Tag Archives: Mobile

Ensuring Sabal Trail compliance with LWCF

WWALS signed onto a letter asking for Sabal Trail to be examined for LWCF compliance.

Jonathon Berman, Sierra Club Georgia Chapter, 12 April 2016, Conservation groups call for public parks to be put ahead of corporate polluters’ pipeline plans,

Atlanta, GA — Today, seven groups called on the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) state liaison officers for Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and Mississippi to ensure that the proposed Sabal Trail pipeline, a joint venture by Duke Energy, NextEra Energy, Inc., and Spectra Energy Corp, and Magnolia Extension, owned by American Midstream, does not threaten public parks and recreation areas.

Map of Southeast Mid-Stream Natural Gas Pipelines The letter highlights the environmental dangers the proposed Sabal Trail and Magnolia Extension projects pose to at least 11 parks and public recreation areas paid for by the LWCF.

Created in 1965, the LWCF is a federal program that provides matching grants and other federal assistance for public parks and recreation areas. The program has safeguards to ensure that lands purchased with its funds are protected for public outdoor recreation. The groups warn that rapidly multiplying planned pipeline projects do not appear to be compliant Continue reading →

GA-EPD plans to certify Sabal Trail within 30 days unless public comments; ditto USACE

People can request a hearing by the state of Georgia or the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to stop GA-EPD or the USACE from rubberstamping Southeast Market Pipelines Project Overview Sabal Trail’s use of wetlands within 30 days from Friday. USACE explicitly asks for public comments on “cumulative impacts of the proposed activity on the public interest”, unlike FL-DEP’s attempts to narrow the issue. Presumably this includes crossings of the Chattahoochee, Flint, Ochlockonee, and Withlacoochee Rivers in Georgia (and the Suwannee, Santa Fe, and Withlacoochee (south) Rivers in Florida and other rivers in Alabama), although this USACE Jacksonville office public notice about the Clean Waters Act and the Rivers and Harbors Act doesn’t specify. It was released Friday September 11th just like the one USACE Mobile District released that same day on Proposed Discharge of Sabal Trail Fill Material. Apparently you can ask for a public hearing by USACE in Alabama or Florida as well as in Georgia.

Here’s the Jacksonville USACE public notice: Continue reading →

Proposed Discharge of Sabal Trail Fill Material –U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

Late on a Friday, in a USACE public notice:

Sabal Trail Project Overview The USACE has not verified the adequacy of the applicant’s avoidance and minimization statement at this time….

The USACE has not verified the adequacy of the applicant’s proposed off-site mitigation plan at this time.

After how many years has this Sabal Trail project been going on? And still no verification?

PUBLIC HEARING REQUESTS: Any person may request, in writing, within the comment period specified in this notice, that a public hearing be held to consider this application. Requests for public hearings shall state with particularity, the reasons for holding a public hearing.

How about as a reason somebody needs to examine Sabal Trail’s mitigation plans?

This Friday USACE release frequently mentions Continue reading →