Tag Archives: Economy

Quarterman: Sabal Trail pipeline already damaging our area

Op-ed Tallahassee Democrat, today, Sunday 29 January 2017:

Floridians are withdrawing money from banks backing the Sabal “Sinkhole” Trail pipeline, and demonstrating daily from Miami to Jacksonville and Tallahassee, sometimes physically blocking pipeline destruction. Fossil fuel profits do not justify eminent domain takings of local lands nor any risk to our waters. Solar power is cheaper, faster, and far safer.

Image: Electric power generation employment by technology, U.S. Department of Energy

The solar industry provides more jobs than coal, oil, and natural gas combined. Sabal Trail’s own figures show Continue reading →

SRWMD responds about NFRWSP; come to Alachua Tuesday 2017-01-17

SRWMD did post responses to comments from WWALS and others on the North Florida Regional Water Supply Plan (NFRWSP). A week before the planned NFRWSP adoption, same as for the agenda for the joint SRWMD-SJRWMD meeting next Tuesday in Alachua. After OSFR and WWALS posted critical blog posts, SRWMD Executive Director Noah Valenstein sent us and others an offer to meet this Friday in Live Oak to discuss. While many (including me), thanked him for his collegial offer, nobody took him up on it. See you in Alachua Tuesday (facebook event).

Below are Noah Valenstein’s letter and my response. Continue reading →

Solar power versus Sabal Trail –Suwannee Riverkeeper in VDT 2017-01-08

Op-ed, Valdosta Daily Times, today, January 8th 2017:

John S. Quarterman, Suwannee Riverkeeper Sabal Trail and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection assured us there would be no problems drilling a 36-inch natural gas pipeline through the fragile karst limestone under the Suwannee River in Florida, yet already Sabal Trail’s pilot hole under the Withlacoochee River in Georgia caused a frac-out of drilling mud into the river and a sinkhole.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers should halt construction and do a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement.

When I happened to fly over the Withlacoochee River frac-out, I also saw Continue reading →

VA529 responds to WWALS request to divest from Spectra Energy

It seems to miss one of the main points, but thanks to Mary G. Morris, CEO, VA529, for a thoughtful reply to the WWALS request to divest from Spectra Energy.

ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) It seems to me that investing in a highly risky pipeline company such as Spectra Energy would be “contrary to [VA529’s] overall investment goals and mission”, at least if those goals include reliable investments for college, and not stranded investments.

It might be worth looking into the Parnassus Core Equity Fund she mentions. Perhaps college savers who want reliable investments would want to consider moving their investments there.

Suwannee Riverkeeper may continue correspondence with VA529.

Meanwhile, VA529 has a handy VA529 contact form or you can call or write: Continue reading →

College mutual fund VA529 owns Sabal Trail stranded assets

Update 2016-12-08: Letter sent to VA529 board: PDF.

Do the parents and grandparents who bought Virginia529 funds as safe investments for future college know VA529 is the biggest mutual fund investor in risky investments Spectra Energy of Sabal Trail and Enbridge of the Dakota Access Pipeline? Maybe you’d like to point that out to Mary G. Morris, the Chief Executive Officer of Virginia529 College Savings Plan, the biggest mutual fund investor in both Spectra Energy and in Enbridge, which is buying Spectra.

Sabal Trail through Suwannee River State Park

There’s a handy VA529 contact form or you can call or write: Continue reading →

Bill Gates, Suwannee Farms, Lakeland Sands, examples from the air 2016-06-21

Here are a few pictures of some Bill Gates properties from the MIDS Southwings flyover of June 21st, 2016, including Lakeland Sands 208th St. to Suwannee Farms 30.0667640, -82.9828050 Suwannee Farms which we previously discovered a Gates subsidiary had bought.

Notice how close these lands are to the Suwannee River or the Withlacoochee River and Madison Blue Spring. Some of them look freshly cleared. Many of them are probably also in Floridan Aquifer recharge zones. There is more identification work to be done. And we have more aerial pictures (and video).

See also the WWALS web page on Corporate Agriculture.

You can join this fun and work by becoming a WWALS member today!

Continue reading →

Same owners, DAPL and Sabal Trail

Update 2016-09-23: Not quite: Energy Transfer backed out of buying Williams Co..

DAPL and Sabal Trail: now part of the same pipeline companies.

