Tag Archives: pipeline

Sabal Trail Hamilton County Suwannee River HDD

Movie: Generator at drill site (1.5M) The pipe to go under the Suwannee RIver is laid out, welded, and has pressure test fittings at the Hamilton County side of the Suwannee River, but the drill site itself has nothing but a generator. So it looks like they’re drilling under from the Suwannee County side Here are some pictures and videos taken in Hamilton County near CR 141. Sabal Trail didn’t like that.

Pressure fitting on pipe

This is the site at 30.410381, -83.165874 that you see in the foreground in an aerial picture in a previous post.

Here’s a playlist of WWALS videos, and there are more pictures below. Continue reading

Sabal Trail violations FDEP assured us would not happen are happening

Already under the Withlacoochee River in Georgia there’s been a frac-out and a sinkhole at a drilling site, upstream from the Suwannee River in Florida, under which FDEP told us it couldn’t happen:

Lisa Prather, sole FDEP witness Well, the Suwannee River crossing doesn’t, in fact, have any impacts to an outstanding Florida water….”

“Well, any work within, or could have adverse effects on OFW, is considered. In this case, we determine that there would be no impacts to the OFW.

Apparently not only FDEP’s sole witness Lisa Prather believed Sabal Trail; according to a video yesterday by Cody Suggs at the Suwannee River, Sabal Trail’s own workers seem to believe their company’s propaganda.

Much more about WWALS v Sabal Trail & FDEP is on the WWALS website, including videos and transcripts of the landowners who also tried to warn FDEP that sinkholes happen like they already have including under at least two public roads in Suwannee County, Florida. And more about what already happened is on the WWALS website, plus things you can do to stop this $3 billion dollar fracked methane boondoggle.

For example, you may want to ask the permitting agencies some of the questions WWALS asked, including this one:

Which of FERC, FDEP, GA-EPD, USACE, SRWMD are working to protect the health, welfare and safety of the communities surrounding this pipeline and how are they doing that?

Given that I asked them for a prompt answer and two weeks later have gotten no answer at all, it sure looks like we the people will have to find and report violations and use other methods to stop this pipeline.

The transcript questions quoted below are Continue reading

Calypso Court sinkhole 2000 feet from Sabal Trail pipeline

A major sinkhole developed today within about 2000 feet of Sabal Trail’s path in Osceola County, Florida. Rather like what we warned them about last year in WWALS v Sabal Trail & FDEP.

Calypso Court Sinkhole and Sabal Trail Caitlin Doornbos, Orlando Sentinel, 9 Dec 2016, Sinkhole displaces residents of condo complex west of Disney World,

Multiple families were displaced after a sinkhole developed in a gated condominium complex west of Disney’s Animal Kingdom on Friday, Osceola County officials said.

The sinkhole was first reported in Continue reading

Sabal Trail at Okapilco Creek 2016-12-06

Update 2016-12-08: Complaint filed with GA-EPD, USACE, FERC: PDF.

Movie: Red pipe, Okapilco Creek, Little Creek, Coffee Road, w. of GA 333, 30.9182490, -83.5904850 We didn’t see any silt fences where Sabal Trail has red pipe laid out across Okapilco Creek and Little Creek, north of Coffee Road, west of GA 333 in Brooks County, Georgia, between Barwick and Barney.

Red pipe, Okapilco Creek Middle Bridge, Sabal Trail,
Red pipe, Okapilco Creek Middle Bridge, Sabal Trail, 30.9174160, -83.5892520

Continue reading

College mutual fund VA529 owns Sabal Trail stranded assets

Update 2016-12-08: Letter sent to VA529 board: PDF.

Do the parents and grandparents who bought Virginia529 funds as safe investments for future college know VA529 is the biggest mutual fund investor in risky investments Spectra Energy of Sabal Trail and Enbridge of the Dakota Access Pipeline? Maybe you’d like to point that out to Mary G. Morris, the Chief Executive Officer of Virginia529 College Savings Plan, the biggest mutual fund investor in both Spectra Energy and in Enbridge, which is buying Spectra.

Sabal Trail through Suwannee River State Park

There’s a handy VA529 contact form or you can call or write: Continue reading

Madison Blue Spring and Sabal Trail pipeline 2016-11-23

Sabal Trail only barely misses the Withlacoochee River in Florida, even though it no longer crosses over into Madison County. And it’s the same Floridan Aquifer on both sides of the river.

