In January the water should be up like a year ago at this three-hour tour of the idyllic Little River between Brooks County and Cook and Lowndes Counties, Georgia.
There should be no need to drag boats, like there was in July.
When: 10 AM Saturday January 14th 2017
Put In: Cook County Landing (GA 76) between Adel, Cook County and Barney, Brooks County, Georgia
GPS Coordinates: Continue reading
Update 2016-11-22:
Ashlyn Becton, WALB, 16 November 2016,
Environmentalist raise awareness about Sabal Trail Pipeline (WWALS blog post),
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Hahira GA, November 14th 2016 (updated with directions and detail Nov 15th) —
WWALS is holding an in-person press conference at the US 84 Withlacoochee River bridge to hear and participate in the announcement Wednesday morning of the Georgia Water Coalition (GWC) Dirty Dozen 2016: a dozen of the worst threats to Georgia’s waters.
WWALS will then offer a hike up the riverside to the Sabal Trail pipeline crossing location, where Sabal Trail leaked drilling mud leak up into the river.
Please arrive by 9:30 to be ready for the GWC teleconference at 10AM. On the phone call, details of the Dirty Dozen will be announced, with WWALS members assisting for one of them, and another also directly relevant to WWALS watersheds.
After the phone call, people from Florida and Georgia will have an opportunity to speak, because the Withlacoochee flows downstream into Florida, where Sabal Trail also plans to drill under the Suwannee River, as well as the Santa Fe, where 14 people got arrested recently protecting, and the other Withlacoochee (south) River. Let’s see a little cross-state-line solidarity against this unnecessary, destructive, and hazardous fracked methane pipeline boondoggle. Call your local press before you come, and bring signs.
When: 9:30 AM Wednesday November 16th 2016
Where: US 84 bridge, east side, between Quitman and Valdosta, GA, 30.793747, -83.450167
It’s in the median of a busy highway, so be careful.
What:
Press Conference for Georgia Water Coalition Dirty Dozen,
with hike up the river.
It’s a rough hike, so come prepared with sturdy shoes and clothes you don’t mind getting dirty.
Or just participate at the bridge. Bring signs if you’ve got them, or make them on the spot.
This is a completely peaceful nonviolent first-amendment press conference.
Event: facebook
Directions: from Live Oak or Gainesville, FL or farther south, or from Albany, Tifton, or Macon, GA or farther north, take I-75 Continue reading
Update 2016-11-22:
Ashlyn Becton, WALB, 16 November 2016,
Environmentalist raise awareness about Sabal Trail Pipeline (WWALS blog post),
Update 2016-11-14: GWC Dirty Dozen Press Conference at US 84 Bridge with tour of Sabal Trail HDD 2016-11-16
Steve Patterson, Jacksonville.com, 14 November 2016, Gas pipeline project headed to Suwannee River leaks into Georgia waterway; sparks environmental worries
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Hahira, GA, November 13th 2016 —
Apparently Sabal Trail continues to leak drilling mud into the Withlacoochee River,
three weeks after
it admitted to GA-EPD that its pilot hole under the river had leaked up into the riverbed.
WWALS members Deanna and Chris Mericle went to the US 84 bridge between Quitman and Valdosta, Georgia, and walked up the river to the site, about 2000 feet upstream. You can clearly see the water inside Sabal Trail’s turbidity curtains is not the same color as the river water.
“I am so angry because this is what we said would happen and we were assured the rivers wouldn’t be affected because they were drilling under them. The head woman at FDEP said exactly that! We told them it was likely because of our karst geology and we got patronized and patted on the head. You can guarantee they will downplay it and just drill another hole. I am pissed,” said WWALS member Deanna Mericle, who drafted the WWALS petition for last year’s four-month legal case and three-day hearing in WWALS v Sabal Trail & FDEP. Continue reading
Did Sabal Trail’s contractor have a permit to scrape off that topsoil in this contractor yard in Brooks County, GA? Are those bags of stuff the drilling mud Sabal Trail is leaking up into the Withlacoochee River only a few miles from there? Are those temporary buildings setting up for supplying Sabal Trail across all of Spread Three from Mitchell County, Georgia across the Suwannee River to Suwannee County, Florida?
Thanks to a WWALS ally for taking these pictures late Friday afternoon.
The evening gloom seems appropriate.
The “Troy Access” sign presumably indicates Troy Construction, as in Pipeline News, March 2016, Sabal Trail Pipeline lands contractors,
“Troy Construction has been awarded a contract for spread three;”
Spread Three starts in Mitchell County and runs Continue reading
Update 2016-11-14: GWC Dirty Dozen Press Conference at US 84 Bridge with tour of Sabal Trail HDD 2016-11-16
Update 2016-11-13:Sabal Trail still leaking drilling mud into the Withlacoochee River at US 84 in GA 2016-11-12
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Hahira, GA, November 11th 2016 —
Sabal Trail leaked drilling mud up from their HDD pilot hole into the Withlacoochee River.
