Sabal Trail sinkholes 2015 2017-05-05

Apparently that wet area I saw March 20, 2017 at Sabal Trail’s Suwannee River HDD access in Suwannee County was a “depression” they had just logged the previous day. Two more recent ones show up in Sabal Trail’s latest bi-weekly report, along with a couple of earlier ones they still haven’t even attempted to fix. Why should we expect these sinkholes will stop happening if Sabal Trail finishes and takes all their workers back to Houston, leaving us to deal with the damage?

Hay, berm, lights, workers 30.4061111, -83.1527778 I also wondered what they were up to a bit southeast of that drill site, beyond the dirt berm where I could only see their heads and hats. Apparently that was another sinkhole from January at the Suwannee River HDD in Suwannee County. Or maybe it was in Hamilton County in Suwannee River State Park; their description is so sloppy it’s hard to tell.

They also made a sinkhole a couple of thousand feet east of the Withlacoochee River in Hamilton County, and yet another sinkhole near the Santa Fe River HDD. The big winner is 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 →

Video: Pilgrim’s Pride effluent pipe directly into Suwannee River

With the Suwannee River low, you can see the effluent coming out of the pipe west of Live Oak, FL. Pilgrim’s Pride just rejected a shareholder resolution to curb water pollution from its operations. And Aviagen is opening a chicken breeding operation in Brooks County, GA, in the watershed of the Withlacoochee River, upstream of the Suwannee.


Pilgrim's Pride, Proud to Dump into Suwannee River? from Merrillee on Vimeo.
“Pilgrim’s Pride discharges over 2 million gallons a day of liquid poultry wastes in the Suwannee River from a meat rendering facility located north of Live Oak, FL.”

Thanks to Merrillee Malwitz-Jipson of Sierra Club for .this video, which she showed me, along with many pictures, when she was in Valdosta for the VDT interview with Randy Dowdy about Sabal Trail destroying his farmland.

I asked Merrillee whether Continue reading →

Video: Randy Dowdy in VDT 2017-05-05

“We’ve got loss of production for the future that will take not my lifetime, not my kids’ lifetime, but my kids’ kids’ lifetime to recover from,” Randy Dowdy

Daniel DeMersseman, Valdosta Daily Times, 5 May 2017, Farmer: Sabal Trail devastated farm,

QUITMAN — A Brooks County farmer said Wednesday the controversial Sabal Trail natural gas pipeline has ruined his farmland.


“We’ve got loss of production for the future that will take not my lifetime, not my kids’ lifetime, but my kids’ kids’ lifetime to recover from,” Randy Dowdy, interviewed by Daniel DeMersseman, Valdosta Daily Times.

Randy Dowdy is a major corn and soybean producer. In fact, he holds a world’s record for soybean production and a U.S. record for corn production but now he says his award-winning farm is in jeopardy.

Daniel Demersseman (VDT), Randy Dowdy (farmer)
Daniel Demersseman (VDT), Randy Dowdy (farmer), photo by John S. Quarterman for WWALS Watershed Coalition

Environmentalists held a press conference this week alongside Dowdy to say their worst fears about the pipeline have been realized.

“Sabal Trail gouged its pipeline through Continue reading →

More than 100,000 acres and Billy’s Island in West Mims Fire 2017-05-03

We got smoked here in western Lowndes County yesterday and this morning 60 miles from the West Mims fire as it went up to 107,846 acres in and around the Okefenokee NWR. Many of the fire-fighting numbers went down since last post: remember, the goal is not to put the fire out, rather to contain it. As I write, a big storm just went over here heading that way, so maybe mother nature will take a hand today.

The Valdosta Daily Times has been covering this fire right along, most recently by Terry Richards, VDT, 2 May 2017, Rain barely felt at massive swamp fire,

FARGO — A mild rainfall Monday had little to no impact on the West Mims Fire burning through the Okefenokee Swamp, according to a firefighter.

The blaze, which had burned more than 100,000 acres by Tuesday afternoon, received about a tenth of an inch of rain from a weak cold front that moved through South Georgia Monday.