Springs and pipeline, 30.4828540, -83.2577470: The red line is Sabal Trail in Hamilton County. In the foreground in Madison County is Madison Blue Spring on the Withlacoochee River, and the P is Pot Spring farther downstream. The N is Nestle; you’d think they’d care about potential damage to the aquifer from which they suck water.

Springs and pipeline,

Withlacoochee River, pipeline, 30.4591650, -83.2224900: Close enough? Continue reading

National coverage of Sabal Trail as Florida’s DAPL: #NoDAPL, #NoSabalTrail, #WaterIsLife

Some national coverage! Now that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has backed off letting the Dakota Access Pipeline drill under the Missouri River in North Dakota because of concerns of local water users, the Corps, FERC, and FDEP should do the same: stop Sabal Trail from drilling under the Suwannee River.

Larry Buhl, DeSmogBlog, 4 December 2016, Critics Call $3 Billion Sabal Trail Pipeline Florida’s Dakota Access Pipeline,

As opposition to the Dakota Access pipeline swells at home and abroad, another pipeline project at the other end of the U.S. is quietly being installed as fast as possible, critics say, displacing residents, threatening water supplies, and racking up alleged construction violations.

And most people in the region — even those in the pipeline’s path — haven’t even heard about it.

Sabal Trail Transmission, LLC, known as Sabal Trail, is using $3 billion of Florida Power and Light (FPL) ratepayer money to build a 515-mile pipeline to transport natural gas obtained via fracking from eastern Alabama to central Florida.

Activists Document Construction Violations

Continue reading

Informative forum against Sabal Trail in Citrus County –Harriet Heywood

WWALS member Harriet Heywood, Citrus County Chronicle, 3 December 2016, Sabal Trail forum was informative,

I was an attendee at the Public Forum on Sabal Trail on Nov. 21.

As an attendee, I found the forum at the Unitarian Universalist Church, endorsed by the League of Women Voters, to be both educational and well-presented, and the event was well-attended. To read the Sabal Trail-perspective piece, in The Chronicle almost a week post-forum, you might believe speaker and attendee fears were unfounded. However, Spectra Energy, the parent company of Sabal Trail has an extremely bad safety record, with blowouts, leaks and explosions occurring far more often than Sabal Trail’s spokesperson admitted in the Sunday article, including an explosion in Pennsylvania last April and a huge blowout in The Arkansas River in 2015, among many other accidents and safety violations. The article covering the forum colored speakers and attendees as ill-informed worrywarts. As far as I could tell, no one from Sabal Trail attended the forum.

I have since learned that sinkholes and drilling blowouts have already occurred recently, in both Georgia and North Florida, video-documented by Sierra Club’s Merrillee Malwitz-Jipson and John S. Quarterman, president, WWALS Watershed Coalition. A sinkhole opened at a Sabal Trail construction site in Suwannee County, near the Santa Fe River, on C.R. 49 between Branford and Live Oak (the site of the O’Brien, Hildreth Compressor Station) damaging at least the road there.

And another well-documented Valdosta, Georgia area Withlacoochee River drilling blowout occurred as Sabal Trail was drilling under the river. Impossible events, according to Sabal Trail’s spokesperson. There are other documented incidents of wildlife and wetland destruction in the Hunter Creek region as the pipeline makes its way to South Florida for export. Forum attendees were not ill-informed worrywarts. They were well-educated concerned citizens.

There were numerous safety concerns raised about Continue reading

Quitman, GA supplying water to Sabal Trail

Confirmed: Sabal Trail’s water for drilling under the Withlacoochee River in Georgia is coming from Quitman, Georgia. Specifically from a fire hydrant on Holloway Drive just east of Young Street.

Fire Hydrant

Sabal Trail previously told FERC Continue reading

Sinkhole, Sabal Trail HDD, Lowndes County, GA 2016-12-02

Sabal Trail caused a sinkhole at the HDD site in Lowndes County, in addition to Orange safety fence in front of drill site the frac-out under the Withlacoochee River previously discovered by WWALS, plus a bunch of other sinkholes or “depressions” they just reported today. They say they discovered the HDD site sinkhole the day after they told FERC there was no sinkhole at what appears to be exactly the location they now, four weeks later, say is a sinkhole.

FERC Accession Number: 20161202-5137, “Sabal Trail Transmission, LLC submits it Continue reading