The ghostly remains of the spring pool in what was once a famous resort. Aaron Sirmons says the owner told him when her father bought the place in the 1960s, the spring was already destroyed. The Brooks County Manager told me somebody tried to enlarge it and destroyed it. It looks like maybe they used dynamite.
Wade Spring is actually easily visible from Blue Springs Road in Brooks County, Georgia, if you know just where to peer through the bushes. That’s at Continue reading
They finally admit to FERC the Sabal Trail boondoggle is a month late! And FERC reclassifies the WWALS filing as a motion for all three SMPP pipelines.
Susan Salisbury, Palm Beach Post, 26 May 2017, Sabal Trail seeks new pipeline start date; group wants shutdown,
Sabal Trail Transmission on Friday asked federal regulators for an early June in-service date for its portion of the Alabama-to-Florida natural gas pipeline, a later date than it had requested earlier this month.
With segmented KMI FGT JEP to Jacksonville to Eagle LNG export:
On May 17 Houston-based Sabal Trail had asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for permission to start sending gas through the pipeline by today — May 26.
Also Friday, the Georgia-based WWALS Watershed Coalition asked FERC to deny all requests to place the pipeline into service, and said FERC should revoke the permit and shut it down.
The Sierra Club recently asked FERC to delay the pipeline’s operation until after pending litigation is resolved.
FERC has yet to act on either of Sabal Trail’s start-up date requests or on The Sierra Club’s request.
Maybe FERC staff have noticed Continue reading
Update: 2017-06-05: WWALS files with FERC against Sabal Trail again, about sea change from fossil fuels to sun and wind power.
Update 2017-05-27: Sabal Trail slips its in-service request to June; FERC classifies WWALS shutdown request as motion 2017-05-26.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Hahira, GA, May 26, 2017 — WWALS Watershed Coalition today asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to “stay, stop, or deny all requests to place any project facilities into service” for the Southeast Markets Pipeline Project (SMPP) including Sabal Trail. Further “WWALS as an intervenor formally requests FERC to revoke its Certificate of Convenience and Necessity for SMPP.”
In its thirteen-page filing (available online and in PDF), WWALS listed six reasons, each with its own attachment of details:
- The alleged need for this pipeline project, which has been refuted by its funding organization in FPL’s 2016 Ten Year Plan and by other evidence; and
- FERC has taken jurisdiction of at least one LNG export chain from Sabal Trail, despite FERC’s own assertion in its February 2016 Certificate; and
See Sabal Trail to export through Jacksonville, FL.- Failure to assess risks to Floridan Aquifer, the primary water supply for the region; and
- Numerous permit violations during construction; and
- Failure to address especially egregious violations such as the destruction of Randy Dowdy’s world-record soybean fields; and
- The legal challenges recited in the Sierra Club letter of May 18, 2017, FERC Accession Number 20170519-5018, are all completely litigated.
WWALS president and Suwannee Riverkeeper John S. Quarterman said, “It’s not too late for FERC to do its job and actually evaluate all the new evidence that has come to light. Even more, FERC should look at how the world has changed Continue reading
Local cave diver Aaron Sirmons took these pictures and videos of the formerly famous Wade Springs of Brooks County, Georgia, between Blue Springs Road and the railroad, west of the Withlacoochee River. He has a letter of permission from the landowner.
With reference Yellow Dog.
Taken from Tyler Bridge on river mile 78.71 at Franklinville Road.
-jsq, John S. Quarterman, Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®
You can join this fun and work by becoming a WWALS member today!
Obviously nobody lives in most of the Okefenokee Swamp or the Osceola National Forest, but also most of Clinch County is unpopulated west of the Swamp, as is much of the Gulf coast along the Suwannee River Estuary, from Cedar Key north to Horsehoe Bay, plus large parts of Dixie and Lafayette Counties west of the Suwannee River.
Nobody Lives Here:
Unpopulated U.S. Census Blocks,
screenshot by jsq from interactive map by
mapsbynik.
Update 2017-06-20: As someone pointed out, rangers do live in the Okefenokee Swamp, presumably in the white area along the access road.
Cedar Key is the island at the bottom of the map, and from a bit north on the Gulf Coast you can follow Continue reading
Apparently that wet area I saw March 20, 2017 at Sabal Trail’s Suwannee River HDD access in Suwannee County was a “depression” they had just logged the previous day. Two more recent ones show up in Sabal Trail’s latest bi-weekly report, along with a couple of earlier ones they still haven’t even attempted to fix. Why should we expect these sinkholes will stop happening if Sabal Trail finishes and takes all their workers back to Houston, leaving us to deal with the damage?
I also wondered what they were up to a bit southeast of that drill site,
beyond the dirt berm where I could only see their heads and hats.
Apparently that was another sinkhole from January at the
Suwannee River HDD in Suwannee County.
Or maybe it was in Hamilton County in Suwannee River State Park;
their description is so sloppy it’s hard to tell.
They also made a sinkhole a couple of thousand feet east of the Withlacoochee River in Hamilton County, and yet another sinkhole near the Santa Fe River HDD. The big winner is Continue reading
With the Suwannee River low, you can see the effluent coming out of the pipe west of Live Oak, FL. Pilgrim’s Pride just rejected a shareholder resolution to curb water pollution from its operations. And Aviagen is opening a chicken breeding operation in Brooks County, GA, in the watershed of the Withlacoochee River, upstream of the Suwannee.
Pilgrim's Pride, Proud to Dump into Suwannee River? from Merrillee on Vimeo.
“Pilgrim’s Pride discharges over 2 million gallons a day of liquid
poultry wastes in the Suwannee River from a meat rendering facility
located north of Live Oak, FL.”
Thanks to Merrillee Malwitz-Jipson of Sierra Club for .this video, which she showed me, along with many pictures, when she was in Valdosta for the VDT interview with Randy Dowdy about Sabal Trail destroying his farmland.
I asked Merrillee whether Continue reading
Update 2017-05-06: More on ownership of Aviagen.
In Brooks County south of Quitman, draining into Piscola Creek and the Withlacoochee River, in the same industrial park where WWALS caught Sabal Trail illegally burning, a poultry breeder will be setting up shop.
News Desk, Area Development, 9 March 2017, Aviagen Plans $18 Million Hatchery In Quitman, Georgia,
Aviagen, a leading broiler breeding company, will create 100 jobs and invest approximately $18 million in a new parent stock hatchery at Brooks County Industrial Park, 17 miles west of Valdosta, in Quitman, Georgia.
The Quitman facility will be Aviagen’s eighth Continue reading
If a small city gas pipeline leak shuts down major roads, imagine what the much larger Sabal Trail pipeline could do.
North Valdosta Road is US 41, and the section between Country Club Road and Val Del that was shut down is there it crosses the Withlacoochee River:
Map from
Lowndes County Property Appraiser.
I can’t find this notice anywhere on the city’s website or the Valdosta Police website, so here it is from the VDT:
Valdosta Daily Times, 27 April 2017, City issues gas leak caution, Continue reading
