Tag Archives: Okapilco Creek

Sabal Trail reacts to Sanford Bishop GA-02, WWALS, Price P.G.

It’s time for more people and organizations, especially Congress members, to ask the Corps for a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement, after Sabal Trail side-stepped many of the questions Cover letter in a 130-page claim that it had already addressed every recent point from U.S. Rep. Sanford Bishop GA-02, WWALS Watershed Coalition, Flint Riverkeeper, and Dennis Price P.G. in recent letters to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. If karst concerns alone were enough to move Sabal Trail off of the Withlacoochee River in Florida, and the Itchetucknee River, and to move it to a different crossing for the Santa Fe River, they should be enough to move it off the Suwannee River, where the conditions are quite similar.

In case anybody wondered whether Sabal Trail is watching the web for anything posted by its opponents, note where Sabal Trail said in its included 6 June 2016 letter to Mark R. Evans of the Corps that it first saw Sanford Bishop’s letter: Continue reading →

GWC win over Sabal Trail in Georgia Trend

Water and property rights are the same when fighting a natural gas pipeline: Georgia Trend understands what Georgia Water Coalition is doing to stop the Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline.

Ben Young, Georgia Trend, June 2016, Sustainable Georgia: Collecting Water,

…Nearly every county can claim scenic waterways — some 15 established water trails are highlighted by the Georgia River Network, with another 17 in the works.

But clean water is vital for more than tourism — as evidenced by the continuing news out of Flint, Mich., and the spectacle of that state utterly failing to provide basic services to residents in a way we are more used to seeing in the Third World.

Closer to home, Georgia lawmakers Continue reading →

Sanford Bishop GA-02 requests Supplementary Environmental Impact Statement for Sabal Trail from U.S. Army Corps of Engineers 2016-05-27

Rep. Sanford Bishop GA-02 just stood up again against the Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline invader, for the Flint River, the Floridan Aquifer, and his constituents in Albany, and Dougherty and Terrell Counties, pointing out FERC shouldn’t have issued a certificate before all the state Clean Water Act Section 401 permits were in, and asking for a Supplementary Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS).

Many counties and county seats have passed resolutions against Sabal Trail I’m sure we’re all looking forward to similar requests from Austin Scott GA-07, in whose Congressional district Sabal Trail would cross Okapilco Creek and the Withlacoochee River, and in which Moultrie, Valdosta, and the counties of Colquitt, Brooks, and Lowndes passed resolutions against the pipeline. And especially from Ted Yoho FL-03, in whose district Sabal Trail would cross the Suwannee and Santa Fe Rivers through the most vulnerable recharge area of the Floridan Aquifer in the Florida Springs Heartland, and in which the counties of Hamilton, Suwannee, and Marion have already sent letters to the Corps, like Rep. Bishop just asked for a Supplementary Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS).

We know the Corps did a SEIS for Keystone XL. The Corps should do a SEIS for Sabal Trail, so Continue reading →

Leadership is supporting the county’s own people against the Sabal Trail invader –WWALS in Suwannee Democrat

In the paper Suwannee Democrat, May 5th, 2016.

A company from Houston, Texas wants to fill our earth, water, and air with violence. WWALS Watershed Coalition showed Suwannee County Commissioners sinkholes in the middle of the pipeline path that Sabal Trail didn’t mention to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). All of them, except Jason Bashaw, studied a report by a local geologist and showed leadership by voting to tell that “truth that exists in the middle” to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The quotation above is a reference to Continue reading →

After Pennsylvania explosion, Ask your county commission to rescind Sabal Trail agreements or at least write the Army Corps of Engineers

Aerial view of incinerated site A Spectra Energy pipeline blew up east of Pittsburgh, incinerating a man’s house and sending him to the hospital with burns. Spectra declared force majeure (Act of God) and is fiddling gas deliveries all over the east coast, as far away as Little Rock, where a branch of that same Spectra Texas Eastern pipeline blew up under the Arkansas River in May 2015. Do you want that under the Withlacoochee or Suwannee River or Okapilco Creek?

