Tag Archives: O’Brien

Clean rivers and creek 2024-02-28

Update 2024-03-09: Clean rivers and creek 2024-03-06.

Update 2024-03-03: Now with Alapaha River at Lakeland and Naylor and Santa Fe River at U.S. 27, all also clean.

We got good results for Wednesday for the Santa Fe and Suwannee Rivers and Franks Creek.

Valdosta’s recent upstream Withlacoochee River results through Monday are good.

There has been very little rain for a week. Rain is predicted for today, Saturday, and Sunday, but probably not very much.

The rivers are down to good paddling levels, and it’s not cold. So bring rain gear, and happy paddling, fishing, and maybe swimming this weekend.

Join us tomorrow, Saturday morning, at Langdale Park Boat Ramp for the Fifth Annual Mayor and Chairman’s Paddle, Withlacoochee River.

[Chart, Clean Rivers and Franks Creek, Map 2024-02-28]
Chart, Clean Rivers and Franks Creek, Map 2024-02-28

No sewage spills were reported in the Suwannee River Basin in Florida in the past week.

But four were reported in Georgia.

Remember Valdosta’s two small 100-gallon sewage spills on February 20, at Three Mile Branch from Knob Hill Road, and into One Mile Branch from Boone Drive @ Baytree Road, which drains into Sugar Creek, then to the Withlacoochee River?

Well, Valdosta had another spill at 215 Knob Hill Road, 1,500 gallons each from there and from two overflow sites nearby. Yes, that drains into Three Mile Branch which goes into the Withlacoochee River along the route of the Mayor and Chairman’s Paddle. But 4,500 gallons should be small enough to be diluted and washed away by now.

Ashburn last Wednesday had yet another spill, 1,500 gallons from its MLK Lift Station into Ashburn Branch, which runs into the Little River. Continue reading

Clean Withlacoochee, Santa Fe, and Suwannee Rivers and Franks Creek 2024-02-21

Update 2024-03-01: Clean rivers and creek 2024-02-28.

Update 2024-02-28: Three small Valdosta spills into Three Mile Branch, Withlacoochee River 2024-02-27.

We got good results for Wednesday for the Withlacoochee, Santa Fe, Ichetucknee, and Suwannee Rivers, and Franks Creek.

Valdosta’s recent upstream Withlacoochee River results through Monday are good. Although I recently remarked that Valdosta was better lately about posting its results in a timely manner, Valdosta’s Wednesday results are still not posted.

The rain predicted for yesterday turned out to be a drizzle. No more rain is predicted for a week.

So if you like high, fast, and cold water, this weekend is good for paddling. Maybe fishing. Swimming with a wetsuit.

However, the Little, Withlacoochee, and Alapaha Rivers are up from previous upstream rains. The Santa Fe River is coming back down. The Suwannee was never especially high. I’d recommend the Ichetucknee, Suwannee, or Santa Fe Rivers for this weekend, or Banks Lake this evening. Continue reading

Clean rivers and creek 2024-02-14

Update 2024-02-24: Clean Withlacoochee, Santa Fe, and Suwannee Rivers and Franks Creek 2024-02-21.

Update 2024-02-22: Valdosta Boone Drive and Knob Hill small sewage spills 2024-02-20.

We got good results for Wednesday for the Alapaha, Santa Fe, and Suwannee Rivers, and Franks Creek.

Valdosta’s recent upstream Withlacoochee River results through Wednesday are good.

Rain is predicted for this weekend, through Saturday. But if there is not much rain, paddling Sunday should be OK. If you like high water, since the Little and Withlacoochee Rivers are up from previous upstream rains. The Santa Fe River is coming back down. The Suwannee was never especially high.

WWALS has two outings coming up on Saturday, February 24, 2024: the morning paddle from Knights Ferry to Nankin on the Withlacoochee River, and the evening Full Snow Moon paddle on Banks Lake.

And of course don’t forget that Saturday, March 2, is the Mayor and Chairman’s Paddle from Langdale Park to Troupville on the Withlacoochee River. That one is free, thanks to a generous grant from Georgia Power.

