Come hear how the Standing Rock Sioux in North Dakota are protecting their water from the same fossil industry and the same companies that want to drill the Sabal Trail pipeline under our Withlacoochee and Suwannee Rivers in south Georgia and north Florida.
When: 7PM Wednesday September 28th 2016
What: The Pipeline Controversy
Where: Cypress Room
University Center
Valdosta State University Continue reading
For Immediate Release
WWALS and 182 Organizations from 35 States Call for Congressional Review of FERC
Hundreds of Nonprofit Organizations Join to Demand Reform of Rogue Agency
Washington, DC, September 21, 2016 — More than 180 organizations representing communities across America called on leaders in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and House Energy and Commerce Committee to hold congressional hearings into the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) extensive history of bias and abuse. The groups are also requesting reform of the Natural Gas Act, which the groups say, gives too much power to FERC and too little to state and local officials.
“The time has now come for Congress to investigate how FERC is using its authority and to recognize that major changes are in fact necessary in order to protect people, including future generations, from the ramifications of FERC’s misuse of its power and implementation of the Natural Gas Act,” says Maya van Rossum, the Delaware Riverkeeper, leader of the Delaware Riverkeeper Network and a primary organizer of the effort.
“A prime example of FERC’s dereliction of duty to the public
benefit is the Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline Spectra Energy
is drilling through Alabama, Georgia, and Florida and under our
Withlacoochee River in Georgia and our Suwannee River in
Florida,” says John S. Quarterman, president of WWALS
Watershed Coalition, Inc. (WWALS), the Waterkeeper® Affiliate for
the upper Suwannee River. He added, “FERC failed in its due
diligence by opaque selection of environmental contractors, by
issuing its permit before permits from two states and the Army
Corps, by ignoring copious new geological and other evidence, and by
giving Sabal Trail construction go-ahead while a lawsuit is still
pending by Flint Riverkeeper, Sierra Club, Gulf Restoration Network,
and others, including construction through properties whose
landowners have not even had eminent domain compensation hearings.
Most egregiously, despite FPL, the source of the $3 billion for this
boondoggle, admitting in its 2016 Ten Year Plan that Florida needs
no new electricity until 2024 at the earliest, FERC refuses to even
reconsider the alleged “need” for this unnecessary,
destructive, and hazardous pipeline. Corporate profits for Spectra
Energy from Houston, Texas and Enbridge from Calgary, Alberta are no
justification for taking local land and risking our water, air,
taxes, and safety.”
The letter to Continue reading
Hahira, GA, September 6th 2016 — Two Georgia brothers are stuck with paying almost ten times as much in Sabal Trail’s legal fees as they spent defending their property against that invading fracked methane pipeline, even though FPL apparently admitted this year that all three of its 2013 excuses for that pipeline are no longer valid. Two federal agencies and numerous state agencies issued permits based on those excuses. Sabal Trail used those permits to get eminent domain, including to drill under rivers in Florida, Georgia, and Alabama and through the fragile limestone containing our drinking water in the Floridan Aquifer. It is time for this unnecessary, destructive, and hazardous boondoggle to be shut down and its $3 billion in FPL ratepayer money to be used for solar power in the Sunshine State.
James Bell, one of the brothers stuck with having to pay Sabal Trail attorney fees, says:
"First and foremost, this is a multi-billion dollar company that is for profit. In my personal opinion I don’t see how a private for-profit company should be allowed eminent domain. I don’t understand that. That makes no sense to me. I might could understand it if it was for the greater good of the country but this is not. And it is certainly not the federal government or the state government building some road or highway."
Florida Power & Light claimed Continue reading
WWALS and Suwannee-St Johns Group of Sierra Club Florida are cooperating on outings now, and Sierra Club Florida is holding a Rural Office opening in October.
Sierra Club Campaign Organizer Merrillee Malwitz-Jipson has taken the Lake City pipe yard ball and run with it. Monday she got TV coverage at that illicit Sabal Trail storage yard for 36-inch fracked gas pipe, and today she’s called a press conference and protest there. Plus Sierra Club has filed two legal actions. Here’s how you can help.
Haley Wade, WCJB-TV, Gainesville, Florida, 15 August 2016, New pipeline has protestors,
There is something you can do: you can say no.
The Chair said they would send a letter to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and everyone applauded,
in the middle of a record number of people speaking
Tuesday morning to the
board of the Suwannee River Water Management District (SRWMD),
most against Sabal Trail, among other topics.
Please send names of the unidentified speakers to contact@wwals.com.
And you can still send your message to the SRWMD board via
Robin Lamm, Coordinator, rrl@srwmd.org; in the Subject say SRWMD Board Members; and remember to copy Noah Valenstein, Executive Director, NVD@srwmd.org NDV@srwmd.org.
(Thanks to Merrillee Malwitz-Jipson for the updated Coordinator name and address.)
Below are links to each of the videos, followed by a video playlist. These are the complete videos of everything before the lunch break, except for a camera failure at the beginning of one talk. See also the Agenda and board packet.
Continue readingAttached are my comments to the SRWMD Governing Board today (July 12th 2016) in regards to the Sabal Trail crossing site over the Falmouth Cathedral Cave System.
I was the first to speak at the public comment period followed by Jim Tatum then Merrillee. Jim and Merrillee echoed my concerns. The three of us set the tone for the meeting! The Board was interested and engaged asking questions to better understand what impacts Sabal Trail poses for the cave system and the District. About Time!
Merrillee Malwitz-Jipson of Sierra Club Florida speaking to SRWMD 2016-07-12
Photo credit:
Our Santa Fe River
Executive Director, Noah Valenstein offered to personally call the ACE to request Continue reading
An actual law, an ordinance, beyond just words in a resolution. Citrus is the latest of many Florida counties to ban fracking, including Madison.
The text of the ordinance is on the SpectraBusters blog, and here’s a report. Jim Tatum, Our Santa Fe River, 14 June 2016, Citrus County Approves Fracking Ban,
Commissioners Dennis Damato, Ronald Kitchen, Joe Meek, Scott Adams, and Scott Carnahan unanimously passed a ban-fracking ordinance. The ordinance was amended to include all the county, both incorporated and non-incorporated areas, skillfully inserted by the able and prepared county attorney Denise A. Dymond Lyn.
That article continues with pictures of many of those involved, including WWALS members Merrillee Malwitz-Jipson, Jim Tatum, and Harriett Heywood (pictured above). In WWALS territory, Continue reading
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
In today’s Sunday April 10th 2016 Valdosta Daily Times:
The Georgia House on March 22nd by an unprecedented 34 ayes to 128 nays rejected easements for Sabal Trail
to drill our Withlacoochee and other Georgia Rivers. This was a historic victory by the Georgia Water Coalition, including Georgia Sierra Club, WWALS, Flint Riverkeeper, Chattahoochee Riverkeeper, plus SpectraBusters, and thanks to all of you who called their state reps.
That same day, Continue reading