Tag Archives: quality

Bill Gates in Lowndes County in the Alapaha River watershed

300x220 Lake Park, in Cottonwood Ag Management in SW Echols County, by John S. Quarterman, for WWALS.net, 22 October 2014 The east side of Lake Park and east of Naylor: acreage bought by a shell of a shell of a shell of Bill Gates’ investment company in the past two years.

170.57 acres in Parcel 0224 003 just east of Lake Park, plus another 126 acres in adjoining parcels inside and outside of Lake Park, which is most of the blue acreage on this map, all in the Alapahoochee River watershed, owned by Lakeland Sands according to the Lowndes County Tax Assessors database. Continue reading

Anti-fracking ordinance on agenda, Columbia County, FL 2015-01-15

We all drink out of the same Floridan Aquifer, and the Santa Fe River, like WWALS’ Withlacoochee River, is a tributary of the Suwannee River. Fracking in north Florida could affect our drinking water, and if it were allowed there, next frackers would try to cross the state line, just like the Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline already is. So everyone who can, please support OSFR. -jsq

Our Santa Fe River Action Alert 31 December 2014, Important Meeting, Please Attend, County Commissioners, Lake City On Jan. 15, 2015,

OSFR as an organization will be on the agenda of the Columbia County Board of County Commissioners at the Jan. 15 meeting, requesting that the commission enact an ordinance which bans all forms of fracking in Columbia County.

Please plan to attend this important meeting, either Continue reading

Sabal Trail on GWC Dirty Dozen: contamination, sinkholes, aquifer –WCTV

WCTV’s Winnie Wright interviewed VSU’s Don Thieme, and VSU’s Can Denizman navigated her to the the Cherry Creek sinkhole site for part of her report about 300x169 Sinkhole opened suddenly --Winnie Wright, in GWC Dirty Dozen Sabal Trail on WCTV, by John S. Quarterman, for WWALS.net, 26 November 2014 the Withlacoochee River in Georgia Water Coalition Dirty Dozen 2014 Item 9 as threatened by the Sabal Trail pipeline. Sabal Trail’s Andrea Grover is “disappointed” in being on the Dirty Dozen; does she also find it “hard to believe” like Sabal Trail’s well-documented eminent domain threats?

Winnie Wright, WCTV, 26 November 2014, Sabal Trail Pipeline Environmental Concerns Cited In Annual ‘Dirty Dozen’ Report, Continue reading

Dirty Dozen, sinkhole, aquifer, drinking water, and corrosion –WWALS to FERC about Sabal Trail

“There is no reason anyone in WWALS’ watersheds should accept any risk for the profit of Williams Company, Spectra Energy, and FPL, when any need for the Sabal Trail pipeline is unproven, and in any case the pipeline does not serve anyone in Georgia.”

Filed with FERC 15 November 2014, and appeared in FERC’s ecomment system 17 November 2014 (PDF).

WWALS Watershed Coalition, Inc.
3338 Country Club Road #L336
Valdosta, GA 31605
15 November 2014

VIA ELECTRONIC FILING
Ms. Kimberly Bose
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
888 First Street NE
Washington, DC 20426

Re: Southeast Market Pipelines Project,
Sabal Trail Transmission, LLC Docket No PFl4-1-000
Williams Transco Hillabee Expansion Project, LLC Docket No PFl4-6-000

Dear Ms. Bose,

I applaud FERC for getting Sabal Trail to move off of the Withlacoochee River in Hamilton County, Florida. However, the same karst limestone geology underlies the same Withlacoochee River and the Floridan Aquifer in Brooks and Lowndes Counties, Georgia, and WWALS Watershed Coalition continues Continue reading

Avoid karst and water and demonstrate need for the Sabal Trail pipelne –Dougherty County Commission to FERC

A county commission is representing its people and the waters of Georgia in a resolution Dougherty County sent to FERC which says in part:

300x391 Resolution page 2, in Resolution No. 14-019 pipeline and compressor station, by Dougherty County Commission, for SpectraBusters.org, 5 November 2014 SECTION II Thus, we are in opposition to the construction of the proposed pipeline in Dougherty County and request that FERC give serious consideration and analysis to alternative routes (1) that avoid unstable geologic areas such as karst and sink-hole prone areas, (2) that minimize impacts to drinking water and agricultural water supplies, (3) that minimize impacts to wildlife habitat, forest, wetlands, streams and rivers and (4) that do not compromise socio-economic and cultural issues.

