Suwannee County residents please come speak, and everyone else please come be seen (you can speak, too). Facebook event. Come defend property rights, water, and air in Suwannee County from the Sabal Trail invader, and that helps defend where you are, too.

When: 6PM Tuesday 17 November 2015

Where: 218 Parshley Street Southwest, Live Oak, Florida, 32064

From the draft minutes of the Nov. 3rd meeting

“Commissioner Wainwright asked to revisit the Natural Gas Compressor Station on the Sabal Trail Pipeline discussed at the previous regular meeting and asked that the Board consider adopting a resolution opposing the current placement of the Compressor Station in the O’Brien area instead of the Hildreth area as its name implied. He then described the issue in further detail.

Chairman Bashaw asked the County Attorney how to proceed with this issue. County Attorney Prevatt replied that the issue to be discussed tonight should be to have a consensus from the Board to have Staff prepare a resolution that would be brought back at the next meeting for approval.

The Board agreed by consensus to have Staff prepare a resolution (asking that the Sabal Trail Pipeline’s Hildreth Compressor Station be moved to a less residential area).” Sabal Trail has mislead the FERC and the public this compressor station is 1/2 mile from residential areas.

That compressor station site is actually closer to O’Brien than Hildreth. It has all the same disadvantages as the compressor station Sabal Trail wants to build near Albany, GA. Unfortunately, nobody in Florida noticed when DEP wanted to issue an air quality permit for the Hildreth compressor, so nobody objected, and that permit was issued. But Suwannee County can still object to the location.

Suwannee County resident and SpectraBusters board member Debra Johnson says:

How about nowhere in our county. It’s like who wants this dangerous compressor station in Suwannee County ANYWHERE?

Suwannee County Commissioner Richard Gamble testified at the hearing in Jasper for WWALS v. Sabal Trail & FDEP that it cost Suwannee County “Between 1.4 and 1.5 million” dollars to fix sinkholes at the Klausner sawmill site.

SpectraBusters president Beth Gordon remarkded:

It pollutes, it’s dangerous, we don’t use the gas- anything else? Oh- FPL Florida residents will pay for the whole 3 billion eventually. But only Sabal Trail will get the profits from selling the gas, mostly export.

And what about the rivers? Sabal Trail wants to bore its 36-inch pipe under both the Suwannee River and the Santa Fe River, both of which are Outstanding Florida Waters supposed to have extra protection according to the State of Florida, both of which are in sensitive environmental regions according to Suwannee County’s own Comprehensive Plan. What about the Falmouth Cathedral Cave System, running east to west across the county, which Sabal Trail would cross?

What about the property rights of the people of Suwannee County, whose land Sabal Trail wants to take through eminent domain? Sure and it’s just an easement, but let Suwannee County resident Wayne Ellison tell you what that means (can’t build structures, plant trees, bisects property) like he told the Court in Jasper.

This Sabal Trail item is still not on the agenda, but we have assurances that it will be brought up. And if it isn’t, that’s even more reason for people to be there.

More here.

-jsq

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