Tag Archives: pollution

Florida Public Notice of Pollution

While Alabama is thinking about it (actually, Alabama already does it) and Georgia requires an open records request with slow response (since 2018-12-21 Georgia now posts spills),

Florida has already required and is publishing timely notices of spills, and more recently a map of the most recent 30 days of spills!

Among them, surprisingly few in the Suwannee River Basin from Hurricane Irma: three in Baker and Bradford Counties from The Chemours Company, and two from Camp Blanding.

Follow this link for the interactive google map.

Daniel H. Thompson, Lexology, 4 May 2017, Florida Legislature Passes “Public Notice of Pollution Act” Continue reading →

If we hear about a sinkhole or a leak, we’ll be there –WWALS @ WCTV 2017-06-15

It’s not over just because the gas is flowing through Sabal Trail. We’ll be watching, and we’re escalating.

Noelani Mathews, WCTV, June 15, 2017, Local environmentalist groups prepare for Sabal Trail Pipeline to go online,

“We’ve always did a lot online and through legal angles and we’re going to continue doing a lot of that,” says John Quarterman, WWALS President. “If we hear about a sink hole or a leak, we’ll be there taking pictures.”

Sabal Trail Transmission spokeswoman Andrea Grover said, Continue reading →

Sabal Trail in-service: keep watching them 2017-06-14

There are still many things you can do, from permit violations to FERC reform, after FPL gloated yesterday about starting the gas through Transco, Sabal Trail, and FSC. Pipelines leak, and another pipeline’s go-ahead just got slapped down by a federal court, plus we need to change the whole legal game. Meanwhile, continuing the rocketing rise of solar power in the Sunshine State and everywhere else is the best way to pry the clammy grip of the fossil fuel industry off our political system.

Photo: Mitch Allen

Susan Salisbury, Palm Beach Post, 14 June 2017, Sabal Trail, Florida SE Connection are now piping fuel to FPL,

“The start of Florida Southeast Connection and Sabal Trail Transmission natural gas pipeline operations is an important milestone for FPL customers and Florida’s economy,” FPL president and CEO Eric Silagy said.

It may indeed be a milestone of the last pipeline ever built into Florida or through Georgia.

It may even be a milestone of Continue reading →

Coal ash protection legislation pending in Georgia legislature

The Georgia Water Coalition (of which WWALS is a partner) notes the city of Brunswick, Georgia passed a resolution agaionst coal ash 21 September 2016, and legislation is about to appear in the Georgia House of Representatives. There is already TVA and JEA coal ash in the Pecan Row Landfill in Lowndes County, just outside Valdosta, and in WWALS watersheds other landfills likely to be targetted are in Cook, Tift, Atkinson, Ben Hill, and Crisp Counties (see GWC map), all upstream of the Withlacoochee or Alapaha Rivers, and all upstream of the Suwannee River, all above the Floridan Aquifer from which we all drink. We don’t want the utility company coal ash problem exported to our landfills. The companies that produced this toxic pollutant should be responsible for disposing of it safely at their expense without foisting it on the rest of us.

Coal Ash in Your District — Ash Ponds & Municipal Solid Waste, Published by the GA Water Coalition
See also the GWC position on coal ash.

WWALS recommends all Georgia legislators, especially those in WWALS watersheds, join in to prevent further coal ash contamination. See as an example the PR below by Rep. Jeff Jones of Brunswick, which concludes: Continue reading →

Ensuring Sabal Trail compliance with LWCF

WWALS signed onto a letter asking for Sabal Trail to be examined for LWCF compliance.

Jonathon Berman, Sierra Club Georgia Chapter, 12 April 2016, Conservation groups call for public parks to be put ahead of corporate polluters’ pipeline plans,

Atlanta, GA — Today, seven groups called on the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) state liaison officers for Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and Mississippi to ensure that the proposed Sabal Trail pipeline, a joint venture by Duke Energy, NextEra Energy, Inc., and Spectra Energy Corp, and Magnolia Extension, owned by American Midstream, does not threaten public parks and recreation areas.

The letter highlights the environmental dangers the proposed Sabal Trail and Magnolia Extension projects pose to at least 11 parks and public recreation areas paid for by the LWCF.

