Tag Archives: pipeline

Sabal Trail erosion and waterlogged, Brooks County, GA 2017-01-23

End of pipe in water, CR 146, towards Tallokas Road 30.9873162, -83.6535762 Is that pipe supposed to be wallowing in water? Is that end supposed to be in the water? What about the obvious erosion? Remember Sabal Trail is only burying its 36-inch pipe 36-inches deep most places. Erosion could expose it and make it even more likely to corrode.

WWALS video playlist and more pictures below. Continue reading

Quarterman: Sabal Trail pipeline already damaging our area

Op-ed Tallahassee Democrat, today, Sunday 29 January 2017:

Floridians are withdrawing money from banks backing the Sabal “Sinkhole” Trail pipeline, and demonstrating daily from Miami to Jacksonville and Tallahassee, sometimes physically blocking pipeline destruction. Fossil fuel profits do not justify eminent domain takings of local lands nor any risk to our waters. Solar power is cheaper, faster, and far safer.

Image: Electric power generation employment by technology, U.S. Department of Energy

The solar industry provides more jobs than coal, oil, and natural gas combined. Sabal Trail’s own figures show Continue reading

Walk for Water and Speak for Springs, Dunnellon, FL 2017-01-28

A hundred and fifty people came to Dunnellon, Florida to walk and speak for the most important thing to Florida and south Georgia: water. Megan asked to speak to her school board and they refused Her local school board refused to listen to Megan. We listened. They should, too.

This event was organized by Our Santa Fe River.

These are just a few android phone pictures and videos I took. Stay tuned for WWALS video of all the speakers.

Videos of the water protectors and of the invading Sabal Trail pipeline. Continue reading

Sabal Trail pipe and tires standing in water, Cool Springs Road, Baconton, GA 2017-01-25

Tires 31.3060850, -84.0087700 And they followed her down the road, as Sabal Trail’s hardhats usually do when they see anybody watching their trail of destruction. This was Wednesday 25 January 2017 on Cool Springs Road, Baconton, GA, 31.306085, -84.008770.

Pictures and video by Sherry Layton Gatewood: they didn’t scare her off, and they haven’t scared off the many other people throughout Florida, Georgia, and Alabama who are watching them like hawks, looking for violations.

Kind of hard to get to your fields to do agriculture with this in the way.

Video: Continue reading

Water standing on Sabal Trail RoW, Colquitt County towards Mitchell County, GA 2017-01-25

Erosion After the recent storms, water is standing on Sabal Trail’s exotic invasive planted grasses, and sometimes on bare dirt, some of it apparently eroded, in Colquitt County, Georgia west of Moultrie towards Mitchell County. Remember, that 3-foot fracked methane pipe is only 3 feet under the surface. It wouldn’t take much erosion to expose it, increasing likelihood of corrosion, leak, break, explosion, etc.

These pictures were taken Continue reading

Norman Bay resigns, leaving FERC without a quorum 2017-01-26

After Trump bumped LaFleur over his head today, former FERC Chairman Norman Bay resigned from the Commission this same day. That leaves FERC with only 2 out of five Commission slots occupied. I would guess that means no quorum, although what does it matter? The FERC Commissioners only ever rejected one pipeline in thirty years.

His resignation letter is a six-page pat on his own back that never once mentions solar power, eminent domain, landowners, water, river, aquifer, or environment. His biggest brag is: Continue reading

Cheryl A. LaFleur again FERC Acting Chairman 2017-01-26

President Trump just brushed aside FERC Chairman Norman Bay, one of the few FERC Commissioners to show any reservations about FERC’s rubberstamping of pipelines, and put Commissioner Cheryl LaFleur back once again as Acting Chairman. This while FERC has only three Commissions, when it’s supposed to have five, probably indicates FERC is going to be pushing ahead all pipeline projects. Of course, that’s not much different from what we’ve seen for years with Sabal Trail.

Johnathan Crawford and Jennifer A. Diouhy, Bloomberg Politics, 19 January 2017, Trump Picks LaFleur as Chairman of U.S. Energy Regulator, Sources Say, Continue reading

International coverage of Sabal Trail opposition and Suwannee River water protectors –The Guardian 2017-01-24

For once a news story gives the last word to local water protectors, and it plays up our land and our water.

Richard Luscombe, The Guardian, 24 January 2017, Why a protest camp in Florida is being called the next Standing Rock: At first glance the quiet town of Live Oak seems an unlikely venue for a stand against Big Energy. But in recent weeks it’s become a centre of opposition,

A north Florida river that attracted the state’s first tourists a century before Walt Disney’s famous cartoon mouse is emerging at the centre of a fight against a contentious 515-mile natural gas pipeline that many are calling America’s next Standing Rock.

One section of the so-called Sabal Trail pipeline is being laid beneath the crystal waters of the Suwannee river, whose pure mineral springs were once fabled to cure anything from marital strife to gout.

The story quotes Continue reading

Tornado crosses Sabal Trail unfinished pipeline last night: time to report violations 2017-01-20

It’s time to photograph and report all potential Sabal Trail violations after last night’s storm. Pipeline construction should stop until damage can be independently assessed. I-75 is shut down, and so should Sabal Trail be.

Thats not daylight The sky was lit by lightning all night as a tornado killed two people in Brooks County and more in Cook County, Georgia. In between is Sabal Trail’s pipeline path across Okapilco Creek. I-75 is closed. What did that tornado do to the unfinished pipeline? What will all this water and wind do to all the Sabal Trail pipe exposed on top of the ground? What about that frac-out and sinkhole at Sabal Trail’s Withlacoochee River drilling only a short way downstream? What about Sabal Trail’s pipe going into that now probably waterlogged ream under the Suwannee River, or the Withlacoochee River South? What about Continue reading

Tornado crosses Sabal Trail unfinished pipeline: more corrosion? 2017-01-20

It’s time to photograph and report all potential Sabal Trail violations after last night’s storm. Pipeline construction should stop until damage can be independently assessed. I-75 is shut down, and so should Sabal Trail be.

Thats not daylight The sky was lit by lightning all night as a tornado killed two people in Brooks County and more in Cook County, Georgia. In between is Sabal Trail’s pipeline path across Okapilco Creek. I-75 is closed. What did that tornado do to the unfinished pipeline? What will all this water and wind do to all the Sabal Trail pipe exposed on top of the ground? What about that frac-out and sinkhole at Sabal Trail’s Withlacoochee River drilling only a short way downstream? What about Sabal Trail’s pipe going into that now probably waterlogged ream under the Suwannee River, or the Withlacoochee River South? What about Continue reading