In what document did FERC permit concrete wrapped around Sabal Trail pipe?
And why was concreted pipe still being trucked in yesterday,
two weeks after these aerials?
See also some
previous pictures
of
Walk for Water & Speak for the Springs,
which was organized by Our Santa Fe River (OSFR), Sabal Trail Resistance,
and Dylan Hansen.
Below are links to each of the WWALS videos (including the earlier android phone videos), with a few notes, followed by a video playlist. Continue reading
Molly Minta, The Fine Print, 5 February 2017, Rise Against the Machine: In 2013, Marion County residents began to receive letters from Sabal Trail Transmission. Now, they’ve made it their mission to save their land, and stop Sabal Trail.
Photo: Molly Minta.
An oak tree is felled by Sabal Trail construction workers.…
Months before the town considered bankruptcy in 2013, residents of Dunnellon began to receive letters from a company called Sabal Trail Transmission. The letters were an introduction and explained why the company was coming to the area: to build a natural gas pipeline and compressor station. The letters were part of the first step in the process of getting a pipeline approved.
Only landowners within 600 feet of the pipeline received a letter, so not many people in Dunnellon are aware of it. But the ones who are fear it could completely disrupt their way of life.
The pipeline will pass within a mile of the Rainbow River; residents fear Continue reading
After
Trump bumped LaFleur over his head today,
former FERC Chairman Norman Bay resigned from the Commission this same day.
That leaves FERC with only 2 out of five Commission slots occupied.
I would guess that means no quorum, although what does it matter?
The FERC Commissioners only ever rejected one pipeline in thirty years.
His resignation letter is a six-page pat on his own back that never once mentions solar power, eminent domain, landowners, water, river, aquifer, or environment. His biggest brag is: Continue reading
President Trump just brushed aside FERC Chairman Norman Bay,
one of the few FERC Commissioners to show any reservations about
FERC’s rubberstamping of pipelines, and put Commissioner Cheryl LaFleur
back once again as Acting Chairman.
This while FERC has only three Commissions, when it’s supposed to have five,
probably indicates FERC is going to be pushing ahead all pipeline projects.
Of course, that’s not much different from what we’ve seen for years with
Sabal Trail.
Johnathan Crawford and Jennifer A. Diouhy, Bloomberg Politics, 19 January 2017, Trump Picks LaFleur as Chairman of U.S. Energy Regulator, Sources Say, Continue reading
Sabal Trail is drilling pilot holes under the Tallapoosa River in Alabama
and the Withlacoochee (south) River in Florida, according to its latest
biweekly report filed today.
It’s already reaming a bigger hole under the Suwannee River in Florida
and the Chattahoochee River at the Alabama-Georgia border,
as well under Hillabee Creek and State Highway 22 in Alabama.
Hillabee Creek seems to keep taking longer.
In Georgia, drilling is completed under Earth Dam, the Flint River, the Ochlockonee River, and the Withlacoochee River, and in Florida under the Santa Fe River, Shingle Creek, and Dyer Blvd.
Drilling has not started under Continue reading
Some national coverage! Now that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has backed off letting the Dakota Access Pipeline drill under the Missouri River in North Dakota because of concerns of local water users, the Corps, FERC, and FDEP should do the same: stop Sabal Trail from drilling under the Suwannee River.
Larry Buhl, DeSmogBlog, 4 December 2016,
Critics Call $3 Billion Sabal Trail Pipeline
Florida’s Dakota Access Pipeline,
As opposition to the Dakota Access pipeline swells at home and abroad, another pipeline project at the other end of the U.S. is quietly being installed as fast as possible, critics say, displacing residents, threatening water supplies, and racking up alleged construction violations.
And most people in the region — even those in the pipeline’s path — haven’t even heard about it.
Sabal Trail Transmission, LLC, known as Sabal Trail, is using $3 billion of Florida Power and Light (FPL) ratepayer money to build a 515-mile pipeline to transport natural gas obtained via fracking from eastern Alabama to central Florida.
…
Activists Document Construction Violations
Continue reading
“Demonstrators gathered to protest the Sabal Trail pipeline and participate in the “Dirty Dozen” waterways conference call.”
That was on the front page of the newspaper of record of the biggest city in the Suwannee RIver Basin.
There’s a petition for Georgians to sign, lots of protests in Florida to assist with, and you can help us all watch Sabal Trail to catch their next violation.
Online last night, Derrek Vaughn, Valdosta Daily Times, 17 November 2016, WWALS Watershed Coalition hold demonstration,
WWALS Watershed Coalition sponsored the demonstration.
Members and demonstrators met in the median of Highway 84 at the Withlacoochee River Bridge to listen to the Georgia Water Coalition’s “Dirty Dozen 2016” conference call.
The “Dirty Dozen” list is an attempt to “put a spotlight on ongoing pollution problems, pending threats to Georgia’s water as well as state and federal policies and failures that ultimately harm — or could harm — Georgia property owners, downstream communities, fish and wildlife, hunters and anglers, and boaters and swimmers,’ according to organizers. 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 2016-11-14: 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