Received May 27, 2018 from WWALS member Chris Mericle:
The Hamilton County BOCC finally at its last meeting (May 15) voted on the Nutrien 5 year permit renewal.
The BOCC voted to approve the permit with the modifications recommended by the environmental consultant and attorney.
![[2,3,4,5 Draglines]](https://www.wwals.net/pictures/2018-05-15--hamco-nutrien-report/Hamilton-County-Annual-Report-2017-Submittal-0007.jpg)
I consider this a win for us because it requires Nutrien to: Continue reading
Sending written comments makes more sense than four hours to Atlanta Tuesday, May 22, 2018, for this two-hour Public Hearing on water quality rules changes.
Reed Bingham State Park Lake, site of the
6th Annual BIG Little River Paddle Race,
Saturday April 28, 2018.
DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION DIVISION
NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING AND PROPOSED AMENDMENTS TO GEORGIA’S RULES FOR WATER QUALITY CONTROL
CHAPTER 391-3-6
TO ALL INTERESTED PERSONS AND PARTIES:
Continue reading
Sabal Trail won’t comment in Florida about the EPA letter to FERC that validates what WWALS and many others have been saying, although Sabal Trail did comment in Georgia.
Carl McKinney, Jasper News, 5 November 2015,
front page, apparently not online,
EPA letter could change course of gas pipeline,
…In an Oct. 20 letter, the EPA maintained it always had serious concerns about the project, and recommends the approximately 515-mile-long pipeline’s path be redrawn to avoid environmentally sensitive areas in Florida.
Now, the WWALS Watershed Coalition environmental group has filed to get the letter admitted as evidenm in a legal challenge to prevent the Florida Department of Environmental Protection from issuing a permit for the project, said WWALS president John Quarterman.
“It validates everything we’ve been saying,” he said.
Here is that EPA letter to FERC.
Last month, WWALS and Tallahassee attorneys representing Sabal Trail met face-to-face at Continue reading
You can believe
what Spectra’s Andrea Grover said in the VDT today,
or you can believe more from
Sabal Trail’s own Karst Mitigation Plan,
which says they already lost drilling fluids from test drillings under the Withlacoochee River between Brooks and Lowndes Counties, and if they cause a sinkhole they can’t fill they’ll “monitor” it.
How will they do that if a sinkhole forms under the pipeline under the river, or it breaks or explodes, like a Spectra pipeline did in Little Rock, Arkansas in May of this year?
As filed in the FERC DEIS, Karst Mitigation Plan, in Section 7.3.2., on page 31 of 31:
- If drilling fluid loss downhole affects nearby springs or rivers and complete drilling fluid loss to the formation cannot be prevented, reaming operations will continue and the affected waterbody will be monitored in accordance with the Best Drilling Practices Plan for the Sabal Trail Project.
Not just for pilot holes: drilling fluid loss is quite possible during reaming for the actual pipe hole. And this drilling fluid can contain lubricants with unspecified ingredients.
Sabal Trail knows about fracture traces such as Continue reading
In which Spectra Energy’s Andrea Grover claims “The pipeline will not contaminate water or aquifers,”, despite Spectra’s own SEC 10-K and Sabal Trail’s own Karst Mitigation Plan.
Joe Adgie, Valdosta Daily Times, 5 November 2015,
Sabal makes Georgia Water Coalition’s Dirty Dozen,
The proposed Sabal Trail Pipeline made the Georgia Water Coalition’s Dirty Dozen list for the second consecutive year.
The proposed pipeline made the list for its path through sinkhole-prone regions in Georgia and Florida, including Lowndes County.
Here’s GWC Dirty Dozen 2015 #11: Sabal “Sinkhole” Trail.
John Quarterman, WWALS Watershed Coalition president, said there is some hope for opponents of the pipeline, in the form of a strong letter from the Environmental Protection Agency to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which will have the final say on construction of the pipeline.
“We got a federal agency actually doing its job, and I don’t mean FERC, I’m talking about the EPA,” Quarterman said. “They filed an amazing letter that validates pretty much everything the opposition’s been saying about this pipeline.”
Last week, the EPA recommended Continue reading
WWALS is about environmental issues such as
those FL-DEP said could proceed.
However, environmental issues extend far beyond
FL-DEP’s narrow view.
A pipeline sinkhole could affect springs
or wells miles away, and that could affect property values,
insurance rates, and of course eco-tourism.
Tourism brings in
$67 billion a year to Florida.
Why would any Florida state agency want to risk that for a pipeline when the Sunshine State can go straight to solar power?
Christopher Curry, Gainesville Sun, 4 September 2015, Part of Sabal Trail challenge will proceed, Continue reading
More than three years after Janet McMahan
found toxic levels of arsenic in her well water in Ben Hill County,
more than half a year after
she told us about it
at a
WWALS water quality testing training,
and four months after
Erin Brokovich agreed it was a problem,
the Georgia Departnment of Health finally has sounded the alarm.
They still left out part of the story, though.
The Valdosta Daily Times carried the story in its paper Saturday edition, but apparenlty never put it online. WTXL’s story Friday by Jade Bulecza, UPDATE: South Georgians urged to test private wells due to arsenic risk, quoted Dr. Grow, head of our local eleven-county South Health District:
Continue reading
Uranium? Yes, really: it comes out of granite rocks up deep water wells
in the Georgia Piedmont.
The other metals arsenic come from human energy,
industrial, and agricultural activities,
ranging from fenceposts to Plant Scherer,
dirtiest coal plant in the country, emitting mercury, some of which ends
up in the Alapaha River.
Here’s
video of Janet McMahan speaking about this:
Janet McMahan spoke to the group after the
Adopt-A-Stream water quality testing training
taught by Angela Bray and Richard Batten.
Video by Gretchen Quarterman for WWALS Watershed Coalition (WWALS),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 5 August 2012
Janet McMahan adds:
Continue reading