Tag Archives: conservation

Suwannee County requests Army Corps of Engineers to inspect Sabal Trail discrepancies 2016-04-06

Here’s the letter the Suwannee County Commissioners voted 4:1 on 5 April 2016 to send to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (PDF), following the one Hamilton County already sent. Other counties in Florida and Georgia can do the same.

SUWANNEE COUNTY BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS

(386) 364-3450
FAX (386) 362-1032

COUNTY OFFICES
13150 8001 Terrace
Live Oak, Florida 32060

In the Heart of the Suwannee River Valley

SBOCC to USACE April 6, 2016

Attn: Mark R, Evans, Senior Project Manager,
Jacksonville Permits Section
US Army Corps of Engineers
Regulatory Division
Post Office Box 4970
Jacksonville, Florida 32232

RE: Sabal Trail Transmission, LLC
       FERC Document No. CP15-177000

Dear Mr. Evans:

The Board of County Commissioners of Suwannee County recently received the Environmental Geology report prepared by Dennis Price and dated 10/25/2015, a copy of which is attached hereto.

If you will note, Continue reading →

Agenda, WWALS Board Meeting 2016-04-13

Draft Agenda (PDF)
WWALS Quarterly Board Meeting
7:30 PM Wednesday 13 April 2016
Farmhouse Restaurant, 5123 Mill Store Rd, Lake Park, GA 31636-5103
That’s at I-75 Exit 5 Dial-in Number: (641) 715-3580
Meeting ID: 855-676
Related Materials

All WWALS Board Members are expected to attend in person or by telephone.
The more done on the board list, the less time we’ll have to spend on them in this meeting.

All WWALS members, especially committee members, are invited to attend, as is the general public.

Board Members: Continue reading →

Sabal Trail Contractor Fair, Moultrie, GA 2016-04-15

Not just for compressor station counties, also apparently also for where Sabal Trail has promised side taps, including Moultrie, Georgia, as seen today in the Tifton Gazette and the Valdosta Daily Times.

Southern Regional Technical College, Seminar Center, 361 Industrial Drive, Moultrie, GA 31788 When: 11AM – 2PM Friday, April 15th 2016

Where: Southern Regional Technical College, Seminar Center, 361 Industrial Drive, Moultrie, GA 31788

This Moultrie job fair is scheduled one month after Colquitt County sent FERC exorbitant claims of benefits in property tax revenue, wildly high and out-of-context construction jobs claims, and discounted safety and environmental concerns, with no mention whatever of agriculture, nevermind Colquitt County’s letter to FERC two years before about agricultural concerns.

The Colquitt letter to FERC made no mention of lowered property values reducing tax revenue, cited no source, just “It is estimated that”. However, in the same paragraph: Continue reading →

Thanks for a historic victory against Sabal Trail –WWALS in VDT 2016-04-10

In today’s Sunday April 10th 2016 Valdosta Daily Times:

The Georgia House on March 22nd by an unprecedented 34 ayes to 128 nays rejected easements for Sabal Trail Sunday VDT to drill our Withlacoochee and other Georgia Rivers. This was a historic victory by the Georgia Water Coalition, including Georgia Sierra Club, WWALS, Flint Riverkeeper, Chattahoochee Riverkeeper, plus SpectraBusters, and thanks to all of you who called their state reps.

That same day, Continue reading →

Contractor Fair, Sabal Trail, Ocala and Live Oak

Update 10 April 2016: And Moultrie, GA April 15th.

Update 9 April 2016: And Albany, GA April 21st.

Sabal Trail plans to entice locals by offering jobs week after next in Ocala and Live Oak, SabalXadX001 ignoring river easements slapped down hard by the Georgia legislature, and both Hamilton and Suwannee Counties, Florida, inviting the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to come see what Sabal Trail didn’t tell FERC,

Sabal Trail admitted two years ago in Gilchrist County that it had already retained the main contractors for pipeline installation. Should a few temporary leftover jobs for local people be enough to outweigh taking local property by eminent domain and gouging under our rivers and through the most sensitive area of the Floridan Aquifer, source of all our drinking water?

Those are private venues, but they have public roads outside.

Ocala

Continue reading →

Lowndes County spills sewage into Withlacoochee River 2016-04-05

Lowndes County spilled sewage this time, a day after Valdosta fixed all its spills from last weekend. EPA MyWaters Mapper Downstream it ends up in the Withlacoochee and Suwannee Rivers, where people are already hopping mad because of Valdosta, and not making a lot of distinctions among local governments up here.