[Chart, Clean Franks Creek and Withlacoochee, Alapaha, Santa Fe, and Suwannee Rivers 2024-02-14, Map]
Chart, Clean Franks Creek and Withlacoochee, Alapaha, Santa Fe, and Suwannee Rivers 2024-02-14, Map

No sewage spills were reported in the Suwannee River Basin in Florida in the past week.

But one was reported in Georgia. Ashburn had a spill of 3,000 gallons of raw sewage into Ashburn Branch, which flows into the Little River. Continue reading

O’Brien man places in songwriting contest –Lake City Reporter 2021-08-24

Staff Report, Lake City Reporter, August 24, 2021, “O’Brien man places in songwriting contest: Wingate one of nine finalists from across the southeast.” [See also Valdosta Today.]

VALDOSTA — Chosen from a record number of finalists, an O’Brien man was one of three winners named Saturday night at the fourth annual Suwannee Riverkeeper Songwriting Contest.

Out of the nine finalists that competed at the Annette Howell Turner Center for the Arts’ Art Park, O’Brien’s KJ Wingate won for the best song from inside the Suwannee River basin. Wingate won a $50 prize from the WWALS Watershed Coalition for his folk/country song, “The Hymn of Convict Spring.”

[Lake City Reporter, KJ Wingate, Rachel Grubb]
Lake City Reporter, KJ Wingate, Rachel Grubb
Finalists that competed in the fourth annual Suwannee Riverkeeper Songwriting contest included O’Brien’s KJ Wingate (from left), Katherine Ball, David Rodock, Sweet William Billy Ennis, Jimi Davies and his brother, Kathy Lou Gilman and Rachel Hillman. Not pictured are Brandon Fox and Lake City’s Rachel Grubb, who could not attend. Angela Duncan Courtesy of WWALS.

Other winners Saturday included Continue reading

Southern Cross Dairy (Suwannee Farms) liquidation and permit renewal 2019-11-25

Today I got an automated notice from FDEP about a wastewater permit for Suwannee Farms, and a WWALS member sent a picture of this auction sign saying “HUGE PRODUCE & ROW CROP FARM COMPLETE LIQUIDATION” next to a bigger sign saying Suwannee Farms. This is in Suwannee County near the Suwannee River.

[HUGE PRODUCE & ROW CROP FARM COMPLETE LIQUIDATION]

I called DeMottAuction.com and asked if the land was also for sale. They said they weren’t selling the land, only equipment. Which of course doesn’t mean that the land is not for sale; only that Continue reading

FGT pipeline noise, Suwannee County 2018-02-25

It sounded like a jet engine Wednesday evening, said a WWALS member as a pipeline let loose in Suwannee County. (Hear it for yourself in WWALS videos four days later.) Was it a leak? A planned release? A road construction break? We get no answers, just runarounds, from the federal and state agencies that permitted all the interstate natural gas pipelines into Florida. They passed the buck to Suwannee County Fire Rescue. At least Suwannee BOCC opposed the Sabal Trail pipeline and approved a solar farm.

Photo: John S. Quarterman for WWALS 2018-02-25 of FGT pipeline at Suwannee Oaks Drive.
Photo: John S. Quarterman for WWALS 2018-02-25 of FGT at Suwannee Oaks Drive.

Neighbors preparing to evacuate February 21, 2018, confirmed the location: just north of 208th Street, at Continue reading

Pinocchio or Vulcan? Still claims Sabal Trail is safe 2017-09-14

Is Ms. Grover is a Vulcan now?

Asked why a pipeline dispatcher apparently told the fire department that “this was a new system and they are still learning,” Grover responds that “it would be illogical to speculate as to what the fire department has quoted as part of a conversation.”

Or are those just Pinocchio donkey ears? That would be more logical.

Who do you believe? A local county fire department, or someone paid by a pipeline company to put the best face on any event? Especially when she didn’t actually deny anything Marion County Fire Rescue reported?

Amy Martyn, ConsumerAffairs, 14 September 2017, Company says its natural gas pipeline ‘operated safely’ through Hurricane Irma; However, activists say the Sabal Trail Pipeline is dangerous and needs to be removed,

The Sabal Trail Pipeline, a new natural gas pipeline that critics have charged is uncomfortably close to Florida’s main aquifer, “operated safely throughout Hurricane Irma,” a spokesperson with the pipeline operator tells ConsumerAffairs.

