Tag Archives: Safety

WWALS Alapaha Quest starts Saturday, January 6th27th, 2018

Update 2018-01-19: First leg rescheduled again, due to low water, to become a hike to the Dead River Sink, still on January 27, 2018.

Update 2018-01-01: The first leg of the Alapaha Quest is rescheduled to January 27, 2018! Follow this link for the revised details of that outing.

Join us to explore the entire Alapaha River Water Trail on the 2018 Alapaha Quest!

The Alapaha River is described as unspoiled, wild, and scenic. Add these remoteness features, some the dark reddish-brown waters with occasional shoals and it becomes a gem to paddle.

What is the Alapaha Quest?
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Heavy manufacturing near chemical leak, upstream from Knights Creek 2017-11-03

It’s not near any hazardous site on GA-EPD’s inventory, but it is right next to multiple heavy manufacturing companies and two railroads, in an area full of wetlands, upstream from Knights Creek, which runs into Mud Swamp Creek, then the Alapahoochee River, then the Alapaha River, then the Suwannee River: last night’s chemical leak on Clay Road next to the Lowndes County Schools Transportation Center on Howell Road.

Valorgis: Clay Road, dark grey is zoned heavy manufacturing

According to the Lowndes County Tax Assessors maps, north up Clay Road are Steeda Autosports, Letica, Archer Daniels Midland, and other heavy manufacturing sites. Maybe the Lowndes County Sheriff’s Department and Valdosta Police should be asking them Continue reading →

Rubio should do solar panels for jobs and resilience, not LNG

Senator Rubio’s small-scale LNG export bill risks more Florida sewage spills in the next hurricane while getting in the way of good solar jobs and reduced power bills for Floridians.

It seems like they never intended to listen. Two days after WWALS submitted comments at the deadline for the Department of Energy’s small-scale LNG exports, Florida Senator Marco Rubio introduced legislation to implement that rule.

Solar power for the Sunshine State will generate jobs right where they’re needed, in rural planning, delivery, and installation. That will also reduce everybody’s power bills, while making Florida much more resilient to hurricanes.

Crowley Maritime is already exporting LNG from Jacksonville to Continue reading →

WWALS Against Small-Scale Natural Gas Exports

Submitted by WWALS in Public Comment Concerning Unregulated Small Scale LNG Processing Facilities.

Duke and two canals to the Gulf, Crystal River, FL, 28.9420800, -82.7818000

From: Wwals Watershed Coalition <wwalswatershed@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Oct 16, 2017 at 4:21 PM
Subject: RIN 1901-AB43 and FE Docket No. 17-86-R
To: fergas@hq.doe.gov
Cc: WWALS Watershed Coalition <wwalswatershed@gmail.com>
WWALS Watershed Coalition, Inc. Against Small-Scale Natural Gas Exports

The path to U.S. energy independence is to finish the conversion of energy production from obsolete fossil fuels and nuclear power to clean, safe, renewable, solar, wind, and water power. Any resources spent on LNG would be better spent on getting on with real renewable power.

Proponents of pipelines often claim new pipelines will reduce the amount of natural gas shipped by road or rail. The Sabal Trail pipeline through Alabama, Georgia, and Florida, under the Withlacoochee, Suwannee, and Santa Fe Rivers, demonstrates that is not the case.

The Department of Energy’s Office of Fossil Energy (FE) has already authorized: Continue reading →

OSHA to WWALS about odorant leak, Dunnellon Compressor Station 2017-08-28

OSHA said it believed the pipeline company, in a paper letter, two weeks after the WWALS complaint about Sabal Trail at Dunnellon.

