Tag Archives: New Jersey

Extended two weeks: WWALS FOIA to FERC on NFE Miami LNG export 2020-11-23

At 5:46 PM on their last day, FERC did respond to our FOIA about the NFE Miami LNG facility. But only to say FERC is self-extending its deadline another two weeks. It’s already eight weeks since our initial FOIA about that Miami facility, which FERC confused with Puerto Rico. What’s taking so long, FERC?

FERC’s excuse? “We have determined that in order to respond to your request, Commission staff must consult with other components of the agency having substantial subject-matter interest therein.”

[NFE operations, FERC needs to consult]
NFE operations, FERC needs to consult

Well, if the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) can’t find a SHOW CAUSE ORDER to New Fortress Energy about NFE’s Miami LNG facility, apparently there is no such ORDER, because according to a law FERC cited in its latest response, any ORDERs that exist must be published electronically for everyone to see.

So what is FERC having such a hard time finding? Maybe a “PETITION FOR DECLARATORY ORDER filed by New Fortress Energy, Miami, Florida”? Maybe because none was ever filed? Or maybe records of meetings or correspondance between FERC and NFE about the Miami facility?

It’s already been eight weeks since our initial FOIA, six weeks after we sent an expanded FOIA, four weeks after FERC “accepted” that FOIA, and more than two weeks after FERC informed WWALS of that “acceptance.” Why the delaying tactics, FERC?

Here’s a timeline so far: Continue reading

Extended: PHMSA LNG by rail car exception until 2019-08-07 on 2019-07-09

The only extension request PHMSA admitted to today, as it extended the comment period for a month, was from two members of Congress. That request notes:

If Energy Transport Solutions intends to run 100+ rail tank cars on the Florida East Coast Railway, PHMSA would be placing large swaths of people and critical infrastructure (hospitals, schools, highways, and even the President’s Mar-a-Lago resort) in jeopardy.

[3.3.2 Probability of Delayed Ignition]
3.3.2 Probability of Delayed Ignition

PHMSA also took the opportunity to add an Updated Environmental Assessment (EA), and a Quantitative Risk Analysis (QRA), which is worthless: “The scope of the QRA addresses unit train movements along one example route located in the Northeastern United States.” The QRA has no maps nor any specific identification of populations, schools, hospitals, businesses, nor even identification of which route is the example, nor which other routes might be used for shipping LNG by rail.

This all to me sounds like PHMSA always intended to extend, and to add these less than useful documents.

PHMSA also claims it added “The Energy Transport Solutions, LLC special permit application (in redacted form)” but I can’t find that online, so we still don’t even really know who the applicant is.

Extension Notice

Continue reading

PHMSA LNG by rail car exception 2019-06-06

Alachua County, New Jersey legislators, WWALS, and the U.S. House of Representatives oppose this PHMSA LNG-by-rail exception, and you can, too.

[Special Permit- Draft-0001]
Special Permit- Draft-0001

PHMSA proposes to authorize LNG in ordinary cryogenic rail cars, in an exception for a subsidiary of the company that owns Hialeah LNG and already sends LNG in containers by rail for export. “In most cases, ETS would expect that the ultimate end-users of this LNG will be foreign generators of power for residential, commercial and industrial purposes,” says the Draft Environmental Assessment. Why should we risk our homes, schools, businesses, hospitals, etc. for private export profit from New Fortress Energy’s Hialeah LNG plant near Miami? Or for a liquefaction plant in Pennsylvania or New Jersey?

PHMSA posted this extension request on June 3rd, and the deadline for comment is this Monday, July 8, 2019. WWALS signed onto an extension request by Physicians for Social Responsibility. You can still send in a copy of that request or other comments by Monday. WWALS will be filing another comment letter, as well.

The only ETS google maps finds in Doral, FL, is Continue reading

EPA kicks PFAS regulation a year down the road

Yesterday’s EPA PFAS plan does nothing except to study for a year or more what has already been studied. Where are the limits on amounts of these firefighting chemicals in water that would enable EPA or GA-EPD to test private wells, for example for the PFAS that got into groundwater from Moody Air Force Base’s Wastewater Treatment Plant, causing Moody’s report to say be careful eating fish caught in Beatty Branch or Cat Creek, upstream from the Withlacoochee River? Where are the funds and methods to remediate the problem and to stop it getting worse?

[Figure 25 Waste Water Treatment Plant (AFFF Area 8) PFBS, PFOA, and PFOS in Soil and Sediment]
Figure 25 Waste Water Treatment Plant (AFFF Area 8) PFBS, PFOA, and PFOS in Soil and Sediment

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), 14 February 2018, EPA’s Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) Action Plan, Continue reading

Solar grows in Georgia and Florida

Georgia Power, local electric cooperatives, Duke Energy, FPL: all are spending on solar power. However, Georgia and Florida remain behind New Jersey and Massachusetts in deployed solar megawatts. It’s an election year, and this should be an issue.

