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 reading
Filed Friday as FERC accession number 20160708-5096,
http://elibrary.ferc.gov/idmws/file_list.asp?document_id=14476452,
“Two new reasons for a USACE Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement and a halt to Sabal Trail permits; see also accession numbers 20160708-5089 and 20160708-5088, by WWALS Watershed Coalition, Inc. under CP15-17.” (PDF) Continue reading
Who other than Sabal Trail needs a yard full of 36-inch pipe?
A pipe yard apparently built on top of jurisdictional wetlands,
so WWALS has informed the Suwannee River Water Management District (SRWMD)
and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE).
Here is PDF and below is text and images of the letter WWALS sent to the Corps today.
July 5, 2016
Continue reading
Jasper, Florida, July 1st 2016 — Another independent
professional geologist reveals more omissions and discrepancies in pipeline company reports and faults in federal oversight of the Sabal Trail pipeline:
groundflow actually goes the other way,
drilling under a river will change water
flow in the Floridan Aquifer, and there is very high risk of
sinkhole collapse. An indigenous Floridian commissioned this scientific report to protect his mother, the living earth.
This geological report provides compelling additional reasons for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE)
to open a new process to evaluate this and other new information.
Bobby C. Billie, one of the Clan Leaders and Spiritual Leader, Council of the Original Miccosukee Simanolee Nation Aboriginal Peoples, asked professional geologist and hydrologist Peter Schreuder, P.G. to conduct investigations at the proposed Sabal Trail crossing under the Suwannee River from Hamilton County and under U.S. 90 in close proximity to the Falmouth Cave System in Suwannee County.
This Schreuder report concludes about the Floridan Aquifer System (FAS): Continue reading
See press release, New hydrology report exposes Sabal Trail pipeline risk to Floridan Aquifer, and this report is also available in PDF.
Schreuder, Inc. Water-Resources & Environmental Consultants
Directional Horizontal Drilling (HDD) under the
Suwannee River
At Suwannee River State ParkHydrogeologic Issues of Concern
In any review of potential environmental consequences related to the use of Horizontal Directional Drilling (HDD), both the geotechnical and scientific communities can be expected to raise serious concerns when such drilling is done around karst areas, and in regions which over lie the Floridan Aquifer System (FAS), which includes the Upper Floridan Aquifer, and the karstic geologic subsurface features at the location proposed in Continue reading
Again tying Florida Governor Rick Scott into the Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline invasion,
Florida Bulldog reports about
last month’s elected official hike at the Suwannee River,
but could get no response from hike attendee Ted Yoho FL-03.
And FL Bulldog confirmed that as of last week the Corps had not responded to
Sanford Bishop GA-02.
Jake Galvin and Dan Christensen, Florida Bulldog, 28 June 2016, Push to block Sabal Trail gas pipeline looks to enlist U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Continue reading
Another letter against Sabal Trail and for the rivers and the aquifer in the paper Suwannee Democrat, May 5th 2016.
In response to Jason Bashaw’s, Chairman of the Suwannee County Commission, article in the Suwannee Valley Times, I have this to say. Why is it that if people are concerned about the environment they live in, they are automatically placed into this environmental left category? Like many, many people in our surrounding counties, I hunt, fish, hike and paddle our local rivers. I use the environment as do we all.
So, for working and paying taxes all my life — as a Vietnam Veteran, as a person who chose to live in this rural part of Florida and raise his kid, as a person who is not now nor ever will be wealthy — I count our public lands, our woods and rivers as a reward for doing the right thing. I do not mind my tax dollars going towards public lands. Mr. Bashaw uses the environmental left in a derogatory manner as a means of denigrating them, and he is including me in it and I resent it. I resent it for my friend’s in WWALS and others who show concern for the pipeline route. I have not met an environmental lefty among them.
WWALS is, Continue reading
Thanks to Janet Barrow for this letter approved by the Marion County, Florida BOCC yesterday, 3 May 2016 (PDF). That makes three Florida Counties requesting investigation of Sabal Trail discrepancies by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, after Hamilton County and Suwannee County.
Marion County
Board of County CommissionersDistrict 1 — David Moore, Commissioner
District 2 — Kathy Bryant, Chairman
District 3 — Stan McClain, Commissioner
District 4 — Carl Zalak ill, Vice Chairman
District 5 — Earl Arnett, ConnnissionarMcPherson Governmental Complex
601 SE ZSth Ave.
Ocala, FL 34471
Phone: 352-438-2323
Fax: 352-438-2324May 3, 2016
US. Army Corps of Engineers
Jacksonville District Regulatory Division
Jacksonville Permits Section
Attn: Mr. Mark R. Evans
Post Office Box 4970
Jacksonville, Florida 32232RE: Sabal Trail Transmission and Sabal Trail Citrus County Line projects within Marion County, Florida
Dear Mr. Evans:
Over 30 miles of pipeline are expected to be installed within Marion County, Florida for the Sabal Trail Transmission and Sabal Trail Citrus County Line projects. These pipelines will cross important, sensitive environmental lands, While Continue reading
