U.S. Congress member Gwen Graham (FL-02) and nature photographer John Moran will keynote the Florida Springs Restoration Summit in Ocala Friday Sept. 30th through Sunday Oct. 2nd at the College of Central Florida.
Gainesville Sun, 8 September 2016,
Robert Knight: Fill vacuum in state leadership to fix springs,
The private, non-profit Florida Springs Council was organized by springs’ advocates to Continue reading
Update 2019-03-19: The google map now includes Florida Southeast Connection (FSC) and FPL’s Martin County to Riviera Beach (MR-RV) pipeline to the sea, which FPL in 2018 got FPSC and FERC to roll into FSC. See also Stop FERC Shirking LNG Oversight.
Update 2016-12-13: The google map now includes the Sabal Trail path digitized for all of Georgia and to the end of the line in Florida south of Orlando.
Update 2016-11-29: In the google map, extended the Sabal Trail alignment maps localized by LAKE for Mitchell, Colquitt, Brooks, and Lowndes Counties, Georgia, and Hamilton, Suwannee, and Gilchrist Counties, Florida to just north of Bell, FL, plus on the crowdsourcing map, WWALS aerials of Gilchrist County.
Update 2016-11-03: Added to the google map digitized path and maps for Gilchrist, Alachua, and part of Levy Counties, FL.
Update 2016-10-31: Added to the google map: Aerials: Suwannee, Ocholockonee, Withlacoochee, Santa Fe Rivers, Okapilco Creek, Sabal Trail Moultrie CY3-6 @ WWALS Southwings 2016-10-22.
Update 2016-10-30: The google map now has all Sabal Trail’s alignment maps from 7 April 2016 linked in for (part of Gilchrist 2016-11-29), Suwannee and Hamilton Counties, FL and Lowndes, Brooks, Colquitt, and Mitchell Counties, GA. Aerial pictures from the WWALS Southwings flight of October 22nd 2016 are also linked in, starting with US 84 HDD Withlacoochee River and US 129 HDD Santa Fe River.
Update 2016-09-14: All 527 alignment maps Sabal Trail filed with FERC in April 2016, in small, big, huge, and PDF formats, courtesy of Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE).
Update 2016-09-23: Added Depressions within 1 mile of Sabal Trail in Hamilton, Madison, and Suwannee Counties, Florida. The pipeline path doesn’t go through Madison County, but it comes closer than a mile, and not even two miles from Madison Blue Spring.
These maps show the path Sabal Trail is gouging its fracked methane pipeline through south Georgia and north Florida, with comparisons to some geological features, including Okapilco Creek, Withlacoochee River, Suwannee River, Suwannacoochee Spring, Falmouth Spring, the Cathedral Cave System, and numerous karstic features, some of them sinkholes.
This digitizaiton is thanks to Continue reading
WWALS and Suwannee-St Johns Group of Sierra Club Florida are cooperating on outings now, and Sierra Club Florida is holding a Rural Office opening in October.
In two days in Ocala, FL
learn how to make meaningful springs restoration a reality
in a series of
plenary sessions about current springs science and management
and that delve into the agency, advocacy, legal, media, and legislative
remedies that can generate meaningful springs restoration and long-term
protection.
When: Sept. 30th thru Oct. 2nd 2016
Where: Harvey R. Klein Conference Center
3001 Southwest College Road
Ocala, FL 34474
Who: Organized by the Florida Springs Council, of which WWALS is a member
Register: Continue reading
Water trails, wastewater, corporate agriculture, solar power, fracking, and pipelines: WWALS works with many issues in many ways,
as part of our advocacy for conservation and stewardship through education, awareness, environmental monitoring and activities such as our monthly paddle outings.
Here’s an introduction to WWALS for the many new members and even more people following WWALS on facebook and twitter.
WWALS Watershed Coalition, or WWALS for short, is an IRS 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation about everything related to water in the watersheds Continue reading
Sierra Club Campaign Organizer Merrillee Malwitz-Jipson has taken the Lake City pipe yard ball and run with it. Monday she got TV coverage at that illicit Sabal Trail storage yard for 36-inch fracked gas pipe, and today she’s called a press conference and protest there. Plus Sierra Club has filed two legal actions. Here’s how you can help.
Haley Wade, WCJB-TV, Gainesville, Florida, 15 August 2016, New pipeline has protestors,
There is something you can do: you can say no.
They didn’t even bother to fill in the year on the date, and “File with original letter”. Here’s what the Corps wrote (PDF) in response to Madison County’s request for a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) about Sabal Trail.
File with
original letterDEPARTMENT or THE ARMY
JACKSONVILLE DISTRICT CORPS 0F ENGINEERS
POST OFFICE BOX 4970
JACKSONVILLE, FLORIDA 32232-0019July 29, 201
Reply to attention of
Regulatory Division
North Permits Branch
Jacksonville Permits Section
SAJ-2013-03030Madison Board of County Commissioners
Attn: Mr. Brian Kauffman, County Coordinator
Post Office Box 539
Madison, Florida 32341Dear Mr. Kauffman:
Please accept this correspondence as Continue reading
This request for a Supplementary Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS), mentioning Madison Blue Spring in particular, was sent July 18th or 19th 2016, one copy to each of the Corps addresses. (PDF). That’s the fourth Florida county to make such a request, after Hamilton, Suwanee, and Marion Counties. The Corps already responded to Madison County.
Board of County Commissioners
Madison County, Florida
Jacksonville Permits Section
U.S.A.C.E. Regulatory Division
Attn: Mark R. Evans,
Senior Project Manager,
Post Office Box 4970
Jacksonville, Florida 32232Commander, U.S.A.C.E.,
Savannah District
Attn: Mr. Terry C. Kobs
1104 N. Westover Boulevard, Unit 9
Albany, GA 31707U.S.A.C.E.
Mobile District Reg. Div.
Montgomery Field Office
Attn: Mr. James S. Cherry II
605 Maple Street
Building 1429 Room 105
Maxwell AFB, AL 36112-6017
Norman C. Bay, Chairman Continue reading
It’s not the Gates Foujndation: it’s his private investment arm. And Lakeland Sands is not the only LLC shell corp he’s using to buy up land in Suwannee, Hamilton, and Madison Counties, FL
and Lowndes and Echols Counties, GA;
see
/issues/corpag/.
Dan Hilliard, Citrus County Chronicle, 31 July 2016, Bill Gates and the death of Florida’s iconic springs,
…while the degradation of South Florida waters receives national attention, contributions of big agriculture — exemplified by operations owned by Bill Gates — to the deterioration of North Florida waters have gone largely unnoticed.
Throughout North Florida, over-pumping of the Floridan aquifer and Continue reading
Update 2022-12-23: EPA gives Florida 12 months to fix its water quality standards 2022-12-05.
FDEP could have stuck with U.S. EPA’s recomendations for water quality,
but instead did a complicated statistical analysis to excuse raising
the amounts of benzene and other toxins in Florida’s waters.
Drinking, fishing, swimming: all are affected.
The decision may be made
9AM this Tuesday morning, July 26th 2016,
by the
Environmental Regulation Commission (ERC) in Tallahassee.
Please call or write its members, your newspaper or TV stations, or come to the meeting early for the demonstration and then attend (see below for details).
The ERC has cancelled all its other monthly meetings so far this year, yet Continue reading