Tag Archives: Hildreth Compressor Station

WWALS Motion to Intervene in Sabal Trail request for Phase II extension 2020-03-30

Does this look anywhere near completion to you?

[Facing north (bare dirt)]
Facing north (bare dirt)

Yet on March 26, 2020, Sabal Trail asked FERC to extend the May 1st deadline for its Phase II construction of the Dunnellon and Albany Compressor Stations because of the virus pandemic, after FERC already extended way past the original February 2, 2018, deadline for completion of all phases.

FERC surprisingly did not immediately rubberstamp that request, instead opening a comment period until April 13, 2020. WWALS today filed a Motion to Intervene in that comment process on that request.

Your organization, if it was a party to the underlying Sabal Trail proceeding in FERC Docket CP15-17, can also move to intervene.
https://ferc.gov/docs-filing/efiling.asp

Anyone can comment, without needing to intervene:
https://ferc.gov/docs-filing/ecomment.asp

WWALS Motion to Intervene

See also the PDF filed with FERC as Accession Number 20200406-5070 today, April 6, 2020. Continue reading

FERC rubberstamped Suwannee M&R Station and Sabal Trail already built it 2019-02-11

FERC took less than a week to rubberstamp Sabal Trail’s first of February request, and Sabal Trail took less than a week after that to put the Metering and Regulation Station in service, connecting to Florida Gas Transmission in Suwannee County, Florida, onwards under the proposed phosphate mine site in Union and Bradford Counties, to Jacksonville, where Eagle LNG and Crowley Maritime’s Carib Energy are already sending LNG at least as far as Puerto Rico. Do the “applicable remaining terms and conditions of the Orders” include not leaking, like Sabal Trail already did at its nearby compressor station?

[3.4 miles, Hildreth Compressor Station to Suwannee M&R]
3.4 miles, Hildreth Compressor Station to Suwannee M&R; see also Google map.

Sabal Trail wants last Phase 1 facility in service: Suwannee M&R Station 2019-02-01

In case you thought it was over, or that a September 2018 leak or death of a FERC Commissioner might have slowed down FERC’s rubberstamp, Sabal Trail wants to finish Phase I construction by firing up gas through its Suwannee Metering & Regulation (M&R) station.

[Suwannee M&R Detail]
Suwannee M&R Detail, from Sabal Trail Alignment Map 1657-PL-DG-70197-305, courtesy Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE).

FERC’s rubberstamp will feed gas to Florida Gas Transmission (FGT), onwards under the proposed HPS II phosphate mine in Union and Bradford Counties, to Jacksonville, apparently to feed Eagle LNG, which is already shipping gas as far as Puerto Rico, through Crowley Maritime, which has authorization from U.S. DoE Office of Fossil Energy to export liquid natural gas (LNG) to all Free Trade Agreement (FTA) and non-FTA countries; see LNG. Continue reading

WWALS to FERC: Sabal Trail Leak, Dunnellon, LNG export, safety 2018-12-19

Despite Bernard McNamee’s statement early in the meeting that his agenda was to listen, FERC didn’t seem to want to hear me mention Sabal Trail’s leaks or their lack of LNG oversight yesterday. More on that later. Meanwhile, here is the letter I sent FERC Wednesday 19 December 2018 via PDF as FERC Accession Number 201812195184, Sabal Trail Hildreth Compressor Station Leak 2018-09-29, Supplemental Information / Request of WWALS Watershed Coalition, Inc. under CP15-17, et. al.

Hildreth and Dunnellon leaks, Letter

 December 19, 2018

To: Chairman Neil Chatterjee and Commissioners

Cheryl A. LaFleur, Richard Glick, Kevin J. McIntyre, and Bernard L. McNamee

Cc: Kimberly D. Bose, Secretary

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

888 First Street NE, Room 1A

Washington, DC 20426

Via email and e-filing

Re: Sabal Trail Hildreth Compressor Station Leak 2018-09-29

FERC Commissioners and Secretary,

Sabal Trail already leaked, despite years of safety assurances by Sabal Trail and FERC.

