Update 2019-05-28: See also Videos: toll road planning –E.D. Scott R. Koons & Ken Cornell @ NCFRPC 2019-05-23.
Eight citizens from across the region spoke Thursday against the toll road boondoggle, at the North Central Florida Regional Planning Council meeting in Lake City, FL.
Below are links to each WWALS video of each speaker, followed by a WWALS video playlist.
See also Continue reading
In the Gainesville Sun, yesterday, May 22, 2019:
Now that Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed the toll road bill, SB 7068, Suwannee Riverkeeper — which was among the 90 organizations throughout Florida that asked him to veto it — continues to oppose that boondoggle and propose actual benefits to Florida’s economy and waters.
Google map of one likely route of the Suncoast Connector.One of these three unneeded turnpikes would have to cross the Suwannee River, plowing through counties where we have many members. All this very poorly written bill says about its route is: “Suncoast Connector, extending from Citrus County to 164 Jefferson County.” Apparently that means from Crystal River to Monticello, and on to Thomasville, Georgia, through farms, forests and swamps. If this toll road builds its bypasses, bye-bye local businesses in Chiefland, Fanning Springs, Old Town and Cross City.
Yes, the turnpike bill has a “project development phase” for $45 million and increasing each year, with a Continue reading
Last Wednesday, I invited the Live Oak Woman’s Club to the meeting in Valdosta this Wednesday evening between elected officials of the dozen downstream Florida counties and Valdosta.
![[FL Counties Rivers Task Force in Valdosta 2019-04-10]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2019-04-05--suw-rk-live-oak/shot0020.jpg)
FL Counties Rivers Task Force in Valdosta 2019-04-10
I talked about all the items on the alides, plus some topics raised by questions from the audience.
For example, they were horrified to hear that (according to GA-PSC), AGL did not follow its own corporate procedures to investigate the Homerville, GA pipeline gas explosion. Eileen Box mentioned that the source of AGL’s gas, Southern Natural Gas, also has a pipeline that runs through her property in Suwannee County.
Most of the attendees at the Live Oak Woman’s Club had not heard that Sabal Trail leaked gas at its Hildreth Compressor Station in Suwannee County in September 2018, and they were not pleased to learn Sabal Trail took a week to get around to telling FDEP about that.
They wanted to know about liquid natural gas (LNG), and they were again horrified to learn that Continue reading
If you want solar power in Florida, please call your state Senator and ask them to support SB 1156. If incumbent electric utilities don’t get on with solar power, community solar is one of the things that will replace them. Expect utilities and fossil fuel companies to oppose this bill, so it is important for you to support it.
Florida Introduces Community Solar Legislation to Expand Clean Energy Access, Jobs, by rosalind, Vote Solar, 19 February 2019.
Vote Solar et alia, Press Release, 19 February 2019, Florida Introduces Community Solar Legislation to Expand Clean Energy Access, Jobs, Continue reading
East on I-10 just before I-75 southbound crosses: a 74.5 MW FPL solar farm in Columbia County, Florida, well along in construction. I don’t think any newspaper ever called the Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline a windfall:
Solar photos: Carl McKinney, Lake City Reporter. Sorry I forgot who sent me this picture of the newspaper front page.
FPL PR 31 July 2018, Construction begins on FPL’s four newest solar power plants, Continue reading
Solar in Florida is not just for Duke and FPL anymore: Tampa Electric is building 260 megawatt hours of solar power, and the Florida PSC and Office of Public Counsel are praising it for reducing coal and natural gas burning. Even FPSC, which approved the Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline boondoggle only five years ago, is starting to look up and see the sun in the Sunshine State.
Michael Moline, FloridaPolitics.com, 29 October 2018, Tampa Electric wins PSC clearance for solar power projects,
The Public Service Commission approved a deal Monday that allows Tampa Electric Co. to build five solar-generating plants and pass along the $46 million tab to its ratepayers.
