An anonymous informant sent these aerial pictures of what appear to be the
Sabal Trail drill sites at the Suwannee and Santa Fe Rivers, plus the Hildreth
Compressor Station near O’Brien, apparently taken Thursday 22 December 2016.
The GPS coordinates were Continue reading
There’s a rumor that Sabal Trail has some equipment stuck in a sinkhole at the Suwannee River.
Multiple people have gone and videoed and seen nothing like that there, on either side of the Suwannee River.
We’ve also checked the Withlacoochee River at US84:
nothing like that is visible at the visible HDD site in Georgia
(it could be at the Brooks County, GA site that we can’t see).
The drilling equipment formerly at the Martin Lane Withlacoochee HDD site in Lowndes County, Georgia is gone, and the drill truck photographed recently at the Suwannee south bank HDD site looks like the same Southeast Directional Drilling truck with the Arizona address on its side.
Incidentally, unlike some other Sabal Trail contractors, Continue reading
Update 17 Dec 2016: What would you add? Comment here or send email to wwalswatershed@gmail.com. There will be a longer second version of this post.
Many new people and organizations are joining the opposition to the Sabal “Sinkhole” Trail fracked methane pipeline.
Many of them ask me: why are we opposing this pipeline?
It’s simple: our water, land, and air are more important than
profit for a few utility executives and a few fossil fuel companies from Houston, Texas and Alberta, Canada.
Solar power is now cheaper, faster to install, and far less destructive than any other power source, so the Sunshine State should turn directly to the sun.
Three years ago FPL said Sabal Trail was needed for new Florida electricity. FPL’s 2016 Ten Year Plan says Florida needs no new electricity until 2024 at the earliest. So why should we accept any destruction or risk for an unnecessary pipeline?
We were assured by Sabal Trail and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection’s one witness testified under oath in WWALS v Sabal Trail & FDEP: Continue reading
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:
“ 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
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Jasper, Florida, November 6th 2016 — Better modeling and measurement of more water reuse and retention with fewer water withdrawals in both north Florida and south Georgia, WWALS Watershed Coalition (WWALS) recommended yesterday in comments (PDF) on the North Florida Regional Water Supply Plan (NFRWSP). WWALS also opposed the Falling Creek Aquifer Storage project and suggested a replacement, and recommended including threats to the FLoridan Aquifer and the Suwannee, Withlacoochee, and Alapaha Rivers such as pipelines and fracking.
WWALS applauded water supply projects involving reuse or stormwater,
especially those in Jacksonvile and Gainesville, two of the sources of the
general problem of falling water levels in the Floridan Aquifer.
WWALS also applauded the plan to set minimum flow levels on the upper Suwannee River and WWALS expects to be involved with that.
WWALS recommended expanding the original study area, which stopped at the Suwannee River on the west and the Georgia-Florida state line on the north. WWALS president John S. Quarterman explained,
“Our rivers don’t stop because there’s a state line on a map, and there are three second-magnitude springs on the Withlacoochee River in Georgia south of Valdosta, one of them with a more than 4,000-foot cave system, that aren’t taken into account in this draft plan.”
Quarterman elaborated on a much larger concern: Continue reading
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.
There’s a handy VA529 contact form or you can call or write: Continue reading
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
Bell EMS looks a stone’s throw from the Sabal Trail pipeline corner, in these WWALS aerials from the Santa Fe River to Bell, Florida, in Gilchrist County.
Bell Emergency Management Services (lower right), Sabal Trail bend to the east (top left)
Photo: John S. Quarterman for WWALS, Southwings flight, 23 November 2016
Sabal Trail had a bunch of buses and trucks next between 91st Lane and 94th Street in Gilchrist County. Continue reading
Sabal Trail’s pipe is still laid out north of the Suwannee County horizontal directional drilling (HDD) site on the Santa Fe River, but it won’t be for long unless something stops it.
Pictures by Beth Gammie and John S. Quarterman on Southwings flight for WWALS, 23 November 2016.
N. up Sabal Trail across Santa Fe River into Suwannee County, 29.8988570, -82.8495600, by John S. Quarterman for WWALS on Southwings flight 2016-11-23
“Demonstrators gathered to protest the Sabal Trail pipeline and participate in the “Dirty Dozen” waterways conference call.”
That was on the front page of the newspaper of record of the biggest city in the Suwannee RIver Basin.
There’s a petition for Georgians to sign, lots of protests in Florida to assist with, and you can help us all watch Sabal Trail to catch their next violation.
Online last night, Derrek Vaughn, Valdosta Daily Times, 17 November 2016, WWALS Watershed Coalition hold demonstration,
WWALS Watershed Coalition sponsored the demonstration.
Members and demonstrators met in the median of Highway 84 at the Withlacoochee River Bridge to listen to the Georgia Water Coalition’s “Dirty Dozen 2016” conference call.
The “Dirty Dozen” list is an attempt to “put a spotlight on ongoing pollution problems, pending threats to Georgia’s water as well as state and federal policies and failures that ultimately harm — or could harm — Georgia property owners, downstream communities, fish and wildlife, hunters and anglers, and boaters and swimmers,’ according to organizers. Continue reading