Tag Archives: petition

Petition: Right to Clean Water, Florida, for 2026 ballot 2024-03-08

Hot off the Florida state authentication process!

Florida registered voters, please sign and circulate the petition for a state constitutional amendment for a right to clean and healthy waters (RTCW).

You can get it here, or from
https://www.floridarighttocleanwater.org/

Or from WWALS and Suwannee Riverkeeper at any festival or outing, such as Valdosta Azalea Festival today. Yes, that festival is in Georgia, but many people from Florida attend.

[Four Florida rivers (Withlacoochee, Ichetucknee, Santa Fe, Suwannee), RTCW Petition and Full Text 2024-03-08]
Four Florida rivers (Withlacoochee, Ichetucknee, Santa Fe, Suwannee), RTCW Petition and Full Text 2024-03-08

With around a million signatures, RTCW will get on the ballot for 2026. The legislature and the governor do not have to approve it. The people do, and when it gets on the ballot and an overwhelming majority vote for it, it will immediately become law. Law that can be used to tilt the playing field that is currently way over towards developers and polluters. Law like has been used successfully in Pennsylvania and Montana to deal with water pollution, fracking, and climate change.

This RTCW petition is fundamentally different from the 2014 Amendment 1, Florida Water and Land Conservation Initiative. That ended up in Article X, along with many other well-meaning and good-sounding provisions in that and other Articles.

RTCW goes in Article I along with other basic rights such as religious freedom and freedom of speech. Not law like all the other well-meaning and good-sounding provisions in other articles of the constition.

Sure, the legislature can still try to pass laws to circumvent RTCW and state agencies can try not to implement it. But that will be harder with a fundamental right in Article I.

The RTCW amendment is long because it has been written by attorneys to avoid complications such as Continue reading →

The Mermaid says sign the petition, Rights to Clean Water for Florida 2023-03-26

The mermaid likes it.

Florida registered voters, please sign the petition to get a state constitutional amendment for Rights to Clean and Healthy Waters on the ballot:
https://www.floridarighttocleanwater.org

[The Mermaid says sign the RTCW petition]
The Mermaid says sign the RTCW petition

This picture of Mermaid Danielle Shmalberg with the RTCW petition and Suwannee Riverkeeper John S. Quarterman was taken at the 2023 OSFR Songwriting Contest, part of RiverFest by Our Santa Fe River.

WWALS has shamelessly copied that idea for years. Join us Friday evening, September 22, 2023, for the sixth annual Suwannee Riverkeeper Songwriting Contest as part of the first-ever WWALS gala fundraising dinner, WWALS River Revue:
https://www.betterunite.com/WWALS-wwalsriverrevue2023/ Continue reading →

WWALS response to FERC on opposition comments of Pivotal LNG about small, inland LNG Rulemaking 2022-10-04

Update 2022-10-26: WWALS response to opposition comments by Eagle LNG about small, inland LNG 2022-10-17.

Today WWALS and seven other organizations rebutted the opposition comments of Pivotal LNG, LLC to the WWALS, et al. petition to FERC for Rulemaking on small, inland, LNG facilities.

[First and last page]
First and last page

If you also want to intervene or comment, here’s how:
https://wwals.net/?p=59062#tocomment.

Yes, the comment deadline has passed, but a FERC attorney told me the Commission usually considers comments filed later.

Thanks to all the co-signers on today’s response: LEAD Agency, Inc., Kissimmee Waterkeeper, Lake Worth Waterkeeper, Peace+Myakka Waterkeeper, Collier County Waterkeeper, Three Rivers Waterkeepers, and Food and Water Watch.

Thanks to all the previous commenters, especially Floridians Against Dirty Energy (FADE), League of Women Voters, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Florida Springs Council, Sierra Club, Waterkeeper Alliance, Waterkeepers Chesapeake, Lower Susquehanna Riverkeeper, Anacostia Riverkeeper, Potomac Riverkeeper, Assateague Coastal Trust, Delaware Riverkeeper Network, and others too numerous to list here.

Thanks to Maxine Connor for rustling up many of those organizations.

Thanks as always to Cecile Scofield, doggedly pursuing LNG for decades now.

The Response

Filed with FERC 2022-10-04 12:40:32 PM as Accession Number: 20221004-5116, “Response to Opposition Comments of Pivotal LNG, LLC, by WWALS Watershed Coalition, Inc., et al., under RM22-21.”

See also Continue reading →

One week left to comment on FERC LNG Rulemaking, deadline 2022-09-20

Update 2022-10-04: WWALS response to FERC on opposition comments of Pivotal LNG about small, inland LNG Rulemaking 2022-10-04.

