Tag Archives: House of Representatives

Reject or EIS: Twin Pines Minerals mine near Okefenokee –U.S. Rep. Al Lawson 2020-02-13

U.S. Rep. Al Lawson Jr, Twitter, 2PM, 14 February 2020, @RepAlLawsonJr,

I sent a letter to the Army Corps of Engineers to express my concerns about Twin Pines Minerals, LLC’s plan to mine for titanium near the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge. These actions could have detrimental effects on the area’s biodiversity and natural resources.

[U.S. Rep. Al Lawson to USACE]
U.S. Rep. Al Lawson to USACE

AL LAWSON
5TH DISTRICT, FLORIDA
ASSISTANT MAJORITY WHIP
COMMITTEE ON
FINANCIAL SERVICES
COMMITTEE ON
AGRICULTURE

Congress of the United States
 
House of Representatives
 
Washington, DC 20515-0905

February 13, 2020

Col. Daniel Hibner
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
Savannah District
100 W. Oglethorpe Avenue
Savannah, Georgia 31401

Dear Hearing Officer:

I am writing to express my concerns about Twin Pines Minerals, LLC’s application for a clean water (CWA) permit to mine for titanium near the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, Osceola National Forest, and Osceola Wildlife Management Area. I urge the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) to carefully consider the significant environmental, social, and economic costs that could occur if the permit is granted. It is crucial that the Corps require an environmental impact statement under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Furthermore, the Corps should reject the permit application if it appears the mine will harm the environment.

Trail Ridge and Okefenokee NWR

If approved, the project would destroy portions of Trail Ridge, which acts as Continue reading →

Pipeline opposition rebuts wild-eyed Congressional distractions 2018-03-08

The headline would read better in this order: “Congressional Committee trolls energy policy.”

Suwannee Riverkeeper John Quarterman… said the science committee’s chairman, U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, was making “wild-eyed attempts to divert from the misdeeds of his patron, the fossil fuel industry.”

Steve Patterson, Jacksonville.com, 8 March 2018, Congress: Russians trolled Florida pipeline debate,

Efforts by Russian internet trolls to destabilize the U.S. energy industry reached all the way to Florida and the controversy over construction of the Sabal Trail gas pipeline, according to a Congressional report.

For my previous takedown of that report, see Fossil fuels are a far bigger threat than the Russians.

And if the Russians were behind me spotting from the air this frac-out of Sabal Trail drilling mud up into the Withlacoochee River in Georgia, they’re way behind in their payments.

Turbidity curtains and black pipe from the north bank
View from the south bank of Sabal Trail turbidity curtains and pipe from the north bank of the Withlacoochee River, about 2000 feet upstream from the US 84 bridge.
Photo: John S. Quarterman, October 22nd 2016.

Maybe I should send that Committee a bill Continue reading →

Biggest city in Suwannee River Basin passed resolution for dedicated state fees @ VCC 2018-01-25

Hear it from the Mayor, Acting City Manager, and Council of Valdosta, Georgia, and just in time for them and the Lowndes County Chairman, Manager, and Commissioners to attend their annual Bird Supper in Atlanta to discuss it with state legislators: fees collected by the state of Georgia should be dedicated to the purposes for which they were collected. Below are LAKE videos are from the Valdosta City Council, Thursday, January 25, 2018, including a few words I said about which local governments already passed this resolution.

Lowndes County Chairman speaks for stopping state fee diversions 2018-01-22

The Lowndes County Commission votes tonight, 5:30 PM, on a resolution Chairman Bill Slaughter put on the agenda yesterday morning in support of stopping diversion of state fees, just after a report about a tire amnesty that was apparently funded by the Georgia Solid Waste Trust Fund, which has had fees diverted upwards of $50 million. Valdosta and Hahira also have that resolution on their agendas, after Lanier County, Adel, and Atkinson County passed it recently. If you can attend one of these meetings and thank these elected officials for doing this, I’m sure they would appreciate it.

Chairmanr: Add to agenda resolution supporting GA H.R. 158

Video. Chairman Bill Slaughter said Continue reading →

GA HR 289: Recommend Congress remove eminent domain from Federal National Gas Act

It’s just a resolution, but if passed by the Georgia House, the same that voted 128 to 34 to deny river-drilling easements to Sabal Trail, it will send a message to Congress. Maybe Florida’s statehouse would like to pass a similar resolution.

A RESOLUTION recommending that Congress remove the power of eminent domain from the Federal Natural Gas Act; and for other purposes.,

LC 34 5041

17

House Resolution 289

By: Representatives Dunahoo of the 30th, Quick of the 117th, McCall of the 33rd, Caldwell of the 20th, Raffensperger of the 50th, and others

A RESOLUTION

WHEREAS Recommending that Congress remove the power of eminent domain from the Federal Natural Gas Act; and for other purposes.