We only know about this leak at Continue reading

WWALS to PHMSA: Sabal Trail Map and Hildreth Compressor Station Leak 2018-12-19

Sent today via email as PDF. -jsq

  December 19 , 2018

PHMSA Suwannee County, Florida, Maps

To: Director James Urisko < James.Urisko@dot.gov >, 404-832-1150

Southern Region Office

PHMSA Office of Pipeline Safety

233 Peachtree Street NE, Suite 600

Atlanta, GA 30303

Cc: Community Liaisons:

James A. Kelly < James.Kelly@dot.gov >, 404-990-1848

Arthur Buff < Arthur.Buff@dot.gov >,  404-226-6153

Re: Sabal Trail Map and Hildreth Compressor Station Leak 2018-09-29

Dear Director Urisko,

On November 13, 2018, I sent you a list of sixteen questions about Sabal Trail’s leak at its Hildreth Compressor Station in Suwannee County, Florida, on September 29, 2018.

The only response I have received was Continue reading

WWALS to PHMSA about Sabal Trail Hildreth Compressor Station Leak 2018-09-29

Update 2018-12-19: No answers a month later, so today we sent another inquiry today.

Sent today, as PDF. -jsq

Questions, Letter


November 13, 2018

To: Director James Urisko <James.Urisko@dot.gov>, 404-832-1150
Southern Region Office
PHMSA Office of Pipeline Safety
233 Peachtree Street NE, Suite 600
Atlanta, GA 30303

Cc: Community Liaisons:
James Kelly <James.Kelly@dot.gov>, 404-990-1848
Arthur Buff <Arthur.Buff@dot.gov>, 404-226-6153

Re: Sabal Trail Hildreth Compressor Station Leak 2018-09-29

Dear Director Urisko,

For more than 20 hours starting Saturday, September 29, 2018, the Sabal Trail interstate natural gas pipeline leaked “26.40516 MMscf” of “Non-odorized natural gas“ and “10,405.5 lbs” of “VOC” (presumably Volatile Organic Compounds) at its Hildreth Compressor Station in Suwannee County, Florida. A week later Sabal Trail filed a report with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP), the text of which is appended to this letter.

I have several questions:

  1. Why did Sabal Trail take more than a week to report this incident to FDEP?
  2. Did Sabal Trail report this incident to PHMSA? If so, please send a copy of that report, or how to get it.
  3. Has PHMSA filed a report about this incident? If so, please send a copy or how to get it.
  4. Is PHMSA investigating this incident? If so, when will the investigation be complete? Are there any interim results or opportunities for public comment into the process?
  5. Since Sabal Trail wrote “nothing in the yard caused alarms” and “Site is unmanned,” how did Sabal Trail discover this leak?
  6. What changes has Sabal Trail put in place Continue reading

Sabal Trail leaked odorless gas, Suwannee County, FL 2018-09-29

Sabal Trail didn’t tell the state of Florida until a week later that it had leaked odorless gas from its Hildreth Compressor Station site in Suwannee County, Florida. And 10,405.5 pounds of Volatile Organic Compounds. What were those possibly hazardous substances, Sabal Trail?

Stt-leak,

Apparently they weren’t prepared for lightning. Where’s your vaunted cathodic ionization now, Sabal Trail? You and all the other pipeline companies claim that will detect leaks.

Hildreth Compressor Station Natural Gas Release Incident

Continue reading

Critical Notice of Sabal Trail Hildreth Compressor outage 2018-01-24

Why are you having an outage at your Hildreth Compressor Station in Suwannee County, Florida, Sabal Trail? And are there continuing stink leaks at your site without a compressor at Dunnellon, Florida in Marion County? Meanwhile, you’re still shipping nothing. For that $3 or $4 billion, much more electricity from solar power could be online right now in Florida, shutting down gas power plants instead of building them.

Hildreth Compressor Station,
Photo: by anonymous, of Sabal Trail Hildreth Compressor Station site, 2016-12-12.