“It didn’t help,” said Leland Bass, a firefighter and public information officer for the Georgia Forestry Commission.

Maybe they’ll get more rain in the swamp today. Continue reading →

Record-holding farmer, land destroyed by Sabal Trail, in Valdosta at pipeline safety meeting

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Valdosta, May 3, 2017 — U.S. corn production record holder and world soybean record holder Randy Dowdy, whose record-producing fields were severely eroded in rains after Sabal Trail’s pipeline construction destroyed his terraces and caused massive erosion of his cropland, will be at the Rainwater Conference Center in Valdosta 11:30 AM this morning at a pipeline safety exercise to talk about the implications of Sabal Trail’s destruction for pipeline safety and his livelihood.

Randy Dowdy is the 2014 50-year record holder for U.S. corn production and the world record holder for soybean production. Sabal Trail gouged its pipeline through his terraces on the land he used for those soybeans in Brooks County. Despite his warnings, they left that damage unfixed until rains in January caused massive erosion, washing his topsoil into a nearby creek. Beyond immediate damage, this destruction affects Dowdy’s ability to grow such record yields, and the basic productivity of his fields. What further economic damage has Sabal Trail done to other farmers and landowners? Where else will Sabal Trail’s pipeline cause erosion, perhaps in some places exposing the pipe and risking corrosion and breaks?

The event 11:30 AM this morning at Rainwater Conference Center in Continue reading →

Sabal Trail to export through Jacksonville, FL

Let’s connect the dots from Sabal Trail to LNG export through Jacksonville. To cut to the chase: Crowley Maritime’s Carib Energy is already exporting LNG from Jacksonville, and is authorized to get LNG from both Floridian Natural Gas (FLiNG) in Martin County at the end of the Transco → Sabal Trail → FSC pipeline chain, and from Florida Gas Transportation (FGT)’s Jacksonville Expansion Project from Sabal Trail in Suwannee County to Jacksonville.

600x388 Exhibit F: Compressors and loops; Suwannee, Columbia, and Bradford Counties, Florida, in Jacksonville Expansion Project, by FGT, for SpectraBusters.org, 31 March 2015
KMI FGT TECO JEP

Working backwards, look at Jaxport’s own website, Corporate, Major Growth Projects, Liquifed Natural Gas:

EXPORT OPPORTUNITIES

Crowley-owned Carib Energy has already begun small scale exports of LNG to Puerto Rico and has plans for expansion to a number of countries in the Caribbean and Latin America.

That JAXport page links to Crowley Maritime’s LNG Overview web page, which brags: Continue reading →

Chicken hatchery coming to Quitman, GA

Update 2017-05-06: More on ownership of Aviagen.

In Brooks County south of Quitman, draining into Piscola Creek and the Withlacoochee River, in the same industrial park where WWALS caught Sabal Trail illegally burning, a poultry breeder will be setting up shop.

News Desk, Area Development, 9 March 2017, Aviagen Plans $18 Million Hatchery In Quitman, Georgia,

Aviagen, a leading broiler breeding company, will create 100 jobs and invest approximately $18 million in a new parent stock hatchery at Brooks County Industrial Park, 17 miles west of Valdosta, in Quitman, Georgia.

The Quitman facility will be Aviagen’s eighth Continue reading →

Charges dropped against Sabal Trail protestors in Suwannee County, FL

How about the state of Florida drop the Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline and get on with solar power in the Sunshine State?

Thomas Lynn, Suwannee Democrat, 30 April 2017, Charges against pipeline protesters dropped,

LIVE OAK — Charges against three Sabal Trail pipeline protesters who were scheduled to be tried in court this week were dropped by the state attorney’s office.

Jeff Siegmeister, state attorney for Florida’s third judicial circuit, said the decision was made for a couple of reasons.

“We made a decision to not give the protesters a platform and not waste the taxpayers money,” Siegmeister said.

How about the waste of taxpayer money on arrests and going this far in those cases? How about the state providing dozens Continue reading →