Tag Archives: Harriet Heywood

WWALS prepares to sue FERC for shirking LNG Export oversight

Update 2022-07-26: You can comment or intervene on the Rulemaking on small inland Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) facilities that WWALS and six co-signers got started with FERC, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. We don’t need more methane leaks and we don’t need highly compressed explosive LNG trucks rolling down I-75 and I-10 with no environmental oversight and no safety plans.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Washington, D.C., June 13, 2018 — WWALS Watershed Coalition (WWALS) prepares to sue the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for shirking its legally-required oversight of inland liquid natural gas (LNG) terminals. “LNG trucks barrel down I-75 right by my old high school in Lowndes County, Georgia,” said Suwannee Riverkeeper John S. Quarterman, after meeting with WWALS’ attorneys in Washington, D.C. “Those trucks from LNG terminals in Alabama and Georgia pass a technical college, a conference center, motels, homes, and businesses, going to I-10 for Jacksonville, Florida, where that LNG goes at least as far on ships as Puerto Rico.”

PDF flyer

Since the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in 2015 abdicated its jurisdictional duties under the Natural Gas Act to regulate the siting, construction, operation and maintenance of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) small-scale inland export facilities, instead these facilities operate with basically no Federal oversight.

“I am greatly concerned that an LNG commercial project of this magnitude is not only planned, but that apparently has slipped through the cracks of local and federal regulators,” said WWALS member Harriet Heywood of Citrus County, Florida.

At the ends of the Sabal Trail pipeline chain in Florida, trucks go out from half a dozen LNG export operations authorized by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Fossil Energy (FE). If any of those trucks wrecks, federal standard everyone should be evacuated half a mile downwind, including high schools and hospitals. Very few local emergency responders know this and fewer have appropriate emergency plans.

LNG Railcar Explosion, SE Cove Rd and SE Dixie Hwy, in Vulnerability of LNG by Rail, <br/>by Martin County Fire Rescue, December 15, 2015.” /></a><br /> LNG Railcar Explosion, SE Cove Rd and SE Dixie Hwy, in <a href=Vulnerability of LNG by Rail, by Martin County Fire Rescue, December 15, 2015.

“The unintended consequences of FERC’s abdication of Congressional jurisdictional authority are mind-boggling,” said WWALS member Cecile Scofield of Palm City, Martin County, Florida, “They include Continue reading →

Sierra Club Sabal Trail victory –Harriet Heywood in Citrus County Chronicle

More about this in Live Oak this Thursday. Harriet Heywood, Citrus County Chronicle, 4 September 2017, Sierra Club Sabal Trail victory

On June 14, fracked gas from the Marcellus Shale began flowing through the Sabal Trail Pipeline despite a pending lawsuit Sierra Club had against the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). Seems the agency had failed to conduct an environmental impact study to consider the climate impacts of the project.

Suwannee Riverkeeper banner, Maxine, Harriett
WWALS members Harriet Heywood and Maxine Connor holding the Suwannee Riverkeeper banner, Dunnellon, Florida, 28 January 2017. Picture by John S. Quarterman for WWALS.

On Aug. 22, a federal appeals court denied the Southeast Market pipeline and Sabal Trail project approval, since FERC did not do the requisite climate study.

Turns out there are still Continue reading →

Informative forum against Sabal Trail in Citrus County –Harriet Heywood

WWALS member Harriet Heywood, Citrus County Chronicle, 3 December 2016, Sabal Trail forum was informative,

I was an attendee at the Public Forum on Sabal Trail on Nov. 21.

As an attendee, I found the forum at the Unitarian Universalist Church, endorsed by the League of Women Voters, to be both educational and well-presented, and the event was well-attended. To read the Sabal Trail-perspective piece, in The Chronicle almost a week post-forum, you might believe speaker and attendee fears were unfounded. However, Spectra Energy, the parent company of Sabal Trail has an extremely bad safety record, with blowouts, leaks and explosions occurring far more often than Sabal Trail’s spokesperson admitted in the Sunday article, including an explosion in Pennsylvania last April and a huge blowout in The Arkansas River in 2015, among many other accidents and safety violations. The article covering the forum colored speakers and attendees as ill-informed worrywarts. As far as I could tell, no one from Sabal Trail attended the forum.

I have since learned that sinkholes and drilling blowouts have already occurred recently, in both Georgia and North Florida, video-documented by Sierra Club’s Merrillee Malwitz-Jipson and John S. Quarterman, president, WWALS Watershed Coalition. A sinkhole opened at a Sabal Trail construction site in Suwannee County, near the Santa Fe River, on C.R. 49 between Branford and Live Oak (the site of the O’Brien, Hildreth Compressor Station) damaging at least the road there.

And another well-documented Valdosta, Georgia area Withlacoochee River drilling blowout occurred as Sabal Trail was drilling under the river. Impossible events, according to Sabal Trail’s spokesperson. There are other documented incidents of wildlife and wetland destruction in the Hunter Creek region as the pipeline makes its way to South Florida for export. Forum attendees were not ill-informed worrywarts. They were well-educated concerned citizens.

There were numerous safety concerns raised about Continue reading →

Citrus County ordinance against fracking 2016-06-14

An actual law, an ordinance, beyond just words in a resolution. Citrus is the latest of many Florida counties to ban fracking, including Madison.

The text of the ordinance is on the SpectraBusters blog, and here’s a report. Jim Tatum, Our Santa Fe River, 14 June 2016, Citrus County Approves Fracking Ban,

Commissioners Dennis Damato, Ronald Kitchen, Joe Meek, Scott Adams, and Scott Carnahan unanimously passed a ban-fracking ordinance. The ordinance was amended to include all the county, both incorporated and non-incorporated areas, skillfully inserted by the able and prepared county attorney Denise A. Dymond Lyn.

That article continues with pictures of many of those involved, including WWALS members Merrillee Malwitz-Jipson, Jim Tatum, and Harriett Heywood (pictured above). In WWALS territory, Continue reading →