Tag Archives: Law

GA-DNR Board does not discuss mining near Okefenokee Swamp 2022-09-27

Nobody said anything new about the titanium strip mine proposed near the Okefenokee Swamp, when the Board of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources met at the Stephen C. Foster State Park Eco-Lodge, just outside the Okefenokee Swamp, in Fargo, Georgia.

But you can tell Georgia legislators and candidates in the election that a majority of Georgians say the state should immediately protect the Swamp from mining, according to a recent poll.
www.protectgeorgia.org/okefenokee

[DNR Board and Twin Pines dragline]
DNR Board and Twin Pines dragline

Citizens were not allowed to speak to the Board. But you can send them a message:
https://wwals.net/issues/titanium-mining/#howtocomment

Floridians, you can write to GA-DNR, too, telling them part of the Okefenokee Swamp is in Florida, and anything that affects it will affect the Suwannee River of the Florida State Song.
TwinPines.Comment@dnr.ga.gov

Former Valdosta City Council member John Eunice, now Assistand Director of the Georgia Environmental Protection Division, basically recited Continue reading →

WWALS response to FERC on opposition comments of Pivotal LNG about small, inland LNG Rulemaking 2022-10-04

Update 2022-10-26: WWALS response to opposition comments by Eagle LNG about small, inland LNG 2022-10-17.

Today WWALS and seven other organizations rebutted the opposition comments of Pivotal LNG, LLC to the WWALS, et al. petition to FERC for Rulemaking on small, inland, LNG facilities.

[First and last page]
First and last page

If you also want to intervene or comment, here’s how:
https://wwals.net/?p=59062#tocomment.

Yes, the comment deadline has passed, but a FERC attorney told me the Commission usually considers comments filed later.

Thanks to all the co-signers on today’s response: LEAD Agency, Inc., Kissimmee Waterkeeper, Lake Worth Waterkeeper, Peace+Myakka Waterkeeper, Collier County Waterkeeper, Three Rivers Waterkeepers, and Food and Water Watch.

Thanks to all the previous commenters, especially Floridians Against Dirty Energy (FADE), League of Women Voters, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Florida Springs Council, Sierra Club, Waterkeeper Alliance, Waterkeepers Chesapeake, Lower Susquehanna Riverkeeper, Anacostia Riverkeeper, Potomac Riverkeeper, Assateague Coastal Trust, Delaware Riverkeeper Network, and others too numerous to list here.

Thanks to Maxine Connor for rustling up many of those organizations.

Thanks as always to Cecile Scofield, doggedly pursuing LNG for decades now.

The Response

Filed with FERC 2022-10-04 12:40:32 PM as Accession Number: 20221004-5116, “Response to Opposition Comments of Pivotal LNG, LLC, by WWALS Watershed Coalition, Inc., et al., under RM22-21.”

See also Continue reading →

High E. coli near One Mile Branch fish kill, and maybe fuel spill 2022-09-23

Update 2023-11-09: GA-EPD Consent Order on Valdosta for One Mile Branch fish kill and sewage spills 2023-09-15.

Update 2022-10-01: Good Water Quality, Withlacoochee, Little, Alapaha Rivers 2022-09-29.

Update 2022-10-01: Equipment next to One Mile Branch at VSU was put there by Valdosta to route around a sinkhole.

The City of Valdosta says “a fuel spill may be a contributing cause” of the One Mile Branch fish kill.

Meanwhile, WWALS finds E. coli counts too high even upstream of the fish kill, but more than doubling in the fish kill.

WWALS rescheduled our Chainsaw cleanup, which was supposed to be this morning, on the Withlacoochee River downstream from Sugar Creek, which is downstream of One Mile Branch.

I recommend everyone else also avoid One Mile Branch, Sugar Creek, and the Withlacoochee River from Sugar Creek at least down to the Little River Confluence, until there is some resolution of this fish kill, the high E. coli counts, and the alleged fuel spill.