We did get more information about the actual odorant out of OSHA than we ever did out of FERC, and it’s not pretty:

Slgnal word Danger
Hazard statements:
H225 : Highly flammable liquid and vapour.
H302 : Harmful if swallowed.
H317 : May cause an allergic skin reaction,
H400 : Very toxic to aquatic life,
H411 : Tox1c to aquatic life wnh long lasting effects.
Supplemental Hazard Statements:
Objectionable odor may cause nausea, headache or dizziness. May displace oxygen and cause Continue reading →

Sabal Trail says hazaradous Mercaptan leaks are no danger to the public 2017-08-17

OSHA says the Mercaptan that was smelled miles from the leak “can cause problems for the respiratory system and the central nervous system” but Sabal Trail’s Andrea Grover says “there is no danger to the public”. Which do you believe?

Hint: this is the same Andrea Grover about which the newspaper of record in Valdosta, Georgia wrote four years ago:

Letters submitted to the Valdosta Daily Times and to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission could contradict a recent statement by Sabal Trail’s Andrea Grover.

Looks like we have Pinocchio with her nose growing doing PR for the Three Stooges.

Jessica Lipscomb, Miami New Times, 17 August 2017, Stinky Leaks From Florida’s Controversial Sabal Trail Pipeline Scares Residents, Continue reading →

Sabal Trail today about the Dunnellon Compressor Station chronic problem: nyuk nyuk nyuk 2017-08-15

Sabal Trail today spelled out that they are not required to notify anybody about their chronic leaks of hazardous odorant chemicals, as if that explains everything.

~~Moe~~ Curly Howard of the Three Stooges, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, around 1938, the year the Natural Gas Act was originally passed, giving the predecessor of FERC the ability to hire staff and also presumably to buy a rubberstamp.

Two years ago the judge in WWALS vs. Sabal Trail & FDEP insisted that we couldn’t even ask about pipeline safety, because the Pipeline Safety Act relegates safety concerns of interstate natural gas pipelines to the federal government, mostly to the Pipeline & Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), or maybe to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) during permitting. Well, neither PHMSA nor FERC were even informed of this chronic stink leak incident, and neither of them did anything about it, nor did any other federal or state agency. Marion County was left to deal with it unassisted.

Even PHMSA says on their website that the Pipeline Safety Act: Continue reading →

WCJB TV: Dunnellon Compressor Station Gas Leak 2017-08-11

WWALS member Janet Barrow told WCJB TV of Gainesville, Florida,

To the Canadian-owned company that now owns Sabal Trail: rural lives matter. No eminent domain for corporate gain. And Houston, you have a problem.

That would be Enbridge of Calgary, Alberta, Canada, which bought Spectra Energy of Houston, Texas, which is the builder and operator of the Sabal fracked methane Trail pipeline, now renamed Sabal Fail by locals.

Curtis Jennings, WCJB TV 20 News, 11 August 2017, Sabal Trail Pipeline in Dunnellon springs a leak, Continue reading →

WWALS to OSHA: Chronic Leaks at Sabal Trail Dunnellon Compressor Station Site, Marion County, Florida

Let’s try another agency about Sabal Trail’s chronic Mercaptan leaks in Marion County, OSHA:

WWALS members in Marion and Citrus Counties have asked me to write you about this situation, especially since all the state and federal permitting agencies and PHMSA have done nothing about it. Sabal Trail did not notify them, and none of them notified any of the local emergency management departments that are left unassisted to deal with this chronic safety problem.

The text is below, or see Continue reading →

Stooges Stink Again: Sabal Trail at Dunnellon Compressor Station 2017-08-05

Update 2017-08-11: Complaint filed with OSHA.

The smell of hazardous Mercaptan “would come and go” for at least two days starting August 5, 2017, and Sabal Trail had been doing some sort of work at the Dunnellon Compressor Station starting the previous day, although they hadn’t bothered to inform local first responders.

Still from The Three Stooges: A Plumbing We Will Go, Columbia Pictures, 1940

Only two weeks after the July 16-17 stink leak, Sabal Fail again caused expense for Marion County Fire Rescue in sending trucks and personnel. Unlike the private Sabal Trail Transmission LLC, Marion County responded to an open records request, and here are the narrative incident reports.

Saturday, August 5, 2017

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WWALS Watershed Coalition (WWALS) is Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®

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