Tag Archives: Southern Environmental Law Center

SELC against proposed suspension of Clean Water Rule 2017-12-13

Yesterday, the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) submitted a sixteen-page letter against the EPA’s proposed suspension of the Clean Water Rule, on behalf fifty-six organizations including WWALS.10

Struggling to eliminate, Letter Much of that letter could as easily apply to today’s foregone vote to eliminate the FCC’s net neutrality rule. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai’s “‘unalterably closed’” views should have been enough for him to recuse himself. The three FCC Commissioners for the elimination of net neutrality made it clear they were not paying attention to the millions of public comments, despite requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act to do so. Chairman Pai with perhaps unintentional irony even argued that there was no need to hold public hearings since far more people commented online, which of course is only possible through an open Internet. Nevermind that the FCC appears to be ignoring those comments.

Similarly, the EPA does not seem to be paying attention to the “more than 680,000 public comments” on the Clean Water Rule repeal beyond taking only six days to come up with a two year delay in implementation of that rule.

The SELC letter to the EPA even cites two cases against the FCC when it says: Continue reading

Sierra Club Big Win already cited in denial of Valley Lateral Pipeline 2017-08-31

The pipeline industry is right to be spooked by what its calls a Great Major Victory that Sierra Club, Flint Riverkeeper, and Chattahoochee Riverkeeper won against FERC and Sabal Trail.

The very next week after that Great Major Victory involving greenhouse gases: Rob Friedman and Kimberly Ong, NRDC, 31 August 2017 , New York State Blocks the Valley Lateral Pipeline!


Grassroots advocates have been fighting the Valley Lateral and CPV Energy Center for over 5 years
Erik McGregor/Pacific Press

In a victory for all New Yorkers, the state has blocked a natural gas pipeline that would have Continue reading

Pipeliners spooked by Sierra Club Major Landmark Victory; could shut down Sabal Trail –industry press

Update 2017-08-29: Fourth news roundup: From pipelines to renewable energy and efficiency –Sierra Club 2017-08-29

Update 2017-08-24: Third news roundup: This is wind in our sails and could be the end of Sabal Trail —Suwannee Riverkeeper in VDT 2017-08-24

OilPrice.com calls it “a critical decision yesterday, that could jeopardize the future for pipeline projects across the country”; pipeline companies could be “spooked” and “…the court ruling raises the unsettling possibility that the project may be forced to shut down — after billions were spent putting it in into service.” Other stories say this ‘huge’ win could also affect the Atlantic Sunrise, Penneast, Atlantic Coast, and Rover Pipelines, among others.

Children against Sabal Trail in Juno Beach, 2016-10-14
(L to R) Lea Fox, 4, Finn Ryder Purdy, 4, and Mason Dana, 7, of Lake Worth, sit with gas pipeline protesters outside of Florida Power and Light headquarters on Universe Boulevard in Juno Beach on October 14, 2016. The Sabal Trail Pipeline began supplying FPL’s plants in June. Groups opposed the pipeline that will start in Alabama and bring fracked gas through several counties in Florida’s springs and wetlands. (Richard Graulich / The Palm Beach Post)

Sad for FPL, Duke, Spectra, and all the other pipeline-building purveyors of fracked methane, maybe, but glad for all the landowners whose land was taken, local citizens who don’t want a 500+-mile IED next to their homes, schools, and waterways, and all people who want clean sun and wind energy, not more polluting fossil fuels.

It’s good the industry press agrees with what I told the VDT: “This is wind in our sails and could be the end of Sabal Trail.”

Here’s a news roundup, in addition to Continue reading

Videos: Coal Plant Public Hearing in Albany, GA 2017-05-04

You can still comment by tomorrow, Monday, May 8, 2017 on Georgia Power’s NIMBY plan for the coal ash it generated, to send it away from Plant Mitchell to local landfills, maybe yours.

Here are WWALS videos of the GA-EPD public hearing Thursday May 4, 2017 in Albany, GA, which we attended at the invitation of our neighbor Flint Riverkeeper Gordon Rogers, who said at the hearing he is lawyered up, and his attorney Chris Bowers of SELC also spoke.

Comment

You don’t have to hire an attorney; you can send in written comments by tomorrow, May 8, 2017, according to the the GA-EPD announcement of March 31, 2017: Continue reading

Two GA-EPD water advisories about US 84 widening project

Thirty-day comment periods closing 12 August 2015 to comment on the US 84 widening project, say 300x175 Greasy Branch, CSX Railroad, Upper Suwannee River Watershed, in Two GA-EPD water advisories about US 84 widening project, by John S. Quarterman, for WWALS.net, 13 July 2015 two Public Advisories from GA-EPD Watershed Protection Branch. One is in the Satilla River watershed, about “two existing open water ponds (outflowing into jusrisdictional[sic] wetlands associated with Lees Branch)”: those ponds are next to the groundwater-contaminating CSX railyard in Waycross. One is in the Upper Suwannee River watershed, about “three existing open water ponds (outflowing into jusrisdictional[sic] waters associated with Greasy Creek and the CSX railroad)”. Maybe the Southern Environmental Law Center letter to GDOT and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers got some results, although these advisories are from a different state agency.

The Upper Suwannee one starts at Continue reading

For development, or not needed? US 84 widening from Homerville to Waycross

This paragraph sums it up:

300x388 Wetlands 29 and 31, in RE: SAS-2014-00862, Proposed U.S. Highway 84 Widening, by Gilbert B. Rogers, for WWALS.net, 28 May 2015 The project’s stated purpose in the EA is “economic development,” as part of the Governor’s Road Improvement Program created in the 1980s. See EA at 4. The NEPA regulations promulgated by the Council on Environmental Quality (“CEQ”) require agencies to examine the indirect impacts of projects — those growth-inducing impacts caused by a project, such as changes in land use and development patterns. 40 C.F.R. § 1508.8(b). Yet over and over, when purporting to examine the project’s potential for indirect impacts on various natural resources, the EA repeats, “The proposed project is not expected to precipitate substantial development along the corridor.”

Other questions include, why not use a narrower median? Why not leave trees on the median?

Below is the full text of the letter Continue reading

DuPont withdraws permit application for Jesup mine –Riverkeepers and Greenlaw

Land use planning can make even a $60 billion market cap company think again about a mine in our sensitive karst limestone aquifer. details here. Greenlaw pictures here. -jsq

Press Release

For Immediate Release: August 27, 2014

Public Outcry Against Proposed Mine Continues to Grow, Mining Company Withdraws Permit Application

JESUP, GA-After hundreds of local residents, conservation groups, and elected officials expressed concerns Continue reading