Thanks to eagle-eye WWALS member Janet Barrow for spotting Continue reading

Pinocchio or Vulcan? Still claims Sabal Trail is safe 2017-09-14

Is Ms. Grover is a Vulcan now?

Asked why a pipeline dispatcher apparently told the fire department that “this was a new system and they are still learning,” Grover responds that “it would be illogical to speculate as to what the fire department has quoted as part of a conversation.”

Or are those just Pinocchio donkey ears? That would be more logical.

Who do you believe? A local county fire department, or someone paid by a pipeline company to put the best face on any event? Especially when she didn’t actually deny anything Marion County Fire Rescue reported?

Amy Martyn, ConsumerAffairs, 14 September 2017, Company says its natural gas pipeline ‘operated safely’ through Hurricane Irma; However, activists say the Sabal Trail Pipeline is dangerous and needs to be removed,

The Sabal Trail Pipeline, a new natural gas pipeline that critics have charged is uncomfortably close to Florida’s main aquifer, “operated safely throughout Hurricane Irma,” a spokesperson with the pipeline operator tells ConsumerAffairs.

“We were and continue to be able to meet any customer needs,” says an email from Andrea Grover of Enbridge Energy, the natural gas company behind the Sabal Trail Pipeline. “Operations was not affected by the hurricane impacts.”

Andrea Grover’s linkedin page lists her as “Director, Stakeholder Outreach at Enbridge (Oil & Gas)”. For four years we were told the pipeline’s “stakeholders” were landowners along the way.

You know, like Brooks County, Georgia, farmer Randy Dowdy, whose world-record-holding soybean fields Sabal Trail destroyed, causing generational damage that Sabal Trail has not addressed.

Or Robin Koon, whose family graveyard Sabal Trail disturbed, which is part of why he helped Sierra Club, Flint Riverkeeper, and Chattahoochee Riverkeeper get standing for their recent historic victory over FERC that could still shut down Sabal Trail and already was cited in a denial of a different pipeline.

Curious how now that Sabal Trail has gotten its pipe in the ground, Ms. Grover no longer mentions “stakeholders,” just “customer needs.” Which is all Sabal Trail has been about all along: profit for a few utilities and pipeline companies, and for the frackers in the Marcellus Shale and Oklahoma and elsewhere to sell their greenhouse-gas-producing product through a 500-mile IED. Even FPL has admitted Florida needs no new electricity until 2024 at the earliest, and a stock analyst has revealed that all Sabal Trail is doing is decreasing gas shipped into Florida through FGT and Gulfstream by the same amount Sabal Trail is shipping. Why did local landowners have to give up easements for nothing but profit for utiltiies, frackers, and Spectra Energy of Houston, Texas, now owned by Enbridge of Calgary, Alberta, Canada?

But is Sabal Trail even serving those customers well? Cody Suggs reported yesterday from the Hildreth Compressor Station site near O’Brien, in Suwannee County, Florida, that power is still off there and it took two days for trees to be cleared off the access road.


Photo: Cody Suggs at Sabal Trail Hildreth Compressor Station Site 2017-09-14.

Natural gas began flowing through the Sabal Trail Pipeline in June 2017. People like John Quarterman, a Georgia landowner and activist with WWALS Watershed Coalition, a group that aims to protect watersheds in Georgia and Florida, say that federal regulators are typically asleep at the wheel for these projects.

“We have this 500-mile improvised explosive device, under our rivers, next to our schools and next to people’s houses and nobody is handling pipeline safety,” he tells ConsumerAffairs.

Well, I remember three years ago when Ms. Grover said she found it “hard to believe” that Sabal Trail was threatening landowners with eminent domain until the Valdosta Daily Times (VDT) published one of the actual letters.

Ms. Grover’s response? She used the VDT to threaten landowners with eminent domain.

That was shortly after Sabal Trail attempted to claim customers in Georgia to justify the Georgia eminent domain they were threatening, but didn’t bother to contact the local governments they claimed needed the gas.

