Tag Archives: EPA

Cancer in Waycross and the upper Suwannee River watershed

At least the Waycross cancer problem is finally getting some news media attention. Brenda Goodman and Andy Miller, Georgia Health News, October 20, 2016, Why are kids in Waycross getting cancer? (Part One of Special Report),

Fourteen-year-old Lexi Crawford was attacked by lower back pain so sharp that she couldn’t even sit up to eat. Her mother had to bring her food while she was lying flat on her back. Doctors in Waycross, GA, the town where she lives, thought it was a kidney infection. But after months of antibiotics didn’t clear it up, a visiting doctor in the local ER suggested an X-ray.

What he saw on the scan was terrifying.

Continue reading →

Stop Florida ERC from raising water toxin levels 2016-07-26

Update 2022-12-23: EPA gives Florida 12 months to fix its water quality standards 2022-12-05.

FDEP could have stuck with U.S. EPA’s recomendations for water quality, but instead did a complicated statistical analysis to excuse raising the amounts of benzene and other toxins in Florida’s waters. Drinking, fishing, swimming: all are affected. The decision may be made 9AM this Tuesday morning, July 26th 2016, by the Environmental Regulation Commission (ERC) in Tallahassee. Please call or write its members, your newspaper or TV stations, or come to the meeting early for the demonstration and then attend (see below for details).

The ERC has cancelled all its other monthly meetings so far this year, yet Continue reading →

FDEP silently issued Sabal Trail permit and easement 2016-021-22

Despite being on FDEP’s permit announcement list, I never got anything about a Sabal Trail permit. Sabal-trail-23.3 35146.1-0001 After much digging, the other day I found that FDEP went ahead and issued the Sabal Trail permit 22 January 2016 (PDF), conveniently before FERC issued certificates 2 February 2016.

That FDEP permit was also before the appeal deadline of 15 February 2016 in WWALS v Sabal Trail & FDEP. They did not copy the petitioner in that case, namely WWALS. They did copy Audubon Florida, which, as you may recall back in October sent FERC a letter supporting Sabal Trail (and then tried to walk back part of it). A letter that EPA chose to mention by name to the Army Corps of Engineers, while not naming Sierra Club or WWALS in opposition. Apparently if you go along with FDEP you get preferential notification.

And that, that’s nothing. FDEP issued Continue reading →

EPA chooses to believe Sabal Trail’s intent over Sierra Club and WWALS warnings

It looks awful strange when EPA chooses to name and believe Florida Audubon, which agrees with Sabal Trail, but doesn’t even name Sierra Club, when discounting SC’s much larger concerns. Why should EPA, or we, believe Sabal Trail’s “intent” when Sabal Trail’s parent company, Spectra Energy, has repeatedly not even followed federal law or its own corporate procedures?

Addresses Bruce Ritchie, Politico, 16 December 2015, EPA reverses course on several Sabal Trail pipeline issues,

TALLAHASSEE — The U. S. Environmental Protection Agency has reversed itself on numerous points in opposition to a proposed natural gas pipeline that would extend from Alabama across Southwest Georgia and North Florida.

In October, the EPA said in a letter to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) that it had “very significant concerns” that the proposed route posed a threat to the Floridan Aquifer, the drinking water supply for much of the region. The agency also raised concerns about the pipeline’s impact on wetlands, conservation lands, and minority communities in the region.

But in a Dec. 11 letter sent to the Army Corps of Engineers, the EPA’s James D. Giattina said the agency had met with representatives of Sabal Trail Transmission LLC and reviewed the company’s comments sent to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. As a result, the EPA has come to different conclusions on several issues.

The EPA’s change of heart raises suspicions for Frank Jackalone, senior organizing manager for the Sierra Club in Florida.

Continue reading →

DEP neither acknowledged nor addressed the EPA concerns raised by WWALS –Politico

National news notes Florida doesn’t want DOAH to listen to EPA about Sabal Trail, after WWALS asked DOAH to do so.

DEP over EPA Bruce Ritchie, POLITICO Florida, 25 November 2015, Scott administration helped keep scathing EPA pipeline report out of legal challenge,

TALLAHASSEE — Gov. Rick Scott’s top environmental agency helped block a scathing federal report outlining environmental concerns from being submitted as part of a challenge to a controversial natural gas pipeline that would run across some of Florida’s most “environmentally sensitive areas.”

The Sabal Trail pipeline, a joint venture of Spectra Energy, Duke Energy and Florida Power & Light Co.’s parent company, would extend 515 miles from central Alabama to Osceola County. The project, which covers more than 260 miles in Florida, faces a legal challenge to a state permit in Florida from an environmental group named the WWALS Watershed Coalition.

On Oct. 26, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency wrote to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, saying it had “very significant concerns” about Continue reading →

Draft TMDL for Suwannee River Basin

Downstream from Valdosta and Tifton on the Withlacoochee River, and downstream from Fitzgerald on the Willacoochee River: room for improvement in fecal coliform, Figure 2. Impaired Stream Segments in Suwannee River Basin said the Georgia Environmental Protection Division in a draft report issued Friday. The comment deadline is January 20th, 2016. On a quick read, the various wastewater treatment plants do not seem to be the main source of the contamination. Other likely culprits include leaking septic tanks, concentrated livestock operations, and landfills and land application sites, both closed and operating. Also notice the proposed Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline would cross most if not all of these TMDL locations in Lowndes County. Would drilling under the Withlacoochee River and open cuts in these areas help the TMDL problem?