“We were and continue to be able to meet any customer needs,” says an email from Andrea Grover of Enbridge Energy, the natural gas company behind the Sabal Trail Pipeline. “Operations was not affected by the hurricane impacts.”

Andrea Grover’s linkedin page lists her as “Director, Stakeholder Outreach at Enbridge (Oil & Gas)”. For four years we were told the pipeline’s “stakeholders” were landowners along the way.

You know, like Brooks County, Georgia, farmer Randy Dowdy, whose world-record-holding soybean fields Sabal Trail destroyed, causing generational damage that Sabal Trail has not addressed.

Or Robin Koon, whose family graveyard Sabal Trail disturbed, which is part of why he helped Sierra Club, Flint Riverkeeper, and Chattahoochee Riverkeeper get standing for their recent historic victory over FERC that could still shut down Sabal Trail and already was cited in a denial of a different pipeline.

Curious how now that Sabal Trail has gotten its pipe in the ground, Ms. Grover no longer mentions “stakeholders,” just “customer needs.” Which is all Sabal Trail has been about all along: profit for a few utilities and pipeline companies, and for the frackers in the Marcellus Shale and Oklahoma and elsewhere to sell their greenhouse-gas-producing product through a 500-mile IED. Even FPL has admitted Florida needs no new electricity until 2024 at the earliest, and a stock analyst has revealed that all Sabal Trail is doing is decreasing gas shipped into Florida through FGT and Gulfstream by the same amount Sabal Trail is shipping. Why did local landowners have to give up easements for nothing but profit for utiltiies, frackers, and Spectra Energy of Houston, Texas, now owned by Enbridge of Calgary, Alberta, Canada?

But is Sabal Trail even serving those customers well? Cody Suggs reported yesterday from the Hildreth Compressor Station site near O’Brien, in Suwannee County, Florida, that power is still off there and it took two days for trees to be cleared off the access road.


Photo: Cody Suggs at Sabal Trail Hildreth Compressor Station Site 2017-09-14.

Natural gas began flowing through the Sabal Trail Pipeline in June 2017. People like John Quarterman, a Georgia landowner and activist with WWALS Watershed Coalition, a group that aims to protect watersheds in Georgia and Florida, say that federal regulators are typically asleep at the wheel for these projects.

“We have this 500-mile improvised explosive device, under our rivers, next to our schools and next to people’s houses and nobody is handling pipeline safety,” he tells ConsumerAffairs.

Well, I remember three years ago when Ms. Grover said she found it “hard to believe” that Sabal Trail was threatening landowners with eminent domain until the Valdosta Daily Times (VDT) published one of the actual letters.

Ms. Grover’s response? She used the VDT to threaten landowners with eminent domain.

That was shortly after Sabal Trail attempted to claim customers in Georgia to justify the Georgia eminent domain they were threatening, but didn’t bother to contact the local governments they claimed needed the gas.

Four years ago, Ms. Grover and Brian Fahrenthold, “the state and local government affairs director for Houston-based Spectra Energy”, told me they were “not familiar with” Spectra’s well-known public record of safety violations. She did claim everybody in Pennsylvania was happy after the infamous Steckman Ridge Compressor Station leak, for which she was called in to do spin control, which led to a rebuttal from Pennsylvania, beginning:

“I speak for more than a dozen families who live next to or near the problematic compressor facility; and your statement is incorrect and misleading.”

Neither Ms. Grover nor Spectra Energy ever responded to that rebuttal, to my knowledge.

Please let me be clear: this is not about Ms. Grover personally. As I told her the first time I met her, she is the best I have ever seen at doing her job. Which is to market her company.

Too bad her company is a pipeline company that gouged under our rivers, causing a frac-out and sinkholes, destroyed farmlands, goes right past schools and homes, and has already leaked hazardous Mercaptan at its Dunnellon, Florida, Compressor Station site.

That Steckman Ridge Compressor Station blowout? They called in Ms. Grover because another “stakeholder outreach” Spectra Energy rep. had to backtrack. And for that 2009 incident, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania fined Spectra in 2010.

Back to the ConsumerAffairs story:

Sinkholes and hurricanes

Florida’s landscape is characterized by karst terrain, or land made of porous limestone, caverns, and water dissolving into the bedrock, all of which are a recipe for sinkholes. Man-made infrastructure can increase the chance of a sinkhole forming, and so can intense rain.

