Monthly Archives: August 2014

Mass. brakes fracked methane pipeline expansion

Luther Turmelle, New Haven Register, 19 August 2014,
Massachusetts puts brakes on support for natural gas line expansion,

Environmentalists are praising a decision by Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick to temporarily withdraw support for a New England expansion of natural gas transmission lines.

pipeline*304xx2934-1956-33-0.jpg Jon Chesto, Boston Business Journal, 18 August 2014
Gov. Patrick backs away from regional effort to expand natural gas capacity,

The New England governors’ plan to impose a new tax on our electricity market to pay for natural gas pipeline construction was a bold proposal — one that’s never really been tried before — to solve our region’s natural gas constraint issues.

But without Massachusetts involved, it’s almost impossible to pull off.

Spectra the war stock and oil company

And Spectra, of the proposed Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline, is also an oil pipeline company now.

Bill Trexler wrote for Emerging Markets 18 August 2014, Energy shares may fall again: Spectra Energy Corp. (SE), Denbury Resources Inc. (DNR), WPX Energy (WPX), Nabors Industries (NBR), Weatherford International (WFT), Transocean LTD (RIG),

Shares of oil companies gained as oil futures prices rose on Friday, after Ukraine said its artillery destroyed a large part of a column of armored vehicles seen entering Ukraine from Russia.

However, prices still posted losses for the week, as soft global demand pressured them down to multi-month lows….

Continue reading Spectra the war stock and oil company

Jefferson County, FL stopped Nestle; counties can stop Sabal Trail

A foreign company wanting to take local resources and not even provide any local jobs, only in “preliminary stages”: sound familiar? Swiss company Nestlé used the same playbook to try to grab water from the Wacissa River that Houston company Spectra Energy is trying to gouge its hundred-foot right of way for its yard-wide fracked methane pipeline through Alabama, Georgia, and Florida. Wacissa and Jefferson County, Florida fought back and won. Counties can do the same to stop that pipeline.

Brett Adler wrote for the Florida Independent 2 December 2010, Nestle draws fire for plans to pump more water from North Florida springs,

Citizens in North Florida are gearing up for what many foresee as a drawn-out battle with Nestle Waters North America, the country’s largest water bottler, which recently completed test wells Continue reading Jefferson County, FL stopped Nestle; counties can stop Sabal Trail

OSFR v. FPL: head to head in the Gainesville Sun

Evidently Spectra’s Andrea Grover was too obviously failing to convince people to stop worrying and love the Sabal Trail pipeline, because FPL President and CEO Eric Silagy has taken up the mighty megaphone of methane talking points. And the Gainesville Sun ran him on the same page as Merrillee Malwitz-Jipson and Jim Tatum of Our Santa Fe River, today, 18 August 2014. Here are the links and a few excerpts. Read ’em for yourselves!

Merrillee Malwitz-Jipson and Jim Tatum, Pipeline poses multiple problems,

Again, we must point out that Florida Power & Light just recently estimated that in 10 years the demand for power will increase approximately 13 percent, but the Sabal Trail’s new pipeline would have an increase of 33 percent delivery capability. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency filed a report with Federal Energy Regulatory Commission saying that the recently completed (2011) Southeast Supply Header System was designed as an “alternative natural-gas source during hurricane-related disruptions in the Gulf of Mexico.”

That’s actually an underestimate Continue reading OSFR v. FPL: head to head in the Gainesville Sun

Williams Atlantic Sunrise to feed fracked methane to Sabal Trail: Videos of Scoping Meetings

FERC’s scoping meetings seem just as much a farce at the other end of Williams’ Transco pipeline from the Hillabee Expansion (PF14-6) that would feed Spectra’s Sabal Trail (PF14-1), Williams is pushing its Atlantic Sunrise Project (PF14-8) to suck up more Marcellus Shale fracked methane from Pennsylvania and ship it down here to Alabama, Georgia, and Florida and out through LNG export. Activists up there videoed several Pennsylvania Scoping Meetings, so you can see the show for yourself.

Don’t believe me that Atlantic Sunrise is to feed Sabal Trail; believe Housley Carr in Oil & Gas Financial Journal 17 january 1014, MIAMI 2017 – MARCELLUS GAS HEADING TO FLORIDA, Continue reading Williams Atlantic Sunrise to feed fracked methane to Sabal Trail: Videos of Scoping Meetings

Dougherty County fighting Sabal Trail pipeline

At that South Dougherty League meeting yesterday, Gloria Gaines summed up Sabal Trail’s proposed compressor station near Albany, GA: “This proposal should vehemently be challenged; it should be vehemently opposed.”

