To see Sabal Fail in inaction at Dunnellon, jump to The Dunnellon odorant leaks, where the pipeline stooges wrapped it in towels, sprayed a deodorant, and waited until morning. Really, according to the incident report from Marion County Fire Rescue. It doesn’t get better in this summary: none of the state or federal permitting or safety agencies did anything, leaving Marion County to deal with the situation unassisted.
If you want to know some background, see also Continue reading
The Google map of locations on Old Coffee Road was used by many of the early settlers of south central Georgia, including in the watersheds of the Willacoochee, Alapaha, Withlacoochee, and Little Rivers and Okapilco Creek. It crossed all those and other waterways by ford or private ferry: there were no bridges back then.
Follow
this link for the interactive google map.
The Georgia Historical Commission erected markers at half a dozen locations in the 1950s and 1960, reading: Continue reading
OSHA says the Mercaptan that was smelled miles from the leak “can cause problems for the respiratory system and the central nervous system” but Sabal Trail’s Andrea Grover says “there is no danger to the public”. Which do you believe?
Hint: this is the same Andrea Grover about which
the newspaper of record in Valdosta, Georgia wrote four years ago:
Letters submitted to the Valdosta Daily Times and to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission could contradict a recent statement by Sabal Trail’s Andrea Grover.
Looks like we have Pinocchio with her nose growing doing PR for the Three Stooges.
Jessica Lipscomb, Miami New Times, 17 August 2017, Stinky Leaks From Florida’s Controversial Sabal Trail Pipeline Scares Residents, Continue reading
Sabal Trail today spelled out that they are not required to notify anybody about their chronic leaks of hazardous odorant chemicals, as if that explains everything.
Moe Curly Howard of the Three Stooges, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, around 1938, the year
the Natural Gas Act was originally passed,
giving the predecessor of FERC the ability to hire staff and also presumably to buy a rubberstamp.
Two years ago the judge in WWALS vs. Sabal Trail & FDEP insisted that we couldn’t even ask about pipeline safety, because the Pipeline Safety Act relegates safety concerns of interstate natural gas pipelines to the federal government, mostly to the Pipeline & Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), or maybe to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) during permitting. Well, neither PHMSA nor FERC were even informed of this chronic stink leak incident, and neither of them did anything about it, nor did any other federal or state agency. Marion County was left to deal with it unassisted.
Even PHMSA says on their website that the Pipeline Safety Act: Continue reading
Let’s try another agency about Sabal Trail’s chronic Mercaptan leaks in Marion County, OSHA:
WWALS members in Marion and Citrus Counties have asked me to write you about this situation, especially since all the state and federal permitting agencies and PHMSA have done nothing about it. Sabal Trail did not notify them, and none of them notified any of the local emergency management departments that are left unassisted to deal with this chronic safety problem.
The text is below, or see Continue reading
Sent in PDF via email today.
August 2, 2017
To:
Georgia Public Service Commission
244 Washington Street, SW
Atlanta, GA 30334-9052
Re: Electric cars and solar power are here now; South Carolina cancels its nuclear project
Dear Public Service Commissioners and Staff,
Since my letter of July 23, 2017, asking you to stop cost overruns for Plant Vogtle and to require Georgia Power again to buy more solar power,1 there have been major developments that further indicate the desirability of these actions.
Tesla is now shipping its Model 3, which many consider the Model T of the electric car industry, affordable not just to executives, but to the masses. New York City changed in thirteen years from all but one horse-drawn carriages to all but one automobiles in its Easter Parade: 1900 to 1913,2 and not much longer for the rest of the country, after the Ford Model T shipped in 1908.
We’re well past 1900 in the electric vehicle revolution, and that is a rapidly growing market for solar panels on business and house roofs.
In The Hill yesterday:3
South Carolina Electric & Gas Co. (SCE&G) and state-run Santee Cooper both said Monday they would suspend their plan to build two nuclear reactors at the V.C. Summer power plant northwest of Columbia.
The companies cited Continue reading
They ran the op-ed last week online, and today the Valdosta Daily Times (VDT) put it on top of page 5A:
This newspaper op-ed has already resulted in a call about a water issue.
-jsq, John S. Quarterman, Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®
You can join this fun and work by becoming a WWALS member today!
Sabal Trail did not notify state or local officials about their “odorant” leak at the Dunnellon Compressor Station site, and Sabal Trail’s response to WWALS failed to mention local people called the same stink in to 911 two days in a row. FDEP said there’s no need so long as Sabal Trail follows various permits, but gave no indication of who is checking to see if Sabal Trail does that. Apparently we the people have to keep doing what the state and federal agencies still aren’t doing: watch Sabal Trail like a hawk.
Google map of locations of Dunnellon High School and Sabal Trail Dunnellon Compressor Station.
You can see most of the 100-foot Sabal Trail right of way.
Below are responses from FDEP and more details from Marion County Public Relations and Fire and Rescue, and from Dunnellon Fire and Rescue: none of them were notified by Sabal Trail, and FDEP seems OK with that. For the rest, an emergency plan would be prudent: “Run like hell” as in Spectra compressor station incidents elsewhere, is probably not adequate. Continue reading
Op-ed in the Valdosta Daily Times today:
Thanks, VDT, for your Sunday solar story and editorial!
Your editorial’s “buyer beware” would better be directed towards the electric utilities, which set up the price mismatch that caused the problem for the customer in your story. The story says, citing John Kraft of Georgia Power, “The utility company offers to pay the producer only as much as it costs to produce solar power. If a utility company can produce solar energy at a solar farm for 5 cents per unit, it isn’t going to pay a residential producer a higher rate for energy it doesn’t need.”
If Georgia Power does not need new energy, why is it building two new nuclear units at Plant Vogtle and charging its customers in advance every month? Four years ago Google already bought more sun and wind power than that nuclear boondoggle would produce if it’s ever finished, and for less than the Plant Vogtle cost overruns. Those cost overruns keep going up, and the cost of solar panels keeps going down.
The story says Kraft asks people why they want solar power. Maybe to Continue reading
Let me fix some typos in Sabal Trail’s PR of yesterday, Sabal Trail Transmission Project Placed In-Service: New Pipeline System Increases the Reliability and Diversity of the Southeast U.S. Natural Gas Infrastructure.
Corrected headline: Sabal Trail starts stagecoach line in an electric car world.
Apologies to the 1877 Omaha Herald and
True West.
Adding a third natural gas pipeline merely makes Florida even more than 60% dependant on natural gas, as Sierra Club Alabama, Georgia, and Florida pointed out three years ago. The people of Florida voted for solar power twice last year. Yet Sabal Trail is wasting $3 or $4 billion on Continue reading