The County Clerk told the VDT the “county does not forsee this as a reocurring event”, which is odd, since it happened two years ago, and that time the City of Valdosta had to tell Lowndes County about it. Just like that time, and unlike Valdosta, there’s nothing about this spill on Lowndes County’s News Flash web page, nor the County Clerk’s web page, nor the Lowndes County Utilities web page. Apparently the county only contacted selected news media, not the public directly, and definitely not WWALS, the Waterkeeper® Affiliate for the Withlacoochee River.. And the county only told the press three days after the sewer break.

Lowndes County PR, ValdostaToday.com, 7 April 2016, Pipe Break Spills 225,000 Gallons of Sewage into the Withlacoochee River, Continue reading →

Ask your federal representative to ask GAO to investigate FERC and rubberstamps like Sabal Trail

You can send a message to your member of Congress asking them to support a petition from hundreds of organizations and even more individuals asking them to:

Help secure an independent investigation by the Government Accountability Office into the abuses of power, process and law by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) when it comes to interstate natural gas pipelines and LNG export facilities. Write your congressional representative now to urge their help in securing this necessary independent review.

Abuses like Continue reading →

Florida Campsites Ramp to SRSP, Withlacoochee River Paddle 2016-06-04

A rock field, many springs, and shoals add to the beautiful landscape There is a chair on top of that concrete of one of the finest stretches of River you may ever paddle! Mostly on the Withlacoochee River, plus just after Suwanoochee Spring, we turn left up the Suwannee River to Suwannee River State Park (SRSP). Will the chair still be there, on top of the old bridge pier?

When: 7:30 AM, Saturday, June 4th 2016
facebook event, meetup.

Duration: 13.3 miles  about 7 hours

Put in: Florida Campsites Ramp
MILE 13.3, 2137 NW 47th St, Jasper, FL 32052
30.501128, -83.242411

Directions: Continue reading →

Suwannee BOCC votes 4:1 to ask Army Corps of Engineers to investigate Sabal Trail 2016-04-05

Other counties in Florida, Georgia, and Alabama can follow this example from Hamilton County, now emulated by Suwannee County. Coming on the heels of the historic 34 aye to 128 nay defeat of Sabal Trail river easements in the Georgia legislature, this invading Spectra Energy pipeline has run into some hard shoals, with sinkholes ahead.

Commissioner Wesley Wainwright proposed to send the letter to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Commissioner Wainwright proposes to send the letter asking them to come see for themselves and do an indepedent report, pointedly adding he still supports the pipeline, but he thinks the discrepencies revealed by the gelogical report by local Practicing Geologist Dennis Price were worth asking the Corps to investigate. Wainwright was the only Suwannee County Commissioner who did not go on the 18 Febuary 2016 hike led by Chris Mericle. Nonetheless he reiterated in the meeting, as he had told the Suwannee Democrat, that through his own investigations he had also determined there were sinkholes far closer to Sabal Trail’s proposed pipeline path than Sabal Trail had said.

Wainwright asked for only Commissioners to speak, saying he didn’t want to get into another session like the previous extensive citizen discussion, apparently referring to the December Commission meeting in which the future of energy was discussed.

Speakers Chris Mericle, Jim Tatum, Debra Johnson, Wayne Ellison

Yet Florida law requires citizens to be able to speak, and Continue reading →

Details on Valdosta overflows last weekend 2016-04-04

Force main and the new WWTP on line by May!

More extensive overflows than usual last weekend, and now more extensive information about them, in the update Tim Carroll promised, on the City of Valdosta website as City System Impacted by Severe Storms and Regional Watershed. It even starts with schedule details, which say they’re ahead of the schedule I previously posted. This report’s table of overflows has start and stop times and amounts, with the Creeks affected.

It still doesn’t say which river basin they go into. Knights Creek flows into Mud Creek, which goes into the Alapahoochee, Alapaha, and Suwannee Rivers. All the others end up in the Withlacoochee and the Suwannee Rivers. And there are still some unanswered questions. But getting the force main and the new WWTP on line by May is a very good development.

The City of Valdosta is ahead of schedule and plans to bring online nearly $60 million in wastewater system improvements next month. The $35 million Force Main project and the $23 million new Withlacoochee Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) are both ahead of schedule, and bringing them both online cannot come a day too soon for the city. 

“We are pleased to be in the final stages of construction on both projects. Testing is underway now with full startup expected in late May,” according to Director of Utilities Henry Hicks. “We are also pleased that these projects and other awarded sewer collection system improvement projects underway will resolve all the areas of the city impacted by reoccurring overflows that often follow heavy rains and regional flooding.”

Continue reading →