Note that’s million with a letter m, not like the billions FPL is charging its customers for Sabal Trail. Continue reading
We went to Rum 138 to see Merrillee Malwitz-Jipson, when Janet Barrow and I needed to know about the early move of the Sabal Trail pipeline off of the Ichetucknee River. Merrillee, Janet, and I are writing a book about five years working together promoting solar power and opposing that hazardous fracked methane boondoggle.
Janet Barrow, John S. Quarterman, Merrillee Malwitz-Jipson, 7 August 2018
Three laptops and mounds of paper were used. Almost three months later, we’re still digesting what Merrillee turned up out of her archives. Things we didn’t realize about fossil fuel feints and many solar successes are becoming clear as we compare notes.
Merrillee’s halo seems to be slipping in this picture, and my hat fell off: Continue reading
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Crystal River, Florida, October 18, 2018 — Strom, Inc. now proposes exporting liquid natural gas (LNG) by tanker ship through the port of Tampa. That explosive cargo would get there by land from Crystal River through densely populated areas. LNG tanker ships would go out right by downtown Tampa and St. Petersburg, and under the I-275 bridge. Strom has always said some of this fracked methane would likely come from the Sabal Trail pipeline. Getting on with solar power for the Sunshine state makes a lot more sense than shipping gas under our rivers, through private property, and by major cities for corporate export profit. Clean energy for Florida and beyond is an issue in this election year.
Map: by WWALS, from federal and state filings of LNG export operations.
Strom “may elect to file an amendment to our application to allow transportation of LNG by LNG tanker,” according to its latest semi-annual report to the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) Office of Fossil Energy (FE) (see https://wwals.net/?p=46497), According to Strom’s website it means LNG tanker ships, like this one: Continue reading
As we’ve seen so often in the Sabal Trail docket, Spectra seems to be acting in place of FERC, responding yesterday to thousands of comments on FERC’s certificate rulemaking.
Spectra’s bottom line: a pipeline company’s bottom line matters more than the Fifth Amendment due process, or water, air, or safety. See page 25:
Contrary to some commenters’ arguments, the Commission’s public interest determinations are not rendered insufficient under the Fifth Amendment public use requirement because the Commission considers precedent agreements among applicants and affiliates to be evidence of public benefits.
Spectra repeatedly argues that FERC does not have authority to consider hardly anything other than whether the pipeline company has customers, yet FERC has authority to give eminent domain to private corporations and to let them gouge through our lands and under our rivers without local agreement or payment first.
In this election year, you can ask every candidate for statehouse or Congress whether they support Continue reading
Florida Bulldog reports on LNG exports right now from Fortress Energy’s Hialeah plant through Port Everglades via Florida East Coast Railway (FECR) through densely populated neighborhoods. The larger story includes FECR can export via Crowley Maritime from Jacksonville, and Pivotal LNG is already exporting LNG from Alabama and Georgia through JAX, arriving via truck down I-75 and I-10. Plus offshoot pipelines from Sabal Trail already go to both Jacksonville and Riviera Beach. Why should we let these corporations cash in on fracked methane now that solar power is already here?
An LNG export ship fueled by LNG.
Image:
Crowley Maritime;
“An artist’s rendering of one of Crowley’s LNGfueled, combination
container and roll-on/roll-off (ConRo) ships—El Coqui slated
for delivery in 2017.”
Ann Henson Feltgen, Florida Bulldog.org, 22 August 2018, Despite ‘disaster risk,’ trains haul hazardous gas cargo in South Florida,
About the same time Florida East Coast Railway (FEC) executives were convincing Florida’s east coast cities and counties to back its idea of privately owned passenger trains traversing downtowns and densely populated neighborhoods, it quietly sought and won permission to haul extremely flammable liquified natural gas along the same tracks.
Liquefied natural gas (LNG) is a hazardous material Continue reading
![[Img36]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2019-04-05--suw-rk-live-oak/img36.png)