Here’s how you can comment or intervene on the FERC Rulemaking on small inland LNG export facilities:
https://wwals.net/?p=59062#tocomment

It’s easy to comment or intervene, so you can do it by the deadline of September 20, 2022. Public Citizen and Food and Water Watch have already intervened. We guess they are preparing comments to convince the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to resume the responsibility it abdicated in 2015, of environmental oversight of Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) export facilities even when are not located where they can directly load LNG onto ocean-going tanker ships. Instead, those inland facilities send highly compressed and explosive LNG in trucks and train cars down public highways past schools, business, churches, and homes, through counties none of which have adequate emergency plans. And where-ever that gas eventually gets burned, in Europe, Caribbean, or Asia, it adds to the atmosphere more methane, a worse greenhouse gas than CO2, cooking the planet and raising sea levels. You are affected, even if you do not have an LNG export operation near you.

[LNG tanker truck on I-75 turning onto I-10 for Jacksonville, LNG export map by WWALS]
LNG tanker truck on I-75 turning onto I-10 for Jacksonville, LNG export map by WWALS

If you comment or intervene, we will invite you to join us and our co-signers in the series of zoom meetings we’re having with the FERC Office of Public Participation (OPP). You can help find out what OPP is actually doing. At least they’re asking for Continue reading →

FERC Requests Comments on Rulemaking for small inland LNG export facilities

Update 2022-10-26: WWALS response to opposition comments by Eagle LNG about small, inland LNG 2022-10-17.

Update 2022-10-04: WWALS response to FERC on opposition comments of Pivotal LNG about small, inland LNG Rulemaking 2022-10-04.

Update 2022-09-19: Comment on FERC LNG Export Rulemaking with Florida Physicians for Social Responsibility 2022-09-20.

Update 2022-09-13: One week left to comment on FERC LNG Rulemaking, deadline 2022-09-20.

Update 2022-08-29: FERC must close regulatory gaps in small-scale inland LNG export facilities –Cecile Scofield 2022-08-11.

Hahira Georgia, July 26, 2022 — At the request of WWALS Watershed Coalition, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has opened a process that could correct its mistakes of eight years ago when it disclaimed oversight of dangerous compressed methane export facilities as long as they did not load directly onto ocean-going ships. Those decisions produced environmental, safety, and economic problems. The request provides FERC with an opportunity to “revisit” and “revise” those old decisions, as FERC Chair Richard Glick has recommended.

LNG tanker truck, Southbound I-75, 2018-03-26; Photo John S. Quarterman
LNG tanker truck, Southbound I-75, 2018-03-26; Photo John S. Quarterman

Anyone can comment and organizations can intervene on this new FERC docket for potential Rulemaking on Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) export. The deadline is September 20, 2022. That’s Docket RM22-21 on ferc.gov. Detailed instructions are below.

Please also contact your state and national elected officials and ask them to ask FERC to resume its oversight.

The Introduction of the Petition lays out the problem we want to get solved: Continue reading →

FERC requests comments on WWALS Petition for Rulemaking on FERC Oversight of Small-Scale Inland LNG Export Facilities 2022-07-22

Update 2022-07-26: Press release, FERC Requests Comments on Rulemaking for small inland LNG export facilities.

FERC has created a docket for our petition and has filed in it a notice requesting comments by September 20, 2022.

[Notice and map]
Notice and map

Interested parties can file in that docket RM22-21 to intervene and then file comments and motions.

Also on Friday, FERC asked if we wanted to file the cover letter in the docket, so I did. It feels very strange to have FERC politely asking us to file things.

Thanks again to Continue reading →

Petition for Rulemaking on FERC Oversight of Small-Scale Inland LNG Export Facilities 2022-07-22

Update 2022-10-26: WWALS response to opposition comments by Eagle LNG about small, inland LNG 2022-10-17.

Update 2022-10-04: WWALS response to FERC on opposition comments of Pivotal LNG about small, inland LNG Rulemaking 2022-10-04.

Update 2022-07-23: FERC requests comments on WWALS Petition for Rulemaking on FERC Oversight of Small-Scale Inland LNG Export Facilities 2022-07-22.

FERC has filed our petition in a new docket, RM22-21. We shall see what they do from there on this request to open a Rulemaking to revisit, as FERC Chair Richard Glick has suggested, FERC’s decisions of 2014 and 2015 that left small inland LNG export facilities without environmental oversight.

[What and by Whom]
What and by Whom

Many thanks to Cecile Scofield for keeping after this issue for years, and to the rest of the WWALS Issues Committee.

And thanks to each of our co-signers, Continue reading →

Petition to Initiate a Rulemaking for Small-Scale Inland LNG Export Facilities –WWALS to FERC 2021-11-19

Update 2022-07-22: New method, now in a new FERC docket, Petition for Rulemaking on FERC Oversight of Small-Scale Inland LNG Export Facilities 2022-07-22.