Here’s the NOTICE OF AVAILABILITY OF PROPOSED TOTAL MAXIMUM DAILY LOADS FOR WATERS AND POLLUTANTS OF CONCERN IN THE STATE OF GEORGIA November 20, 2015, which includes: Continue reading →

EPA letter could change pipeline path –Jasper News

Sabal Trail won’t comment in Florida about the EPA letter to FERC that validates what WWALS and many others have been saying, although Sabal Trail did comment in Georgia.

Front page top Carl McKinney, Jasper News, 5 November 2015, front page, apparently not online, EPA letter could change course of gas pipeline,

…In an Oct. 20 letter, the EPA maintained it always had serious concerns about the project, and recommends the approximately 515-mile-long pipeline’s path be redrawn to avoid environmentally sensitive areas in Florida.

Now, the WWALS Watershed Coalition environmental group has filed to get the letter admitted as evidenm in a legal challenge to prevent the Florida Department of Environmental Protection from issuing a permit for the project, said WWALS president John Quarterman.

“It validates everything we’ve been saying,” he said.

Here is that EPA letter to FERC.

Last month, WWALS and Tallahassee attorneys representing Sabal Trail met face-to-face at Continue reading →

Sabal Trail can leak into rivers and cause sinkholes according to its own Karst Mitigation Plan

You can believe what Spectra’s Andrea Grover said in the VDT today, or you can believe more from Sabal Trail’s own Karst Mitigation Plan, which says they already lost drilling fluids from test drillings under the Withlacoochee River between Brooks and Lowndes Counties, and if they cause a sinkhole they can’t fill they’ll “monitor” it. How will they do that if a sinkhole forms under the pipeline under the river, or it breaks or explodes, like a Spectra pipeline did in Little Rock, Arkansas in May of this year?

As filed in the FERC DEIS, Karst Mitigation Plan, in Section 7.3.2., on page 31 of 31:

  • If drilling fluid loss downhole affects nearby springs or rivers and complete drilling fluid loss to the formation cannot be prevented, reaming operations will continue and the affected waterbody will be monitored in accordance with the Best Drilling Practices Plan for the Sabal Trail Project.

Not just for pilot holes: drilling fluid loss is quite possible during reaming for the actual pipe hole. And this drilling fluid can contain lubricants with unspecified ingredients.

Sabal Trail knows about fracture traces such as Continue reading →

Sabal Trail on Dirty Dozen again in VDT

In which Spectra Energy’s Andrea Grover claims “The pipeline will not contaminate water or aquifers,”, despite Spectra’s own SEC 10-K and Sabal Trail’s own Karst Mitigation Plan.

Joe Adgie, Valdosta Daily Times, 5 November 2015, Sabal makes Georgia Water Coalition’s Dirty Dozen,

The proposed Sabal Trail Pipeline made the Georgia Water Coalition’s Dirty Dozen list for the second consecutive year.

The proposed pipeline made the list for its path through sinkhole-prone regions in Georgia and Florida, including Lowndes County.

Here’s GWC Dirty Dozen 2015 #11: Sabal “Sinkhole” Trail.

John Quarterman, WWALS Watershed Coalition president, said there is some hope for opponents of the pipeline, in the form of a strong letter from the Environmental Protection Agency to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which will have the final say on construction of the pipeline.

“We got a federal agency actually doing its job, and I don’t mean FERC, I’m talking about the EPA,” Quarterman said. “They filed an amazing letter that validates pretty much everything the opposition’s been saying about this pipeline.”

Last week, the EPA recommended Continue reading →

WWALS moves to enter EPA letter to FERC into evidence in Florida case

Everyone from the Atlanta Journal-Constition to the Palm Beach Post to the Ocala StarBanner Comes now, Petitioner... and moves.... considers the EPA letter to FERC to be of great significance. WWALS agrees, and has filed a motion to ask the judge to take notice in WWALS v. Sabal Trail & DEP.

§ 373.414 Florida Statutes, begins:

(1) As part of an applicant’s demonstration that an activity regulated under this part will not be harmful to the water resources or will not be inconsistent with the overall objectives of the district, the governing board or the department shall require the applicant to provide reasonable assurance that state water quality standards applicable to waters as defined in s. 403.031(13) will not be violated and reasonable assurance that such activity in, on, or over surface waters or wetlands, as delineated in s. 373.421(1), is not contrary to the public interest. However, if such an activity significantly degrades or is within an Outstanding Florida Water, as provided by department rule, the applicant must provide reasonable assurance that the proposed activity will be clearly in the public interest.

Not just “not contrary to the public interest”. For an Outstanding Florida Water applicant (Sabal Trail) “must provide reasonable assurance that the proposed activity will be clearly in the public interest.” The Suwannee River is an Outstanding Florida Water. And the EPA letter is pretty good evidence that Sabal Trail did not provide such reasonable assurance.

Filed October 30, 2015 4:43 PM Division of Administrative Hearings (also PDF on WWALS website): Continue reading →