Sabal Fail wrapped it in towels, sprayed a deodorant, and waited until morning.
“Houston, we have a problem,” a Marion County resident remarked.
“Will be getting someone to respond,” Sabal Trail told Marion County 22 minutes after the call. When the county arrived (half an hour after the 911 call, mostly due to road distance), Sabal Trail personnel didn’t have the situation under control and hadn’t even communicated with Houston yet.
Marion County’s Narrative says: Continue reading
Update 2017-03-10: PDF of burning and water well drilling violation complaint sent to FERC, USACE, GA-EPD, and GFC.
Bringing materials from another site to burn is illegal in Georgia, even if they had a permit, which they didn’t, it couldn’t cover open burning of treated ties like Sabal Trail is doing at the Brooks County Industrial Park south of Quitman, Georgia. Georgia Forestry Commission is already on it, and I’m alerting FERC, USACE, GA-EPD, and Brooks County today. The entire Troy yard is right next to a wetland, with three drainage ditches crossing the site.
There’s nothing going on at the Withlacoochee River HDD site in Lowndes County, but they’re shuffling pipe on a Texas Troy truck between Gary Lane Knights Ferry Road, right past a Lowndes County School bus on McGoggle Road. Continue reading
For Immediate Release
WWALS and 182 Organizations from 35 States Call for Congressional Review of FERC
Hundreds of Nonprofit Organizations Join to Demand Reform of Rogue Agency
Washington, DC, September 21, 2016 — More than 180 organizations representing communities across America called on leaders in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and House Energy and Commerce Committee to hold congressional hearings into the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) extensive history of bias and abuse. The groups are also requesting reform of the Natural Gas Act, which the groups say, gives too much power to FERC and too little to state and local officials.
“The time has now come for Congress to investigate how FERC is using its authority and to recognize that major changes are in fact necessary in order to protect people, including future generations, from the ramifications of FERC’s misuse of its power and implementation of the Natural Gas Act,” says Maya van Rossum, the Delaware Riverkeeper, leader of the Delaware Riverkeeper Network and a primary organizer of the effort.
“A prime example of FERC’s dereliction of duty to the public
benefit is the Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline Spectra Energy
is drilling through Alabama, Georgia, and Florida and under our
Withlacoochee River in Georgia and our Suwannee River in
Florida,” says John S. Quarterman, president of WWALS
Watershed Coalition, Inc. (WWALS), the Waterkeeper® Affiliate for
the upper Suwannee River. He added, “FERC failed in its due
diligence by opaque selection of environmental contractors, by
issuing its permit before permits from two states and the Army
Corps, by ignoring copious new geological and other evidence, and by
giving Sabal Trail construction go-ahead while a lawsuit is still
pending by Flint Riverkeeper, Sierra Club, Gulf Restoration Network,
and others, including construction through properties whose
landowners have not even had eminent domain compensation hearings.
Most egregiously, despite FPL, the source of the $3 billion for this
boondoggle, admitting in its 2016 Ten Year Plan that Florida needs
no new electricity until 2024 at the earliest, FERC refuses to even
reconsider the alleged “need” for this unnecessary,
destructive, and hazardous pipeline. Corporate profits for Spectra
Energy from Houston, Texas and Enbridge from Calgary, Alberta are no
justification for taking local land and risking our water, air,
taxes, and safety.”
The letter to Continue reading
In the paper Suwannee Democrat, May 5th, 2016.
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
Does this sound like a level playing field to you?
Basically Sabal Trail claims “reasonable assurances” mean the pipeline can be completed and that’s a public good for the state of Florida, nevermind any destruction or hazards, while WWALS would have had to demonstrate specific direct damages to many of its members because of pipeline installation just to get standing.
A Spectra Energy executive from Houston, Texas automatically has standing to claim safety using evidence from other pipelines and even other pipeline companies,explicitly referencing the U.S. Pipeline & Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, while WWALS and its local members in Florida are precluded from introducing any evidence about safety in the same case, or so Sabal Trail seems to say in its objections filed today 4 January 2016
(PDF) to
the
judge’s Order in WWALS v Sabal Trail & FDEP.
Seems like the limestone underlying the Floridan Aquifer are not the only cracks and fissures in Florida.
-jsq
You can join this fun and work by becoming a WWALS member today!
The main point:
“I’ve got an independent route: let’s cancel this pipeline, and the Sunshine State should go directly to solar power.”
Here’s the video: Continue reading
An Orlando TV station investigates the pipeline pushers
and finds both them and Sabal Trail wanting,
digging up some new evidence of apparent back-room collusion.
Christopher Heath, WFTV, 1 September 2015, 9 Investigates new Florida natural gas pipeline,
A third natural gas pipeline is in the works for Florida. But, even as the power companies pushing the plan tout the need for increased natural gas in the state, questions are being raised about the company actually building the pipeline.
The web version goes into PHMSA fines and Continue reading
The evidence stacks up against the three-part pipeline, Sabal Trail, Florida Southeast Connection, and Hillabee Expansion Project, despite rote denials by FPL and Sabal Trail. And this article ties the WWALS petition against drilling under the Suwannee River with the Georgia opposition to a compressor station in Albany.
Susan Salisbury, Palm Beach Post, 31 August 2015, Gas pipeline slated to supply FPL’s plants faces opposition,
A proposed $3.5 billion natural gas pipeline is either essential to Florida’s energy future or a looming disaster that has the potential to damage the iconic Suwannee River and the state’s fragile limestone Floridan Aquifer on its way to Palm Beach County and the Treasure Coast….
In recent months, concerns have been raised Continue reading
This went out yesterday to WWALS members.
TELL GOVERNOR DEAL THAT THE SABAL TRAIL GAS PIPELINE THREATENS PRIVATE PROPERTY, CLEAN WATER, AND HEALTHY COMMUNITIES
Please take immediate action, today, to tell Governor Nathan Deal’s office
that you oppose the siting of Spectra Energy’s Sabal Trail “natural” gas pipeline through the Withlacoochee River watershed. Call 404-656-1776 between 8:30 a.m. and 5 p.m. and tell the staffer that answers, “I am opposed to routing the Sabal Trail pipeline through the Withlacoochee River watershed; I urge Governor Deal to do everything in his power to stop this project”.
Also please sign this petition Continue reading
Canada’s National Energy Board just ordered Spectra Energy to fix chronic
corrosion and leak problems after numerous fines, as did U.S. PHMSA before, yet
Florida’s DEP plans to trust Spectra to build the Sabal Trail pipeline
on top of our Floridan Aquifer, drilling under the Suwannee and Santa Fe
Rivers.
This in the Notice of Intent to Issue Sabal Trail Transmission of 10 July 2015 sounds good without that context: Continue reading