FPL is making a big show of solar power in Florida, but are it and sibling utilities actually moving ahead very fast? Jay Koziarz, miami.curbed.com, 30 July 2018, City vote clears path for retractable ‘solar halo’ atop Bayfront Amphitheater: The urban installation will be one of the largest of its kind in the country

Solar halo atop Bayfront Amphitheater
Bayfront Park Management Trust

Miami city commissioners have backed a move to construct a Continue reading

This is wind in our sails and could be the end of Sabal Trail –Suwannee Riverkeeper in VDT 2017-08-24

Update 2017-08-29: Fourth news roundup: From pipelines to renewable energy and efficiency –Sierra Club 2017-08-29

“This is wind in our sails and could be the end of Sabal Trail,” Quarterman said, on the front page of the newspaper of record in the largest city in the Suwannee Basin, the Valdosta Daily Times.

Heading downstream
We got sails no one can see.
Suwannee Riverkeeper Vessel on the Suwannee River protesting Sabal Trail 2017-01-14

As Frank Jackalone says (see below), FERC has been getting away with murder. And now maybe they can’t.

Thomas Lynn, Valdosta Daily Times, 23 August 2017, Court decision to impact Sabal Trail pipeline, Continue reading

Pipeliners spooked by Sierra Club Major Landmark Victory; could shut down Sabal Trail –industry press

Update 2017-08-29: Fourth news roundup: From pipelines to renewable energy and efficiency –Sierra Club 2017-08-29

Update 2017-08-24: Third news roundup: This is wind in our sails and could be the end of Sabal Trail —Suwannee Riverkeeper in VDT 2017-08-24

OilPrice.com calls it “a critical decision yesterday, that could jeopardize the future for pipeline projects across the country”; pipeline companies could be “spooked” and “…the court ruling raises the unsettling possibility that the project may be forced to shut down — after billions were spent putting it in into service.” Other stories say this ‘huge’ win could also affect the Atlantic Sunrise, Penneast, Atlantic Coast, and Rover Pipelines, among others.

Children against Sabal Trail in Juno Beach, 2016-10-14
(L to R) Lea Fox, 4, Finn Ryder Purdy, 4, and Mason Dana, 7, of Lake Worth, sit with gas pipeline protesters outside of Florida Power and Light headquarters on Universe Boulevard in Juno Beach on October 14, 2016. The Sabal Trail Pipeline began supplying FPL’s plants in June. Groups opposed the pipeline that will start in Alabama and bring fracked gas through several counties in Florida’s springs and wetlands. (Richard Graulich / The Palm Beach Post)

Sad for FPL, Duke, Spectra, and all the other pipeline-building purveyors of fracked methane, maybe, but glad for all the landowners whose land was taken, local citizens who don’t want a 500+-mile IED next to their homes, schools, and waterways, and all people who want clean sun and wind energy, not more polluting fossil fuels.

It’s good the industry press agrees with what I told the VDT: “This is wind in our sails and could be the end of Sabal Trail.”

Here’s a news roundup, in addition to Continue reading

Stooges Stink Again: Sabal Trail at Dunnellon Compressor Station 2017-08-05

Update 2017-08-11: Complaint filed with OSHA.

The smell of hazardous Mercaptan “would come and go” for at least two days starting August 5, 2017, and Sabal Trail had been doing some sort of work at the Dunnellon Compressor Station starting the previous day, although they hadn’t bothered to inform local first responders.

A Stooge plumbing
Still from The Three Stooges: A Plumbing We Will Go, Columbia Pictures, 1940

Only two weeks after the July 16-17 stink leak, Sabal Fail again caused expense for Marion County Fire Rescue in sending trucks and personnel. Unlike the private Sabal Trail Transmission LLC, Marion County responded to an open records request, and here are the narrative incident reports.

Saturday, August 5, 2017

Continue reading

Solar and wind can make coal go away with no need for natural gas. –WWALS to Suwannee BOCC 2016-01-19

The Commissioners for the one county on every Sabal Trail fracked methane path ever proposed, Suwannee County, Florida, meet tonight at 6PM in Live Oak. I can’t go, so I sent them this letter (PDF). If you can go, please do, or you can send them a letter, too.

To: Suwannee County Board of County Commissioners,

Dear Commissioners,

Thanks again for your hospitality at your meeting of December 15th.

Solar and wind can make coal go away with no need for natural gas.

The FPL representative who spoke didn’t seem aware of what Southern Company CEO Tom Fanning said about solar power last June: “If somebody wants to buy distributed generation, I want to sell it to 'em." See Herman K. Trabish, UtilityDive, June 11, 2015, “Inside Georgia Power's move into the residential solar market: The utility says it will offer solar through an unregulated business, but installers fear possible anticompetitive impacts”:
http://www.utilitydive.com/news/inside-georgia-powers-move-into-the-residential-solar-market/400562/

That meeting gave me deja vu about a few years ago when Georgia Power and Southern Company were claiming Continue reading