Sabal Fail wrapped it in towels, sprayed a deodorant, and waited until morning.
“Houston, we have a problem,” a Marion County resident remarked.
“Will be getting someone to respond,” Sabal Trail told Marion County 22 minutes after the call. When the county arrived (half an hour after the 911 call, mostly due to road distance), Sabal Trail personnel didn’t have the situation under control and hadn’t even communicated with Houston yet.
Marion County’s Narrative says: Continue reading
Sabal Trail did not notify state or local officials about their “odorant” leak at the Dunnellon Compressor Station site, and Sabal Trail’s response to WWALS failed to mention local people called the same stink in to 911 two days in a row. FDEP said there’s no need so long as Sabal Trail follows various permits, but gave no indication of who is checking to see if Sabal Trail does that. Apparently we the people have to keep doing what the state and federal agencies still aren’t doing: watch Sabal Trail like a hawk.
Google map of locations of Dunnellon High School and Sabal Trail Dunnellon Compressor Station.
You can see most of the 100-foot Sabal Trail right of way.
Below are responses from FDEP and more details from Marion County Public Relations and Fire and Rescue, and from Dunnellon Fire and Rescue: none of them were notified by Sabal Trail, and FDEP seems OK with that. For the rest, an emergency plan would be prudent: “Run like hell” as in Spectra compressor station incidents elsewhere, is probably not adequate. Continue reading
Here are updated maps of the two big pipelines in Suwannee County (before Sabal Trail): SONAT and FGT, feeding Duke’s Suwannee River Power Plant and Pilgrim’s Pride, from the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Agency (PHMSA) Public Map Viewer that shows where the main pipelines go, county by county.
PHMSA says there are only two main pipelines in Suwannee County, one east-west across the top, and one north-south and then over into Columbia County.
Here’s an older version from January 2016 before PHMSA changed their map viewer: Continue reading
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.
An Orlando TV station investigates the pipeline pushers
and finds both them and Sabal Trail wanting,
digging up some new evidence of apparent back-room collusion.
Christopher Heath, WFTV, 1 September 2015, 9 Investigates new Florida natural gas pipeline,
A third natural gas pipeline is in the works for Florida. But, even as the power companies pushing the plan tout the need for increased natural gas in the state, questions are being raised about the company actually building the pipeline.
The web version goes into PHMSA fines and Continue reading
The evidence stacks up against the three-part pipeline, Sabal Trail, Florida Southeast Connection, and Hillabee Expansion Project, despite rote denials by FPL and Sabal Trail. And this article ties the WWALS petition against drilling under the Suwannee River with the Georgia opposition to a compressor station in Albany.
Susan Salisbury, Palm Beach Post, 31 August 2015, Gas pipeline slated to supply FPL’s plants faces opposition,
A proposed $3.5 billion natural gas pipeline is either essential to Florida’s energy future or a looming disaster that has the potential to damage the iconic Suwannee River and the state’s fragile limestone Floridan Aquifer on its way to Palm Beach County and the Treasure Coast….
In recent months, concerns have been raised Continue reading
From Florida Bulldog to a daily with more than 140,000 circulation.
Dan Christensen, Miami Herald, 16 August 2015,
Pipeline company with tie to Gov. Scott and state backing, has history of accidents,
Spectra Energy, the company that state environmental regulators say should be allowed to construct a 267-mile-long natural gas pipeline in North Florida, has a checkered history of accidents and violations of federal safety rules in the U.S. and Canada dating back decades.
Do we want to risk Sabal Trail’s fracked methane pipeline blowing out
under the Suwannee or Withlacoochee Rivers like
Spectra’s Texas Eastern Pipeline blew out under the Arkansas River in May?
WWALS doesn’t, which is why we filed the
petition to Florida’s Department of Environmental Protection
asking them not to issue a permit for Sabal Trail.
The Little Rock blowout is one of several recent Spectra incidents Dan Christensen finds today in FloridaBulldog.org, Pipeline company with tie to Gov. Scott, and state backing, has history of accidents, Continue reading
Canada’s National Energy Board just ordered Spectra Energy to fix chronic
corrosion and leak problems after numerous fines, as did U.S. PHMSA before, yet
Florida’s DEP plans to trust Spectra to build the Sabal Trail pipeline
on top of our Floridan Aquifer, drilling under the Suwannee and Santa Fe
Rivers.
This in the Notice of Intent to Issue Sabal Trail Transmission of 10 July 2015 sounds good without that context: Continue reading