They knew this before WWALS asked two weeks ago
what is that yellow thing in the river?
They did not tell WWALS or the public that this thing
they testified could not happen did happen.
The
evidence is in writing from Sabal Trail’s contractor
to the Georgia Environmental Protection Division.
This wasn’t even the actual horizontal directional drilling (HDD) borehole: it was just the smaller pilot hole. What will happen to the Withlacoochee River (or nearby water wells) with the main borehole? What will happen to the Ochlockonee River west of Moultrie, GA? What will happen to the Santa Fe River, where Sabal Trail is drilling now, or the Suwannee River, where it will drill soon, both Outstanding Waters of Florida, supposed to have extra measures of environmental protection? What about the Tallapoosa, Chattahoochee, or the other Withlacoochee (south) River?
“Why should we accept any risk to our waters, or eminent domain to take our lands, for an unnecessary pipeline, now that Continue reading
If drilling mud may be released, how can this also be?
“No wastewater has been or will be dumped into the Withlacoochee River.”
Sabal Trail seems to have contradicted itself.
And didn’t answer the permit questions from WWALS.
Nonetheless all their responses are marked “Resolution Date: 10/30/2016”.
Nope, not resolved, Sabal Trail. See new questions.
Sabal Trail also said (see the PDF) it was completing drilling under the Flint River, was drilling under the Ochlockonee and Withlacoochee Rivers in Georgia, had just started under the Santa Fe River, was doing clearing and pad preparation for the Chattahoochee and Suwannee Rivers, and hadn’t yet started anything at the Withlacoochee (south) River in Florida. Plus quite a few complaints and questions, including some from FERC, and some archaeological discoveries which Sabal Trail and FERC hid under “Privileged and Confidential information”.
The Sabal Trail responses labeled Continue reading
Pictures and a movie clip from the air (thanks, Southwings!)
of Mozell Spells, aka
Madison Highway Boat Ramp,
State Line Ramp (GA DNR) or GA 31 Ramp (SRWMD) or CR 145 Bridge Launch (FDEP).
This is one of two dozen public landings on the Withlacoochee and Little River Water Trail (WLRWT). It’s at the Georgia-Florida state line, and in the big picture (scroll down) you can see Continue reading
Update 2016-10-24: Questions filed with FERC in Docket CP15-17 as Accession Number 20161024-5049 and emailed to USACE and GA-EPD (PDF).
What is
that yellow thing in the river, Sabal Trail?
Is that a sinkhole you’ve marked at the Lowndes County HDD site?
And
does blue pipe mean thinner for rural areas like
your executive from Houston told us in WWALS v Sabal Trail & FDEP?
FERC gave you permission to Continue reading
Monday Sabal Trail asked FERC
to
add a contractor yard in Colquitt County,
and to change routing
under a small stream.
No rush: Sabal Trail wants approval by tomorrow,
Thursday, October 20th 2016.
Presumably because they’re racing hell-for-leather to meet their May 2017
in-service drop-dead date, after which (according to FPL’s RFP)
they could forfeit a $200 million bond or lose the contract.
Here, courtesy of Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE), are Sabal Trail’s October 17th 2016 maps of that stream, plus Sabal Trail’s April 2016 maps of where it wants to cross the stream it flows into, Hog Creek and that stream’s downstream Okapilco Creek.
We’ve already seen where Sabal Trail is drilling under the Withlacoochee River between Valdosta and Quitman, Georgia and under the Suwannee River in Suwannee River State Park. Plus there’s an encampment of water protectors in Suwannee County.
Courtesy of Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange, you can now see small, big, huge, and PDF versions of all 527 alignment maps Sabal Trail filed with FERC in April 2016: follow this link.
![[STA. 11870+00 TO STA. 11923+00, (UT OKAPILCO CREEK), 11881+44 CL SPAIN ROAD, 11871+70 CL GOLDING ROAD, BROOKS COUNTY, GEORGIA]](https://www.l-a-k-e.org/govt/ferc/2016-04-07--stt-supp/small/20160407-5081-31369074-0012.jpg)
Having these maps online like this makes it easier to see what’s in them. Sabal Trail told FERC Okapilco Creek was not among the streams for which the Georgia legislature denied river-drilling easements (and for which Sabal Trail got the easements later anyway by suing the state in county Superior Courts). Yet Sabal Trail’s alignment maps from April 2016 seem to say that fracked methane pipeline crosses Okapilco Creek a couple of times in Brooks County, Georgia.
Here’s one of those times, in which the road names don’t match Continue reading