Aaryn Valenzuela reported for WALB TV yesterday, Proposed Sabal Trail pipeline and compressor station raises concerns, Continue reading Dougherty County fighting Sabal Trail pipeline

A fourth Florida LNG export request: Strom, Inc. from Starke, FL

Still time to object to this fourth company filing to export Sabal Trail fracked methane, adding to the three already authorized. FERC knew about this Strom LNG export request before the last three FERC Scoping Meetings, and never told us. This fourth LNG export operation will affect both the Santa Fe River watershed and the St Johns River watershed.

Strom, Inc. filed LNG export authorization requests with U.S. DoE’s Office of Fossil Energy (FE) 18 April 2014, all still being considered, all for liquifying in Starke, Bradford County, Florida, all for 25 years, and all explicitly saying they want to use Sabal Trail fracked methane.

In FE’s list of 2014 – LNG Export, Compressed Natural Gas (CNG), Re-Exports & Long Term Natural Gas Applications: Continue reading A fourth Florida LNG export request: Strom, Inc. from Starke, FL

Timeline: Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline has no permit yet

Spectra, FPL, and Williams have not even formally filed with FERC for pipeline permits yet, and that process usually takes about a year. Permitting confusion benefits Spectra about its Sabal Trail Transmission 36-inch hundred-foot-right-of-way fracked methane pipeline, because people don’t know what they can do. You can file ecomments right now, and show up and protest. As soon as the pipeline company files for the formal permit process, you can file as an intervenor, which gives you legal rights to be heard, file legal briefs, and to appeal. Plus many state and local permits also have to be filed, and people can participate in those processes. Even if there ever is a FERC permit, a landowner who makes the pipeline company actually go through the eminent domain process will very likely get a better deal. If enough landowners say Come and Take It, the whole thing may become uneconomical for Spectra, as for Williams Company when it cancelled the Bluegrass Pipeline in Kentucky.

FERC’s Pre-Filing Process

Spectra and Williams and FPL are currently in the pre-filing process with FERC, Continue reading Timeline: Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline has no permit yet

South Dougherty League Sabal Trail pipeline meeting today

Not just for Ted Turner, former Florida Governor and U.S. Senator Bob Graham, and Greenlaw anymore: now the whole neighborhood south of Albany is objecting to that fracked methane pipeline and its compressor station. Plus the hundred people who showed up at the FERC Scoping Meeting 4 March 2014, and more who went to U.S. Rep. Sanford Bishop’s (GA-02) listening session 17 April 2014. When Spectra’s Andrea Grover bragged in op-eds about the 50 public meetings, she forgot to mention that the public response was overwhelmingly against Spectra’s pipeline, and that opposition is growing.

Melody Briscoe wrote for WALB TV 9 August 2014, Meeting over concern of pipeline and compressor, Continue reading South Dougherty League Sabal Trail pipeline meeting today

Sabal Trail pipeline considered harmful for karst limestone Floridan Aquifer –FL-DEP

There’s no safe way for the yard-wide Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline through the fragile karst limestone containing the Floridan Aquifer, according to what Florida’s Department of Environmental Protection told FERC back in April. And what’s this about seven foot pipeline depth in Florida, while Spectra’s Andrea Grover complained in the Valdosta Daily Times about requests for five feet deep in Georgia?

FL-DEP points out that caves might not support a pipeline and testing or drilling could easily cause sinkholes. Plus blasting could change local hydrology.

The situation is actually worse than FL-DEP described. We don’t know that contamination couldn’t come from BCPs carried from Spectra’s Texas Eastern pipeline, or radon from the Marcellus Shale, in addition to the solvents FL-DEP mentioned. We don’t know the pipeline would carry only a gaseous product; it could be sold and used for something else. And as DEP says, it’s not just leaks that are the problem: the pipeline would require large amounts of testing water that would have to come from somewhere and go back somewhere, presumably contaminated with whatever was in the pipeline. What guarantee do we have that contamination wouldn’t go down those borings under our riverbeds?

Filed with FERC 18 April 2014 as four pages of the 74-page “Florida State Clearinghouse comments on Dockets # PF14-1, et al Notice of Intent to Prepare an Environmental Impact Statement for the Planned Southeast Market Pipelines Project (Sabal Trail and Florida Southeast Connection Projects).” Some of it was also submitted to FERC by Florida’s Suwannee River Water Management District, but there is new material here; especially that superimposition map. Continue reading Sabal Trail pipeline considered harmful for karst limestone Floridan Aquifer –FL-DEP