Four years ago, Ms. Grover and Brian Fahrenthold, “the state and local government affairs director for Houston-based Spectra Energy”, told me they were “not familiar with” Spectra’s well-known public record of safety violations. She did claim everybody in Pennsylvania was happy after the infamous Steckman Ridge Compressor Station leak, for which she was called in to do spin control, which led to a rebuttal from Pennsylvania, beginning:

“I speak for more than a dozen families who live next to or near the problematic compressor facility; and your statement is incorrect and misleading.”

Neither Ms. Grover nor Spectra Energy ever responded to that rebuttal, to my knowledge.

Please let me be clear: this is not about Ms. Grover personally. As I told her the first time I met her, she is the best I have ever seen at doing her job. Which is to market her company.

Too bad her company is a pipeline company that gouged under our rivers, causing a frac-out and sinkholes, destroyed farmlands, goes right past schools and homes, and has already leaked hazardous Mercaptan at its Dunnellon, Florida, Compressor Station site.

That Steckman Ridge Compressor Station blowout? They called in Ms. Grover because another “stakeholder outreach” Spectra Energy rep. had to backtrack. And for that 2009 incident, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania fined Spectra in 2010.

Back to the ConsumerAffairs story:

Sinkholes and hurricanes

Florida’s landscape is characterized by karst terrain, or land made of porous limestone, caverns, and water dissolving into the bedrock, all of which are a recipe for sinkholes. Man-made infrastructure can increase the chance of a sinkhole forming, and so can intense rain.

“Man-induced sinkholes typically involve collapse of old mine workings, drainage infrastructure or other underground workings,” explained meteorologist Jim Andrews in one recent report. “Naturally, such can fail over time, and rainfall can be a major factor.”

In fact, at least four homes have been evacuated in central Florida this week after sinkholes formed in the wake of Hurricane Irma, according to reporters on the scene. Still, Enbridge Energy says that their pipeline can handle sinkhole-prone terrain.

Well, we’ve already come pretty close to finding out, with a sinkhole a half mile away Monday from Sabal Trail’s sister Florida Southeast Connection (FSC).

Sinkhole, FPL pipeline, FLiNG, FSC
Sinkhole, FPL pipeline, FLiNG, FSC; map by John S. Quarterman for WWALS.

Back to the ConsumerAffairs story:

“While opposition has raised the issue of the pipeline being constructed in karst terrain, this was thoroughly examined by the appropriate federal and state agencies,” responds Enbridge representative Andrea Grover by email. “They concluded it was unlikely that Sabal Trail would impact springs or the Floridan Aquifer in the karst regions. Sabal Trail is well equipped to safely construct and operate the pipeline in karst areas.”

Violations Sabal Trail and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) told us would not happen, under oath in WWALS vs. Sabal Trail & FDEP (October 2015), have already been happening.


Photo of John S. Quarterman at Sabal Trail frac-out into the Withlacoochee River between Quitman and Valdosta, Georgia: Bruce Ritchie, Politico, 17 November 2016.

But Quarterman says he does not trust the company to voluntarily report any issues that may arise. Activists with his group who live along the pipeline route have been tracking the project themselves, both before and after Hurricane Irma, to make sure no leaks, sinkholes underneath the pipeline, or any other issues have occurred.

Why, yes, I do have some sceptism about that.

As always, there’s more in the story.

No more pipelines. Here are some things you can do to help with that.

Let the sun rise on Florida, Georgia, Alabama, the southeast, and the rest of the country and the world.

 -jsq, John S. Quarterman, Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®

You can join this fun and work by becoming a WWALS member today!

Sabal Trail HDD and Compressor sites 2016-12-22

South Suwannee River HDD, 30.4065670, -83.1543950 An anonymous informant sent these aerial pictures of what appear to be the Sabal Trail drill sites at the Suwannee and Santa Fe Rivers, plus the Hildreth Compressor Station near O’Brien, apparently taken Thursday 22 December 2016.

The GPS coordinates were Continue reading