WHEREAS, the Georgia House of Representatives and Georgia Senate are concerned about the disastrous impact unrestrained use of eminent domain has on the private property rights of the citizens of Georgia; and

WHEREAS, America’s Founding Fathers clearly understood that private property rights were the foundation, not only of prosperity, but of freedom itself; and

WHEREAS, the common law, state law, and the United States Constitution were written to protect property rights, including the rights of people to freely acquire, use, and dispose of property; and

WHEREAS, Continue reading →

New hydrology report exposes Sabal Trail pipeline risk to Floridan Aquifer

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Jasper, Florida, July 1st 2016 — Another independent professional geologist reveals more omissions and discrepancies in pipeline company reports and faults in federal oversight of the Sabal Trail pipeline: Figure 7: Locations of the caves and springs mentioned in this study groundflow actually goes the other way, drilling under a river will change water flow in the Floridan Aquifer, and there is very high risk of sinkhole collapse. An indigenous Floridian commissioned this scientific report to protect his mother, the living earth. This geological report provides compelling additional reasons for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) to open a new process to evaluate this and other new information.

Bobby C. Billie, one of the Clan Leaders and Spiritual Leader, Council of the Original Miccosukee Simanolee Nation Aboriginal Peoples, asked professional geologist and hydrologist Peter Schreuder, P.G. to conduct investigations at the proposed Sabal Trail crossing under the Suwannee River from Hamilton County and under U.S. 90 in close proximity to the Falmouth Cave System in Suwannee County.

This Schreuder report concludes about the Floridan Aquifer System (FAS): Continue reading →

Hydrogeologic Issues of Concern, HDD under Suwannee River –Peter J. Schreuder 2016-06-23

See press release, New hydrology report exposes Sabal Trail pipeline risk to Floridan Aquifer, and this report is also available in PDF.

Hydrogeologic Issues of Concern

Schreuder, Inc. Water-Resources & Environmental Consultants

Directional Horizontal Drilling (HDD) under the
Suwannee River
At Suwannee River State Park

Hydrogeologic Issues of Concern

In any review of potential environmental consequences related to the use of Horizontal Directional Drilling (HDD), both the geotechnical and scientific communities can be expected to raise serious concerns when such drilling is done around karst areas, and in regions which over lie the Floridan Aquifer System (FAS), which includes the Upper Floridan Aquifer, and the karstic geologic subsurface features at the location proposed in Continue reading →

Leadership is supporting the county’s own people against the Sabal Trail invader –WWALS in Suwannee Democrat

In the paper Suwannee Democrat, May 5th, 2016.

A company from Houston, Texas wants to fill our earth, water, and air with violence. WWALS Watershed Coalition showed Suwannee County Commissioners sinkholes in the middle of the pipeline path that Sabal Trail didn’t mention to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). All of them, except Jason Bashaw, studied a report by a local geologist and showed leadership by voting to tell that “truth that exists in the middle” to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The quotation above is a reference to Continue reading →

Keep calling your GA House member to oppose SR 954: strip Sabal Trail easements

Your calls are working! Sabal Trail’s allies failed three times to whip up enough votes to pass this travesty. WWALS counties and districts for Georgia House of Representatives

Now please keep calling your state legislators and ask them to stay strong voting against SR 954 until Sabal Trail and Transco easements are taken out of it. It’s currently postponed until next Tuesday, March 22nd, so there’s time to call them through the weekend.

If Georgia Power, the EMCs, and GDOT want their easements, they should also be helping us strip Sabal Trail and Transco out of this bill. A fracked methane pipeline drilling under Okapilco Creek and the Withlacoochee, Ochlockonee, Flint, and Chatthahoochee Rivers is no advantage to anybody in Georgia. Or the Suwannee River in Florida: if you’re in Florida, you probably know somebody in Georgia you can ask to call their Georgia legislator.

Who to Call

Continue reading →

Urge your GA House member to oppose SR 954: strip Sabal Trail easements

Update 2016-03-17: Your calls are working! Please keep calling: details.

You can help stop Georgia eminent domain easements for Sabal Trail from passing the statehouse! (PDF handout)


Photo: TONY CASSADY, 31 May 2015, in Arkansas River pipeline blowout occurred on Sunday morning, cause still unknown, by Benjamin Hardy, Arkansas Blog, 3 June 2015

Sabal Trail (a project of Houston-based Spectra Energy) is a methane frack-gas pipeline that would run from east central Alabama to south-central Florida. Multiple route choices exist. The company has chosen one, despite massive amounts of public objection, that maximizes the public and private impact. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has granted a permit for the particular one the company wants, one which that places a large number of Georgian’s private property under threat of (federal) eminent domain, for private profit. The FERC permit process is under appeal by property owners and advocacy groups. The pipeline still does not have several major state and federal permits (water quality, air, and wetlands).

Yet the Deal Administration seeks Continue reading →