DAPL owners Energy Transfer, Enbridge, own Williams and Spectra of Sabal Trail The pipeline companies behind the Sabal Trail fracked methane boondoogle through Alabama, Georgia, and Florida are now owned by the companies behind the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) that wants to pump oil through North Dakota where the Standing Rock Sioux have attracted an encampment of thousands of people who have successfully and nonviolently stopped pipeline construction at least for the moment. WWALS was one of 93 Waterkeeper organizations worldwide that co-signed a letter from Waterkeeper Alliance in support of the Standing Rock Sioux. Opponents of these pipelines, including native Americans in Florida and Georgia as well as North Dakota, are no longer just fighting the same industry: they’re fighting the same companies.

The pipeline companies behind DAPL are Continue reading →

Road Closures in 2009 Flood, Lowndes County, GA

Back in 2009, Lowndes County spent hundreds of times more in infrastructure repairs than the $40,000 that Valdosta is asking as a match to build an online flood warning map, beyond just fixing sewer system spills to dealing with the rest of the flooding problem. Map of roads closed At recent meetings, some County Commissioners seemed reluctant to authorize the request because the proposed map mostly covers subdivisions in Valdosta. But the entire county was affected by road closures in 2009, so maybe Commissioners could ask to expand the map to cover the whole county, which could also help find sources of the flooding problem. Sources and effects extend all the way to the edges of the county, as you can see in this a google map I built back then:

Roads closed in Lowndes County, Georgia, as of 9:38 a.m April 6th, according to the Valdosta Daily Times. This map shows locations and terrain. It’s a Google map, so it’s interactive: you can zoom and pan and change to satellite view, street map, street view, etc. Some of the locations are guesstimates from the cryptic descriptions in the VDT article. The one green blob is the one reopening mentioned in the article: “North Valdosta Road Withlacoochee River Bridge opened at 10 p.m. Sunday.”

That VDT article no longer seems to be online, but this one is. Jason Schaefer, VDT, 27 April 2013, What natural events cost Lowndes taxpayers, Continue reading →

We have a right to expect waterways and groundwater to be clean –Dennis J. Price

Another letter against Sabal Trail and for the rivers and the aquifer in the paper Suwannee Democrat, May 5th 2016.

In response to Jason Bashaw’s, Chairman of the Suwannee County Commission, article in the Suwannee Valley Times, I have this to say. Why is it that if people are concerned about the environment they live in, they are automatically placed into this environmental left category? Like many, many people in our surrounding counties, I hunt, fish, hike and paddle our local rivers. I use the environment as do we all.

I use the environment as do we all. So, for working and paying taxes all my life — as a Vietnam Veteran, as a person who chose to live in this rural part of Florida and raise his kid, as a person who is not now nor ever will be wealthy — I count our public lands, our woods and rivers as a reward for doing the right thing. I do not mind my tax dollars going towards public lands. Mr. Bashaw uses the environmental left in a derogatory manner as a means of denigrating them, and he is including me in it and I resent it. I resent it for my friend’s in WWALS and others who show concern for the pipeline route. I have not met an environmental lefty among them.

WWALS is, Continue reading →

Lowndes County Chairman says accepting easement was not endorsement of Sabal Trail pipeline

So Lowndes County should have no problem asking the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to come investigate what Sabal Trail didn’t tell FERC. And if the county is concerned about legal expenses, maybe it should pay attention to the lawsuits happening right now in California about a natural gas leak that went up into the air, closing schools, evacuating hundreds, and making many of them sick.

The VDT article today doesn’t mention writing a letter to the Corps was one of my requests to the county. It does quote the Chairman expresssing interest in details of eminent domain, in differences in regulation of oil and gas pipelines, and in environmental and safety issues of natural gas pipelines. Treating his statements as questions, I have provided some further information below on those points.

And he does say the county might have incurred legal expenses if it hadn’t accepted Sabal Trail’s money for the easement. He doesn’t mention how much money Lowndes County spent suing a local company on behalf of a trash collection company financed out of New York City, or how much money the county spent suing a local church about a minor tax matter. It seems when Lowndes County wants to do something, it doesn’t worry so much about legal expenses. And maybe the county should worry more about legal expenses if something does go wrong with that pipeline, especially considering what’s happening with the Porter Ranch leak in California.

Besides, writing a letter Continue reading →