutions against Sabal Trail I’m sure we’re all looking forward to similar requests from Austin Scott GA-07, in whose Congressional district Sabal Trail would cross Okapilco Creek and the Withlacoochee River, and in which Moultrie, Valdosta, and the counties of Colquitt, Brooks, and Lowndes passed resolutions against the pipeline. And especially from Ted Yoho FL-03, in whose district Sabal Trail would cross the Suwannee and Santa Fe Rivers through the most vulnerable recharge area of the Floridan Aquifer in the Florida Springs Heartland, and in which the counties of Hamilton, Suwannee, and Marion have already sent letters to the Corps, like Rep. Bishop just asked for a Supplementary Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS).

We know the Corps did a SEIS for Keystone XL. The Corps should do a SEIS for Sabal Trail, so Continue reading →

Sinkholes and Sabal Trail: Elected Officials Hike, Suwannee River State Park 2016-05-15

Sunday morning May 15th 2016, nine and more environmental organizations showed U.S. Congress member Ted Yoho FL-03 and a representative from Sen. Bill Nelson Chris Mericle showing Ted Yoho two geology reports 30.3861389, -83.1693420 saw sinkholes much closer to Sabal Trail’s proposed drill path under the Suwannee River than the pipeline company told FERC, along with two reports by local practicing geologists explaining how fissures and caverns underground extend the problem far past the artificial distance of effects Sabal Trail claimed.

Update 2016-05-17: Thomas Lynn reported in the Suwannee Democrat and Valdosta Daily Times.

Both Rep. Yoho and Suwannee River Water Management District Executive Director Noah Valenstein said at the end of the expedition that Continue reading →

Drowning at Pafford’s Landing on the Alapaha River 2016-05-07

One version of the Saturday drowning on the Alapaha River near Lakeland is being carried all over the country, Lanier Parks, Inc. Parcel 030 0038B from Richmond to Texas, and there is another version.

Terry Richards, valdosta Daily Times, 9 May 2016, UPDATE: Father dies saving Lanier child from drowning,

A small child wandered away from a group of adults and into the Alapaha River at Pafford’s Landing, he said. When the father noticed what had happened he jumped in, swam to his daughter who was struggling to keep her head above water and held her up until someone took her from him, Norton said. The father never resurfaced.

Pafford’s Landing is at Continue reading →

After Pennsylvania explosion, Ask your county commission to rescind Sabal Trail agreements or at least write the Army Corps of Engineers

Aerial view of incinerated site A Spectra Energy pipeline blew up east of Pittsburgh, incinerating a man’s house and sending him to the hospital with burns. Spectra declared force majeure (Act of God) and is fiddling gas deliveries all over the east coast, as far away as Little Rock, where a branch of that same Spectra Texas Eastern pipeline blew up under the Arkansas River in May 2015. Do you want that under the Withlacoochee or Suwannee River or Okapilco Creek?

For Lowndes County, Georgia, you can write to commissioner@lowndescounty.com.

You can ask them to Continue reading →

Lowndes County Chairman says accepting easement was not endorsement of Sabal Trail pipeline

So Lowndes County should have no problem asking the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to come investigate what Sabal Trail didn’t tell FERC. And if the county is concerned about legal expenses, maybe it should pay attention to the lawsuits happening right now in California about a natural gas leak that went up into the air, closing schools, evacuating hundreds, and making many of them sick.

The VDT article today doesn’t mention writing a letter to the Corps was one of my requests to the county. It does quote the Chairman expresssing interest in details of eminent domain, in differences in regulation of oil and gas pipelines, and in environmental and safety issues of natural gas pipelines. Treating his statements as questions, I have provided some further information below on those points.

And he does say the county might have incurred legal expenses if it hadn’t accepted Sabal Trail’s money for the easement. He doesn’t mention how much money Lowndes County spent suing a local company on behalf of a trash collection company financed out of New York City, or how much money the county spent suing a local church about a minor tax matter. It seems when Lowndes County wants to do something, it doesn’t worry so much about legal expenses. And maybe the county should worry more about legal expenses if something does go wrong with that pipeline, especially considering what’s happening with the Porter Ranch leak in California.

Besides, writing a letter Continue reading →