[One Mile Branch sites]
One Mile Branch sites

Scotti Jay collected water samples Friday and Sara Jay plated them. The results are:

Drexel Park Bridge: 966 cfu/100 mL
One Mile Branch Waterfall: 1,100 cfu/100 mL
West Gordon Street: 2,566 cfu/100 mL

The Georgia Adopt-A-Stream (GA-AAS) one-time sample limit for E. coli is 410. The GA-AAS alert limit is 1,000. Continue reading →

One Mile Branch Fish Kill 2022-09-23

Update 2022-09-25: High E. coli near One Mile Branch fish kill, and maybe fuel spill 2022-09-23.

Update 2022-09-24: Clean Withlacoochee River water quality test results then One Mile Branch fish kill 2022-09-22.

Scotti Jay says, “I’m glad my dog doesn’t like to get in the water.”

[Fish kill and equipment]
Fish kill and equipment

The One Mile Branch water full of dead fish from Oak Street at VSU down to West Gordon Street and Sugar Creek in Remerton. Sugar Creek goes on down to the Withlacoochee River.

A sewage bypass pipe starts just downstream (west) of Patterson Street and ends near the VSU practice football field west of Oak Street, near where the dead fish start. Such equipment could only have been put there by Valdosta Utilities or its contractors.

I saw such equipment at Patterson Street after Continue reading →

Comment on FERC LNG Export Rulemaking with Florida Physicians for Social Responsibility, 2022-09-20

Update 2022-10-04: WWALS response to FERC on opposition comments of Pivotal LNG about small, inland LNG Rulemaking 2022-10-04.

Florida Physicians for Social Responsibility has invited Suwannee Riverkeeper to talk about the FERC Rulemaking on small, inland, LNG export facilities on the comment deadline day, as FL PSR members and others write comments on that FERC Docket RM22-21.

You do not have to attend this zoom meeting to comment or intervene. Here’s how:
https://wwals.net/?p=59062#tocomment

Please comment or intervene as timely as you can before the comment deadline of 5PM, Tuesday, September 20, 2022. However, a FERC attorney advises us that the Commission usually considers comments filed after the deadline, so if you can’t comment by 5PM, comment anyway.

When: 7 PM – 7:45 PM, Tuesday, September 20, 2022

Register: for zoom

Event: facebook,

[FL PSR & WWALS comment on FERC LNG Export]
FL PSR & WWALS comment on FERC LNG Export

Continue reading →

Titanium strip mine permitting tossed back to GA-EPD 2022-08-23

In case anybody has not heard this bad news: the Army Corps has reverted to its abdication of oversight of the proposed mine sight, throwing the permitting hot potato back to GA-EPD.

Further bad news in Twin Pines’ own press release is that former EPD director Harold Reheis is now advising Twin Pines.

Please continue to ask Georgia officals to stop this strip mine far too close to the Okefenokee Swamp, which is the headwaters of the Suwannee and St Marys Rivers.

And there’s an election going on. Ask each candidate their position on protecting the Okefenokee Swamp, and vote accordingly.

[GA-EPD Permitting Update, aerials of the proposed mine site]
GA-EPD Permitting Update, aerials of the proposed mine site

GEORGIA DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION DIVISION

Twin Pine Minerals, LLC
Second Permitting Update

Continue reading →

One week left to comment on FERC LNG Rulemaking, deadline 2022-09-20

Update 2022-10-04: WWALS response to FERC on opposition comments of Pivotal LNG about small, inland LNG Rulemaking 2022-10-04.

Here’s how you can comment or intervene on the FERC Rulemaking on small inland LNG export facilities:
https://wwals.net/?p=59062#tocomment

It’s easy to comment or intervene, so you can do it by the deadline of September 20, 2022. Public Citizen and Food and Water Watch have already intervened. We guess they are preparing comments to convince the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to resume the responsibility it abdicated in 2015, of environmental oversight of Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) export facilities even when are not located where they can directly load LNG onto ocean-going tanker ships. Instead, those inland facilities send highly compressed and explosive LNG in trucks and train cars down public highways past schools, business, churches, and homes, through counties none of which have adequate emergency plans. And where-ever that gas eventually gets burned, in Europe, Caribbean, or Asia, it adds to the atmosphere more methane, a worse greenhouse gas than CO2, cooking the planet and raising sea levels. You are affected, even if you do not have an LNG export operation near you.

