Tag Archives: Mitchell County

Four Three Sabal Trail Jury Trials in Valdosta, GA 2018-09-10

Update 2018-09-13: The outcome.

Update 2018-09-12: The second day.

Update 2018-09-10: Gretchen Quarterman and Janet Barrow attended the jury selection this morning, and will report in detail this afternoon. One difference from last time is this time jurors were asked if they knew Randy Dowdy, Wavel Robinson, or Sandra Jones. Perhaps not coincidentally, FERC required Sabal Trail to report on topsoil mixing for all three. Jones is also the remaining eminent domain case not being tried this week. The other three actual trials, yes, all with the same jury, start this afternoon at 1:30 PM.

Update 2018-09-05: According to a usually reliable source the Jones trial will be in January, so that’s three trials next week. Also, all three trials will be heard by the same jury. Given that each of the defendants has a different kind of property, that sounds to me like the circus come to town.

You can come see four more eminent domain jury trials start next week in Valdosta, after Sabal Trail lost the first one. Jury selection will start 9AM Monday morning, September 10, 2018. The actual trials could start that afternoon, and may run all week. You can’t take much into the courtroom, but there’s a public sidewalk out front, and there will probably be a TV reporter there part of the time.

Cases No. 4:16-cv-092 (Jones), -104 (Isaacs), -107 (GBA Ass.), -113 (Bell), Federal Building, Valdosta, GA

When: Jury selection 9AM Monday morning, September 10, 2018.
Trials could start that afternoon, and may run all week.

Where: Main Courtroom, Second Floor, U.S. District Court
401 N Patterson St., Valdosta, GA 31601

Event: facebook, meetup

The first case was for W. Lynn Lasseter of Moultrie, to whom the jury awarded five times what Sabal Trail offered. So apparently these trials will be for landowners all of whom, Continue reading →

Pictures of all the BLRPR paddlers 2018-04-28

You’ve seen who won the eleven awards. Now here are the rest of the paddlers in the 6th Annual BIG Little River Paddle Race, from more counties, states, and watersheds than ever before. Also more Solo Female Kayaks than Solo Male Kayaks, and several whole families of paddlers.

[Finish]
Finish

Statistics: 2018 BIG Little River Paddle Race

43 Boats 
37 kayaks
6 canoes

49 Paddlers
29 male
20 female Continue reading →

Sabal Trail pipe and tires standing in water, Cool Springs Road, Baconton, GA 2017-01-25

Tires 31.3060850, -84.0087700 And they followed her down the road, as Sabal Trail’s hardhats usually do when they see anybody watching their trail of destruction. This was Wednesday 25 January 2017 on Cool Springs Road, Baconton, GA, 31.306085, -84.008770.

Pictures and video by Sherry Layton Gatewood: they didn’t scare her off, and they haven’t scared off the many other people throughout Florida, Georgia, and Alabama who are watching them like hawks, looking for violations.

Kind of hard to get to your fields to do agriculture with this in the way.

Video: Continue reading →

Water standing on Sabal Trail RoW, Colquitt County towards Mitchell County, GA 2017-01-25

Erosion After the recent storms, water is standing on Sabal Trail’s exotic invasive planted grasses, and sometimes on bare dirt, some of it apparently eroded, in Colquitt County, Georgia west of Moultrie towards Mitchell County. Remember, that 3-foot fracked methane pipe is only 3 feet under the surface. It wouldn’t take much erosion to expose it, increasing likelihood of corrosion, leak, break, explosion, etc.

These pictures were taken Continue reading →

Sabal Trail planting exotic invasive grasses

Landowners can ask for something else.

Right now in Mitchell and Colquitt County, Georgia, Troy Construction is heading south, covering up the pipe they planted with seed, which according to Sabal Trail’s documents is bermuda grass and bahia grass, both of which are exotic invasive species in Georgia. According to Sabal Trail’s documents, “Alternative seed mixes specifically requested by the landowner or required by agencies may be used.”

Now I’m told by at least one Georgia agency that both those grasses can be killed off with Roundup if they spread. But is that really what we want in and near our waterways and wetlands? And why should neighboring landowners have to fight exotic invasive species brought in by an invading pipeline?

So if you’re a landowner or Continue reading →

Sabal Trail, Bell Bros, WWALS, Solar in APN 2016-09-12

The Bell brothers, Flint Riverkeeper, and John S. Quarterman of WWALS all against Sabal Trail in an Atlanta publication. Come on down to the Suwannee River Tuesday near Jasper, FL or to the Withlacoochee River between Quitman and Valdosta, GA 9AM Saturday Sep. 17th to see for yourself what we’re protecting and to say your piece on video.

Gloria Tatum, Atlanta Progressive News, 12 September 2016, Proposed SabaL Gas Pipeline runs through aquifer, wetlands, sinkhole territory, Continue reading →

No new Florida electricity needed, says FPL, so why Sabal Trail?

FPL admits Florida needs no new electricity, so why should Sabal Trail get eminent domain?

PDF FOR IMMEDIATE DISTRIBUTION

Hahira, GA, September 6th 2016 — Two Georgia brothers are stuck with paying almost ten times as much in Sabal Trail’s legal fees as they spent defending their property against that invading fracked methane pipeline, even though FPL apparently admitted this year that all three of its 2013 excuses for that pipeline are no longer valid. Two federal agencies and numerous state agencies issued permits based on those excuses. Sabal Trail used those permits to get eminent domain, including to drill under rivers in Florida, Georgia, and Alabama and through the fragile limestone containing our drinking water in the Floridan Aquifer. It is time for this unnecessary, destructive, and hazardous boondoggle to be shut down and its $3 billion in FPL ratepayer money to be used for solar power in the Sunshine State.

James Bell, one of the brothers stuck with having to pay Sabal Trail attorney fees, says:

"First and foremost, this is a multi-billion dollar company that is for profit. In my personal opinion I don’t see how a private for-profit company should be allowed eminent domain. I don’t understand that. That makes no sense to me. I might could understand it if it was for the greater good of the country but this is not. And it is certainly not the federal government or the state government building some road or highway."

Florida Power & Light claimed Continue reading →

Floridan Aquifer more important than Sabal Trail pipeline –WWALS Amicus Brief to Leesburg

IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF LEE COUNTY

STATE OF GEORGIA




SABAL TRAIL TRANSMISSION, LLC,


Plaintiff,


vs.


JAMES E. BELL, II and ROBERT A. BELL,

Defendants.

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Civil Action No.

14-CV-208RS


300x413 Cover, in Wwals leesburg, by John S. Quarterman, for WWALS.net, 13 April 2015 AMICUS CURIAE OF WWALS WATERSHED COALITION, Inc.

IN SUPPORT OF DEFENDANTS THE BELLS

PDF

COMES NOW WWALS WATERSHED COALITION, INC. (WWALS), as friends of the court and concerned citizens in the above-entitled action in support of the Defendants and file this their brief with the court in the above referenced case and states as follows and provides in support thereof the following:

Continue reading →