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
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
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,
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.
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
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.
Yet Florida law requires citizens to be able to speak, and Continue reading
Sent 5 April 20156. PDF.
You can join this fun and work by becoming a WWALS member today!
Continue readingWondering why Valdosta is having an overflow problem? It was rain on Valdosta, and north of Valdosta.
Not so much northwest on the Little River, nor even west on Okapilco Creek: Continue reading
Once again, Suwannee County follows Hamilton County’s lead.
Carl McKinney, Suwannee Democrat, 1 April 2016, Suwannee County Commission to discuss Sabal Trail sinkholes,
At its next meeting, the commission will consider sending a letter to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which must issue a permit for the pipeline project.
The letter would mimic one Hamilton County recently voted to send, said Suwannee County Commissioner Wesley Wainwright.
Wainwright asked Continue reading
Does FERC actually look at what counties and other people send it?
FERC made the figures illegible in its posting of
Dennis Price’s geology report
that Hamilton BOCC appended when it forwarded to FERC its
site visit request to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
This reminds me of when FERC lost half of Dougherty County’s Sabal Trail resolution and just happened to lose page 3 of Bill Kendall’s letter, the page about lack of need, false pretense, and duress. Does FERC actually care what anybody thinks, other than the industries it “regulates” while they pay all its costs?
FERC Filing 28 March 2016, Accession Number 20160328-0091, “Correspondence from Board of County Commissioners of Hamilton, FL to U.S. Army Corp of Engineers re the Environmental Geology report under CP15-17.” Continue reading
The extent of the greedy grasp of the fossil fuel industry for
more last-gasp profits before solar and wind power take over is usually hidden because the projects get approved individually, often by different agencies.
Here’s at least a partial list of such projects (and nukes) that Waterkeeper®
Members or Affiliates oppose in Florida.
Spectra’s Sabal “Sinkhole” Trail is not just one pipeline; it’s the camel’s nose under the tent for its conjoined twin pipelines, its ugly stepsister pipelines and LNG export operations, and its stepchildren the “modernized” new natural gas plants.
Anybody want to help draw a map of all this?
Continue reading
Many of us may have thought of this, but VSU art professor Dominick Gheesling actually did it:
way down the Suwannee River from Fargo below the swamp all the way to the Gulf of Mexico.
All of the preparation that could be done was done. My ever-patient wife had given me permission to fall off the grid for a while. My friend Todd Bertolaet helped me load up all of the gear and took me to Fargo, Georgia where I launched on a twenty-nine day expedition, traveling the length of the Suwannee River, via canoe, to the terminus at the Gulf of Mexico. Photographing the length of this historic, iconic, southern river connected me to life and the earth in a manner that I had been missing for a long time.
I am more convinced than ever that Continue reading
Here’s the letter to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that the Hamilton BOCC voted unanimously 15 March 2016 to send. Other counties in Florida, Georgia, and Alabama may want to send similar letters.
BETH BURNAM
District 1 — Jennings
JOSH SMITH
District 2 — Jasper
ROBERT E. BROWN
District 3 — Jasper
RANDY OGBURN
District 4 — White Springs
BUSTER OXENDINE
District 5 — JasperHAMILTON COUNTY
FLORIDA
Office of
Board Of County CommissmnersGREG GODWIN
Clerk of Courts
JOHN H. MCCORMICK
County Attorney207 Northeast First Street
Room 106
Jasper, Florida 32052
(386) 792-1288
FAX (386) 792-3524
March 18, 2016
Attn: Mark R. Evans, Senior Project Manager,
Jacksonville Permits Section
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
Regulatory Division
Post Office Box 4970
Jacksonville, Florida 32232RE: Sabal Trail Transmission, LLC
FERC Document No. CP15-17-000Dear Mr. Evans:
The Board of County Commissioners of Hamilton 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, the findings of Mr. Price directly contradict Continue reading