Water is Life, at
Sacred Water Camp, and everywhere else.
New logo and new location, now on the Suwannee River east of US 129 in Suwannee County, Florida. Last Sunday afternoon when we visited was a slow time for the camp.
Felipe, seated in the blue shirt, brought the bus and the cooking gear. Continue reading
WWALS has been tying #NoDAPL to #NoSabalTrail
for some time, because water protectors here continue to fight Sabal Trail for many of the same reasons as the Standing Rock Sioux fight the Dakota Access Pipeline, plus one of the DAPL pipeline companies, Enbridge, is buying Spectra Energy, the Sabal Trail pipeline company, and many of the same banks finance both.
Plus even FPL admits there’s no need for new electricity for Florida until 2024 at the earliest, which means there’s no need for Sabal Trail.
Waterkeeper Alliance, 3 November 2016, Waterkeeper Alliance Calls on President Obama to Halt the Dakota Access Pipeline and Uphold the Rights of Water Protectors, Continue reading
Come hear how the Standing Rock Sioux in North Dakota are protecting their water from the same fossil industry and the same companies that want to drill the Sabal Trail pipeline under our Withlacoochee and Suwannee Rivers in south Georgia and north Florida.
When: 7PM Wednesday September 28th 2016
What: The Pipeline Controversy
Where: Cypress Room
University Center
Valdosta State University Continue reading
For Immediate Release
WWALS and 182 Organizations from 35 States Call for Congressional Review of FERC
Hundreds of Nonprofit Organizations Join to Demand Reform of Rogue Agency
Washington, DC, September 21, 2016 — More than 180 organizations representing communities across America called on leaders in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and House Energy and Commerce Committee to hold congressional hearings into the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) extensive history of bias and abuse. The groups are also requesting reform of the Natural Gas Act, which the groups say, gives too much power to FERC and too little to state and local officials.
“The time has now come for Congress to investigate how FERC is using its authority and to recognize that major changes are in fact necessary in order to protect people, including future generations, from the ramifications of FERC’s misuse of its power and implementation of the Natural Gas Act,” says Maya van Rossum, the Delaware Riverkeeper, leader of the Delaware Riverkeeper Network and a primary organizer of the effort.
“A prime example of FERC’s dereliction of duty to the public
benefit is the Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline Spectra Energy
is drilling through Alabama, Georgia, and Florida and under our
Withlacoochee River in Georgia and our Suwannee River in
Florida,” says John S. Quarterman, president of WWALS
Watershed Coalition, Inc. (WWALS), the Waterkeeper® Affiliate for
the upper Suwannee River. He added, “FERC failed in its due
diligence by opaque selection of environmental contractors, by
issuing its permit before permits from two states and the Army
Corps, by ignoring copious new geological and other evidence, and by
giving Sabal Trail construction go-ahead while a lawsuit is still
pending by Flint Riverkeeper, Sierra Club, Gulf Restoration Network,
and others, including construction through properties whose
landowners have not even had eminent domain compensation hearings.
Most egregiously, despite FPL, the source of the $3 billion for this
boondoggle, admitting in its 2016 Ten Year Plan that Florida needs
no new electricity until 2024 at the earliest, FERC refuses to even
reconsider the alleged “need” for this unnecessary,
destructive, and hazardous pipeline. Corporate profits for Spectra
Energy from Houston, Texas and Enbridge from Calgary, Alberta are no
justification for taking local land and risking our water, air,
taxes, and safety.”
The letter to Continue reading
“WWALS, the Waterkeeper® Affiliate for the upper Suwannee and Withlacoochee Rivers, supports the Standing Rock Sioux against D.A.P.L.”
So say we all about the oil Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota and the Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline in Florida, Georgia, and Alabama, in this video. You can join us today at 5:30 PM on the Suwannee River in Florida or Saturday morning on the Withlacoochee River in Georgia. News media are invited. We’ll be taking more video for social media: have your say!
Continue readingUpdate 2016-09-23: Not quite: Energy Transfer backed out of buying Williams Co..
DAPL and Sabal Trail: now part of the same pipeline companies.
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
Hahira, GA, September 6th 2016 — Two Georgia brothers are stuck with paying almost ten times as much in Sabal Trail’s legal fees as they spent defending their property against that invading fracked methane pipeline, even though FPL apparently admitted this year that all three of its 2013 excuses for that pipeline are no longer valid. Two federal agencies and numerous state agencies issued permits based on those excuses. Sabal Trail used those permits to get eminent domain, including to drill under rivers in Florida, Georgia, and Alabama and through the fragile limestone containing our drinking water in the Floridan Aquifer. It is time for this unnecessary, destructive, and hazardous boondoggle to be shut down and its $3 billion in FPL ratepayer money to be used for solar power in the Sunshine State.
James Bell, one of the brothers stuck with having to pay Sabal Trail attorney fees, says:
"First and foremost, this is a multi-billion dollar company that is for profit. In my personal opinion I don’t see how a private for-profit company should be allowed eminent domain. I don’t understand that. That makes no sense to me. I might could understand it if it was for the greater good of the country but this is not. And it is certainly not the federal government or the state government building some road or highway."
Florida Power & Light claimed Continue reading