Suwannee Riverkeeper asks FERC to oversee inland Liquid Natural Gas export facilities

Hahira, Georgia, November 26, 2021 (PDF)  —  After years of trying to get FERC to pay attention to an economic, health, and safety issue, Suwannee Riverkeeper for WWALS Watershed Coalition, Inc. has asked FERC to make a rule requiring inland LNG export facilities at least to ask FERC whether it has oversight.

Because the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) half a decade ago disclaimed oversight of export facilities for explosive compressed Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) unless ships loaded right there for overseas shipping, such facilities are lacking FERC’s environmental, construction, and safety oversight, causing risk of “ loss of life and significant environmental and economic consequences,” according to FERC’s own strategic plan. Residents of densely populated neighborhoods where inland LNG export plants are being sited, constructed, and operated are in harm’s way. FERC has relegated the responsibility to citizens to police potential threats to public health, safety and welfare posed by these high-risk LNG operations. There are no official Dockets that provide the public an opportunity to participate in any approval process.

[LNG export facilities; WWALS Rulemaking petition to FERC]
LNG export facilities; WWALS Rulemaking petition to FERC

Even a competing inland LNG company complained of economic issues: “During its pendency, the Commission has determined that certain LNG projects are outside its jurisdiction, permitting those projects to compete free from the FERC regulatory burdens that FGS and other FERC-regulated projects bear in what has become an active, urgent and highly competitive small-scale LNG market."

WWALS views the FERC regulatory burdens as public goods of construction, environmental, and safety review, but the point remains that competition has been warped by FERC’s inland LNG export decisions.

“We filed this Petition under the same Federal law as three cases back in 2013-2015 when FERC abdicated oversight of inland LNG export operations,” said WWALS member Cecile Scofield, who opposed an ill-conceived huge 8 billion cubic feet (Bcf) per year LNG import terminal in Massachusetts in early 2000 .   She also noted that, “A Rulemaking is needed to determine FERC jurisdiction before a developer spends millions of dollars constructing an inland export facility only to have it shut down by FERC after it begins operation.”

“Last March, Continue reading →

Clean water amendment worth backing –Citrus County Chronicle 2021-08-24

Yes, Floridians, please sign the petition at FL5.org to get the Right to Clean Water constitutional amendment on the ballot, for our rivers, springs, and drinking water from the Floridian Aquifer.

This editorial is quite surprising from the Citrus County Chronicle, which has been all for the Duke Energy fracked methane power plant in Crystal River and has not opposed Strom Inc.’s Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) proposed facility there. Maybe education and persuasion have some effects.

[Clean water amendment worth backing]
Clean water amendment worth backing

Page A9 – TUESDAY, AUGUST 24, 2021

OPINION

CITRUS COUNTY CHRONICLE

EDITORIAL BOARD

The opinions expressed in Chronicle editorials
are the opinions of the newspaper’s editorial board.

CLEAN WATER A MUST

Clean water amendment worth backing

Clean water is imperative to our ecosystem both in Florida and throughout the world.

Continue reading →

More rain, more Valdosta WTP spills 2018-12-17

Update 2018-12-18: And a Florida Department of Health warning.

This is the first Valdosta spill press release that mentions the proposed additional catch basin. It still doesn’t acknowledge the other 13 spill locations from last time, nor does it say which, if any, of the previous spills was finally stopped.

I have requested an update from GA-EPD for what reports they have received, and I’ll post their response tomorrow. Meanwhile, you can sign the petition to ask GA-EPD to tell everyone when anyone spills.

Received 3:13 PM, Valdosta PR 17 December 2018, Weekend Storm Results in Sewer Overflow,

Buffer tank, Outside Withlacoochee WTP
Photo: John S. Quarterman for WWALS, of one of four processing units, during WWTP tour, 3 October 2018.

During the past two weeks, The City of Valdosta and surrounding areas have received a combined total of 15 inches of rain during several storm events. Included in that total is the 3 to 4 inches of rain that Valdosta received over the weekend. During the most recent weekend rain event, city infrastructure operated as designed. While the WWTP has a normal average daily flow of 3.5 million gallons (MG), this past weekend, the influent flow peaked at more than 22 MG—nearly seven times the normal rate. As a result of recent rainfall totals into the plant, the structures were overwhelmed. The current system has four processing units, although during normal operations the system only requires one. During this storm event, the Withlacoochee Plant was running all four units plus the excess flow equalization basin. Additionally, the city is working with the Georgia Environmental Protection Division to design and install additional storage capacity at the facility.

On December 15 and 16, the City of Valdosta’s Withlacoochee Wastewater Treatment Plant identified intermittent sewage spills. The spill was caused by Continue reading →