Created in 1965, the LWCF is a federal program that provides matching grants and other federal assistance for public parks and recreation areas. The program has safeguards to ensure that lands purchased with its funds are protected for public outdoor recreation. The groups warn that rapidly multiplying planned pipeline projects do not appear to be compliant Continue reading →

Online movie: At What Cost? Pipelines, Pollution and Eminent Domain in the Rural South

If you missed it in Live Oak last night, or in one of the previous premieres along the Georgia coast, you can see the movie online: At What Cost? Pipelines, Pollution and Eminent Domain in the Rural South, by Mark Albertin. And yes, he’s happy for it to be shown elsewhere; just ask.

Thanks to Push Back the Pipeline for getting this movie made about Kinder Morgan’s proposed petroleum products pipeline from South Carolina across the Georgia coast to Jacksonville, Florida. Special thanks to Eileen, Lori, and Debra and the Woman’s Club of Live Oak for the movie showing last night, and to SpectraBusters, Our Santa Fe River, and Gulf Restoration Network for helping promote it. Don’t forget the hike to the Suwannee River Sabal Trail crossing 8:15 AM Thursday 28 February 2016 with Suwannee and Hamilton County Commissioners.

Most of the issues are the same for the invading Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline which Continue reading →

At What Cost? Pipelines, Pollution and Eminent Domain in the Rural South –Movie in Live Oak, FL 2016-02-12

Please join us for a documentary about property rights and the environment vs. pipelines (PDF; facebook event; meetup event). Yes, FERC has issued certificates for Sabal Trail, but the fight is not over.

When: 6:30 PM Friday February 12^th

Where: Live Oak Womans Club,
1308 11TH St SW, Live Oak, FL 32064

What: View the film:
“At What Cost? Pipelines, Pollution and Eminent Domain in the Rural South”
A documentary film by Mark Albertin
Video Trailer

Thanks: to Push Back the Pipeline for getting this movie made

This film is about the Kinder Morgan petroleum products Palmetto Pipeline proposed across coastal Georgia to Jacksonville, but the issues are the same for Spectra Energy’s proposed fracked methane Sabal Trail pipeline from Continue reading →

Florida Well Salinity Study

Update 2017-05-18: Salt water intrusion inland is worse than you think, including the “Apalachicola salinity feature” up to the GA-FL line and east through Lowndes County, with a special additional brackish Valdosta feature. See Revised Hydrogeologic Framework of the Floridan Aquifer System 2016-03.

Update 2016-02-22: Fixed URLs for DEP files.

Salt water and other solids are coming up in Florida wells far inland from the sea, right up to the state line, and it probably doesn’t stop there. The problem is worse on the coasts and in south Florida, but north central Florida is not immune, judging by these preliminary maps by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. Likely culprits would seem to include overpumping. Continue reading →

Floridan Aquifer VSU class paper

Found by Chris Graham. I added the illustrations and the table. -jsq

THE FLORIDAN AQUIFER
by Sandra McCullough
Sandra McCullough lives in Valdosta, Georgia. She is a Speech Communications major and has an interest in the Environment and Humankind’s interaction with the Environment. Sandra plans to continue her education and become a teacher of public speaking. The topic to be discussed here is the Floridan Aquifer.

The Floridan aquifer system is very important to a large number of people, despite general lack of knowledge of or about it. The Floridan aquifer underlies all of Florida, south Georgia, and parts of both Alabama and South Carolina.’ This particular aquifer system is one of the major sources of ground-water in the United States. For this reason and more, studies of its function have been done for years. These studies as well as other findings will be discussed in this paper.
Continue reading →

Nonpoint Source Pollution biggest water quality problem –EPA

EPA found phosphorus and nitrogen from fertilizers, bacteria and other pollutants from urban runoff, plus mercury, in most U.S. rivers and streams. And they didn’t even mention low dissolved oxygen.

Ian Simpson wrote for Reuters, carried by NBC, EPA: More than half of U.S. rivers unsuitable for aquatic life,

Fifty-five percent of U.S. river and stream lengths were in poor condition for aquatic life, largely under threat from runoff contaminated by fertilizers, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said on Tuesday.

High levels of phosphorus and nitrogen, runoff from urban areas, shrinking ground cover and pollution from mercury and bacteria were putting the 1.2 million miles of streams and rivers surveyed under stress, the EPA said.

“This new science shows that America’s streams and rivers are under significant pressure,” Nancy Stone, acting administrator of the EPA’s Office of Water, said in a statement.

Twenty-one percent of the United States’ river and stream length was

Continue reading →

WWALS Watershed Coalition (WWALS) is Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®

A healthy watershed with clean, swimmable, fishable, drinkable water.