[LNG tanker truck on I-75 turning onto I-10 for Jacksonville, LNG export map by WWALS]
LNG tanker truck on I-75 turning onto I-10 for Jacksonville, LNG export map by WWALS

If you comment or intervene, we will invite you to join us and our co-signers in the series of zoom meetings we’re having with the FERC Office of Public Participation (OPP). You can help find out what OPP is actually doing. At least they’re asking for Continue reading →

FERC must close regulatory gaps in small-scale inland LNG export facilities –Cecile Scofield 2022-08-11

Update 2022-09-19: Comment on FERC LNG Export Rulemaking with Florida Physicians for Social Responsibility 2022-09-20.

Update 2022-09-13: One week left to comment on FERC LNG Rulemaking, deadline 2022-09-20.

Should citizens be expected to pay $33,690 to file a Petition for Declaratory Order just to get FERC to oversee LNG facilities like the law says they should?

Cecile Scofield details many other problems FERC created back in 2014 and 2015 when it abdicated oversight of Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) export facilities that do not load directly onto onceangoing tanker ships.

[Flaws in FERC's reasoning; citizens cannot be expected to police LNG]
Flaws in FERC’s reasoning; citizens cannot be expected to police LNG

You can also file comments on FERC Rulemakeing for small inland LNG export facilities, started at the request of WWALS et. al. Your comments do not have to be as elaborate as Cecile’s, and you have until September 20, 2022.

Your organization could also intervene on FERC Docket RM22-21, as two organizations have done: Public Citizen and Food and Water Watch.

 -jsq, John S. Quarterman, Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®

You can join this fun and work by becoming a WWALS member today!
https://wwals.net/donations/

FERC Accession Number 20220811-5068 in FERC Docket RM22-21, SMALL-SCALE INLAND LNG EXPORT FACILITIES: FERC MUST CLOSE REGULATORY GAPS (see also PDF)

Purpose of Petition for Rulemaking:

The proposed Rulemaking is needed to clear up ambiguity as to Continue reading →

Valdosta enforces new grease ordinance; how about enforcing its trash ordinances?

I look forward to Valdosta enforcing its trash ordinances like it’s doing with these Fats, Oil, and Grease (FOG) ordinances. No new ordinance is needed, City Marshals just need to enforce the ones already in place.

[Valdosta example: Fats, Oils, and Grease in a manhole]
Valdosta example: Fats, Oils, and Grease in a manhole

Here’s an idea: Roger Budd Co. could set an example by buying trash cans for its parking lots, and keep them cleaned out, like city ordinances require. That would be much smaller capex than these FOG traps. And for both RBC could advertise on its billboards how green its businesses are.

Although any business will be more likely to do that once the City of Valdosta gets around to putting such trash cans on its own city parking lots, starting with across from City Hall.

Meanwhile, I applaud the City of Valdosta pro-actively preventing sewage spills with this new FOG ordinance.

Mackenzie Petrie, WALB, Continue reading →

Personnel and trash at Valdosta City Council 2022-08-11

It wasn’t us this time.

Council Sandra Tooley brought up trash, Click ‘n’ Fix, and Valdosta’s favorite excuse for not doing much: “we’re short on staff“ and “A lot of people have a lot of things going on in their departments.” This was in the last five minutes of the August 11, 2022, Valdosta City Council meeting.

[Council Sandra Tooley requests Executive Session about personnel and trash]
Council Sandra Tooley requests Executive Session about personnel and trash

The Mayor said they had a request for an Executive Session, and asked for a motion. Council Tim Carroll wondered why.

Council Sandra Tooley explained, “Citizens have come to me, and they have this thing they like to say, that we do not have enough staff, that we’re short on staff, that we’re not getting things done.”

See for yourself in this excerpt of Valdosta’s own facebook live video of the meeting. Continue reading →