After
an application for an exemption for the Withlacoochee River
and the Santa Fe River, here’s Sabal Trail’s application to
drill under the Suwannee River in between.
Should we also expect an “HDD CROSSING” permit application
for the Withlacoochee and Suwannee Rivers?
And watch out, The Villages in Sumter County, Florida!
Sabal Trail has applied for a permit in your county, too. Continue reading
Flint Riverkeeper to GA Senate Aquifer Storage Study Committee
The same
Floridan Aquifer underlies the Flint River, and our
Withlacoochee, Alapaha, and other rivers, all of Florida, and across south Georgia all the way to the
coast, where Gordon Rogers, Flint Riverkeeper, explained it to
the Georgia Senate’s Long-Term Aquifer Storage and Recovery (ASR)
Study Committee,
4 August 2014 on Jekyll Island.
The ASR idea of pumping treated water into the ground for later retrieval
is a bad idea, as Gordon spelled out.
See especially this part in Flint Riverkeeper Gordon Rogers’ Comments to the Senate ASR Study Committee,
In central south GA, eastern and coastal GA, Floridan water is thousands of years old, quite pristine, and is so slow to recharge that essentially it does not recharge in comparison to human uses.
Remember,
the Flint River basin where the Georgia legislature
keeps trying to implement ASR is the next one to the west Continue reading
Moultrie Observer: WWALS op-ed against Sabal Trail pipeline
Bigger type than the rest of the page, and in the editorial column position:
Haley Hyatt, who took these pictures, noticed that about how the
Moultrie Observer
printed the
WWALS op-ed Friday 1 August 2014, as
“Much opposition”.
So that’s at least two newspapers so far, the other being the Ocala StarBanner. Continue reading
Tifton Gazette, WWALS receives Alapaha Water Trali grant
In the Tifton Gazette, WWALS receives Alapaha Water Trali grant,
27 July 2014,
from the
WWALS PR of 21 July 2014.
WWALS Ambassador Dave Hetzel found this, and I took the picture last night
at the first in-person Alapaha Water Trail Committee meeting.
So at least two newspapers carried the story. The other one was the Valdosta Daily Times, 22 July 2014, WWALS gets grant from river network, in which Matthew Woody added some detail beyond the press release. Continue reading
WWALS op-ed against Sabal Trail pipeline published
The Moultrie Observer printed
the WWALS op-ed Friday 1 August 2014;
that’s still not online.
But the Ocala StarBanner has it online, Sunday 3 August 2014,
Water, property rights over pipeline profits.
Several more newspapers are considering it.
-jsq
Video: Withlacoochee River and springs where Sabal Trail pipeline would cross
Chris Mericle’s introducation says this video:
shows some of the springs, sinkholes, and other karst features that lie in close proximity to the proposed Sabal Trail gas pipeline where it crosses the Withlacoochee River in Hamilton and Madison County, Florida.
Including active sinkholes right next to the proposed pipeline route. And a karst window a couple of hundred feet from the pipeline.
Here’s the video:
The video is about the part of the Withlacoochee River where Continue reading
Water and property rights more important than methane pipeline profits
This is a long version of the op-ed sent to many newspapers in WWALS’ watersheds; there is also a short version. -jsq
Protesters drove
as far as nine hours to
Leesburg, GA July 10th, where Spectra Energy
lost its eminent domain demand for its Sabal Trail
36-inch, hundred-foot right-of-way natural gas pipeline,
and local landowners countersued.
Spectra hobbled back to Houston, Texas bound by strict conditions for
surveying that one Mitchell County property,
and bound to haunt south Georgia again for a trespass jury trial.
The ensuing flurry of newspaper op-eds by Spectra’s Andrea Grover plus a page-long Sabal Trail interview in the Valdosta Daily Times (VDT), didn’t mention numerous Sabal Trail downsides. Continue reading
Water and property rights over methane pipeline profits
This is an op-ed submission sent to many newspapers in WWALS’ watersheds and beyond. There is also a longer version. -jsq
Protesters drove
up to nine hours to
Leesburg, GA July 10th, where Spectra Energy
lost an eminent domain demand for its Sabal Trail
36-inch, hundred-foot right-of-way natural gas pipeline,
and local landowners countersued.
Spectra hobbled back to Houston, Texas, bound by strict conditions for
surveying that one property,
and bound to haunt south Georgia again for a trespass jury trial.
Spectra
bragged in op-eds about 50 public meetings,
never mentioning overwhelming public opposition
in
Moultrie,
Valdosta,
Clyattville,
Madison and elsewhere to
that gash through our fields, forests, and wetlands,
and
under our Withlacoochee River twice.
Sabal Trail’s air quality permit application with Georgia’s Environmental Protection Division met immediate Continue reading
Sabal Trail has applied for a Withlacoochee River water permit with Florida DEP
Sabal Trail is asking for permits for its fracked methane pipeline from
the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.
One of them is for our Withlacoochee River.
ERP is Environmental Resource Permit, and here’s a permit found in ERP Exemption Permit applications, FL DEP Northeast Office: Continue reading
EPA hearings Tuesday and Wednesday in Atlanta and Climate Rally by Sierra Club
Mercury in the Alapaha River probably comes from coal Plant Scherer near Macon. EPA is holding public hearings on its proposed Clean Power Plan next week, 29-30 July 2014, in Atlanta. You can also comment online until 16 October 2014 on Docket ID EPA-HQ-OAR-2013-0602. And you can express your opinion outside with Georgia Sierra Club at the Atlanta Climate Rally Tuesday at high noon. Maybe you want to mention shifting from coal to “natural” gas (fracked methane) actually may make matters worse here, so EPA needs to go further.
While that proposed carbon rule may help clean up coal plants like Scherer, it says nothing about methane, which EPA says is Continue reading