“Man-induced sinkholes typically involve collapse of old mine workings, drainage infrastructure or other underground workings,” explained meteorologist Jim Andrews in one recent report. “Naturally, such can fail over time, and rainfall can be a major factor.”

In fact, at least four homes have been evacuated in central Florida this week after sinkholes formed in the wake of Hurricane Irma, according to reporters on the scene. Still, Enbridge Energy says that their pipeline can handle sinkhole-prone terrain.

Well, we’ve already come pretty close to finding out, with a sinkhole a half mile away Monday from Sabal Trail’s sister Florida Southeast Connection (FSC).

Sinkhole, FPL pipeline, FLiNG, FSC
Sinkhole, FPL pipeline, FLiNG, FSC; map by John S. Quarterman for WWALS.

Back to the ConsumerAffairs story:

“While opposition has raised the issue of the pipeline being constructed in karst terrain, this was thoroughly examined by the appropriate federal and state agencies,” responds Enbridge representative Andrea Grover by email. “They concluded it was unlikely that Sabal Trail would impact springs or the Floridan Aquifer in the karst regions. Sabal Trail is well equipped to safely construct and operate the pipeline in karst areas.”

Violations Sabal Trail and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) told us would not happen, under oath in WWALS vs. Sabal Trail & FDEP (October 2015), have already been happening.


Photo of John S. Quarterman at Sabal Trail frac-out into the Withlacoochee River between Quitman and Valdosta, Georgia: Bruce Ritchie, Politico, 17 November 2016.

But Quarterman says he does not trust the company to voluntarily report any issues that may arise. Activists with his group who live along the pipeline route have been tracking the project themselves, both before and after Hurricane Irma, to make sure no leaks, sinkholes underneath the pipeline, or any other issues have occurred.

Why, yes, I do have some sceptism about that.

As always, there’s more in the story.

No more pipelines. Here are some things you can do to help with that.

Let the sun rise on Florida, Georgia, Alabama, the southeast, and the rest of the country and the world.

 -jsq, John S. Quarterman, Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®

You can join this fun and work by becoming a WWALS member today!

Sabal Trail HDD and Compressor sites 2016-12-22

South Suwannee River HDD, 30.4065670, -83.1543950 An anonymous informant sent these aerial pictures of what appear to be the Sabal Trail drill sites at the Suwannee and Santa Fe Rivers, plus the Hildreth Compressor Station near O’Brien, apparently taken Thursday 22 December 2016.

The GPS coordinates were Continue reading

Where pipelines already cross rivers into Suwannee County, Florida

Update 2017-03-31: Newer version of PHMSA pipeline maps.

Two pipelines, one by Southern Natural Gas (SONAT), and one named Florida Gas Transmission (FGT), both owned by Kinder Morgan (KMI), already cross under the Suwannee and Santa Fe Rivers into Suwannee County: FGT does so twice under the Suwannee River and once under the Santa Fe River. All these pipelines carry “natural” gas, which is to say fracked methane. When they were originally built, economically they made some sense. Now that solar power is cheaper, easier and faster to build, and far safer and cleaner, there is no excuse for any more such pipelines, neither Kinder Morgan’s Jacksonville Expansion Project (JEP), nor Spectra Energy’s Sabal Trail.

SONAT

Continue reading

Not one hand was raised for Sabal Trail before Suwannee BOCC voted against it –Suwannee Democrat

Sabal Trail’s excuse was they didn’t know in advance, even though their attorneys sent a letter beforehand, and they didn’t show up in Albany, GA, either, with weeks of notice. Spectra Energy’s Andrea Grover told the newspaper some other things that also don’t match the public record.

Carl McKinney, Suwannee Democrat, 20 November 2015, Dozens gather in Live Oak to oppose gas pipeline, compress station,

Not one hand raised among the dozens in the room when a county commissioner asked who came to support the proposed Sabal Trail natural gas pipeline which would run through three states and dissect Suwannee County if approved.

Tuesday evening, every parking space at the county’s judicial annex building was full as O’Brien residents, people from Live Oak and activists and experts from as far as New Orleans gathered at the county commission meeting to voice their opposition to the project.

The commission was voting on Continue reading