For Lowndes County, Georgia, you can write to commissioner@lowndescounty.com.

You can ask them to Continue reading →

Sabal Trail Contractor Fair, Moultrie, GA 2016-04-15

Not just for compressor station counties, also apparently also for where Sabal Trail has promised side taps, including Moultrie, Georgia, as seen today in the Tifton Gazette and the Valdosta Daily Times.

Southern Regional Technical College, Seminar Center, 361 Industrial Drive, Moultrie, GA 31788 When: 11AM – 2PM Friday, April 15th 2016

Where: Southern Regional Technical College, Seminar Center, 361 Industrial Drive, Moultrie, GA 31788

This Moultrie job fair is scheduled one month after Colquitt County sent FERC exorbitant claims of benefits in property tax revenue, wildly high and out-of-context construction jobs claims, and discounted safety and environmental concerns, with no mention whatever of agriculture, nevermind Colquitt County’s letter to FERC two years before about agricultural concerns.

The Colquitt letter to FERC made no mention of lowered property values reducing tax revenue, cited no source, just “It is estimated that”. However, in the same paragraph: Continue reading →

Thanks for a historic victory against Sabal Trail –WWALS in VDT 2016-04-10

In today’s Sunday April 10th 2016 Valdosta Daily Times:

The Georgia House on March 22nd by an unprecedented 34 ayes to 128 nays rejected easements for Sabal Trail Sunday VDT to drill our Withlacoochee and other Georgia Rivers. This was a historic victory by the Georgia Water Coalition, including Georgia Sierra Club, WWALS, Flint Riverkeeper, Chattahoochee Riverkeeper, plus SpectraBusters, and thanks to all of you who called their state reps.

That same day, Continue reading →

Flooding at Valdosta, 2016-04-04

Wondering why Valdosta is having an overflow problem? It was rain on Valdosta, and north of Valdosta.

US 84, Withlacoochee River

Not so much northwest on the Little River, nor even west on Okapilco Creek: Continue reading →

Keep calling your GA House member to oppose SR 954: strip Sabal Trail easements

Your calls are working! Sabal Trail’s allies failed three times to whip up enough votes to pass this travesty. WWALS counties and districts for Georgia House of Representatives

Now please keep calling your state legislators and ask them to stay strong voting against SR 954 until Sabal Trail and Transco easements are taken out of it. It’s currently postponed until next Tuesday, March 22nd, so there’s time to call them through the weekend.

If Georgia Power, the EMCs, and GDOT want their easements, they should also be helping us strip Sabal Trail and Transco out of this bill. A fracked methane pipeline drilling under Okapilco Creek and the Withlacoochee, Ochlockonee, Flint, and Chatthahoochee Rivers is no advantage to anybody in Georgia. Or the Suwannee River in Florida: if you’re in Florida, you probably know somebody in Georgia you can ask to call their Georgia legislator.

Who to Call

Continue reading →

Urge your GA House member to oppose SR 954: strip Sabal Trail easements

Update 2016-03-17: Your calls are working! Please keep calling: details.

You can help stop Georgia eminent domain easements for Sabal Trail from passing the statehouse! (PDF handout)


Photo: TONY CASSADY, 31 May 2015, in Arkansas River pipeline blowout occurred on Sunday morning, cause still unknown, by Benjamin Hardy, Arkansas Blog, 3 June 2015

Sabal Trail (a project of Houston-based Spectra Energy) is a methane frack-gas pipeline that would run from east central Alabama to south-central Florida. Multiple route choices exist. The company has chosen one, despite massive amounts of public objection, that maximizes the public and private impact. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has granted a permit for the particular one the company wants, one which that places a large number of Georgian’s private property under threat of (federal) eminent domain, for private profit. The FERC permit process is under appeal by property owners and advocacy groups. The pipeline still does not have several major state and federal permits (water quality, air, and wetlands).

Yet the Deal Administration seeks Continue reading →