Continue reading

Valdosta rerouting sewer main away from Withlacoochee River

300x232 Map, in Force Main and Pump Stations, by City of Valdosta, 8 November 2014 Not only is Valdosta putting in a new force main to stop the manhole overflows in neighborhoods near the Withlacoochee River, it plans to abandon the current trunk main next to the river once that project is finished. An update on Valdosta’s sanitary sewer projects by Tim Carroll led to this map of the projects, on which you can see that rerouting: Continue reading

Dust Storm on Lakeland Sands land in Hamilton County, FL

300x225 Dust right up to dirt road, in Dust Storm on Lakeland Sands land in Hamilton County, FL, by John S. Quarterman, for WWALS.net, 25 March 2014 Received yesterday. -jsq

These pictures are of a dust storm that occurred earlier this year. The dust is from Bill Gates’ farms. Look closely, there is a power transmission tower in the picture. Continue reading

Hamilton County, FL and Bill Gates

300x265 Parcel 5069-010 aerial, in Lakeland Sands and Bill Gates in Hamilton County, FL, by John S. Quarterman, for WWALS.net, 25 October 2014 Two dozen agricultural parcels owned by a shell of a shell of a shell company investing for Bill Gates in Hamilton County, Florida. Two parcels are in the Withlacoochee River watershed and within the blast radius of the original path of the Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline.

The Hamilton County, Florida, Property Appraiser shows these results for a search for Lakeland Sands: Continue reading

Bill Gates gobbling up Georgia farmland, too

300x567 Aerial of Southwest Echols County, in Cottonwood Ag Management in SW Echols County, by John S. Quarterman, 22 October 2014 Update 2015-01-11: People seem confused as to what Bill Gates is doing. However, since he announced in 2012 he was going to “fix” agriculture in conjunction with Monsanto and Syngenta, and he’s buying up hundreds and thousands of contiguous acres at a time, it seems pretty clear he’s promoting corporate pesticided GMO agriculture.

Update 2015-01-13: More Gates purchases in more counties.

Add Echols County and Lowndes County, Georgia, including much of Lake Park, and Hamilton and Madison Counties, Florida, in addition to what Amber Vann wrote in the VDT and other papers today 22 October 2014, Bill Gates gobbling up Florida farmland

LIVE OAK, Fla. — The investment company that manages the wealth of the world’s richest man, Bill Gates, has been acquiring gobs of farmland in north Florida the past two years, real estate records show.

Lakeland Sands Florida, a subsidiary of Cascade Investments LLC, which oversees the Gates fortune, recently bought more than 4,500 acres in Suwanee County near McAlpin, an unincorporated community just south of here.

300x529 Southwest Echols County, in Cottonwood Ag Management in SW Echols County, by John S. Quarterman, 22 October 2014 Meanwhile, Bill Gates owns Cascade Investment LLC, which owns Los Arboles LLC, which changed its name to Cottonwood Ag Management LLC, which bought land in Echols County on the Alapahoochee River, a year after Bill Gates said he was going to fix agriculture in conjunction with Monsanto and Syngenta.

Cottonwood Ag Management LLC does not own any land in Lowndes, Hamilton, or Madison Counties. But Lakeland Sands does: Continue reading

GWC DD#9: Sabal Trail pipeline threatens Withlacoochee River and Floridan Aquifer

300x388 DD#9 2014 Page 1 of 2, in GWC DD#9: Sabal Trail pipeline threatens Withlacoochee River and Floridan Aquifer, by Georgia Water Coalition, for WWALS.net, 22 October 2014 Here is the WWALS item #9 in the Georgia Water Coalition Dirty Dozen 2014; I added the links and the illustrations. -jsq

2014’s
Worst Offenses Against 
GEORGIA’S WATER

WITHLACOOCHEE RIVER & FLORIDAN AQUIFER

Gas Pipeline Threatens Southwest Georgia Water, Way of Life

INTRODUCTION:

Southwest Georgians are fighting an invader—one every bit

as worrisome as the boll weevil that destroyed cotton harvests in the 1900s, except this one takes farmers’ land as well as crops. Continue reading