Monthly Archives: May 2016

Spectra, Duke, NextEra, Williams, all members of ALEC super-lobby group

All the companies behind the Southeast Market Pipelines Project have representatives sitting in those back rooms voting on draft bills on an equal basis with state legislators, according to the latest information publicly availlable. Back in the news a year after an Atlanta TV station reported on an ALEC meeting in Savannah, ALEC is not just for Georgia, every state has legislators in that super-lobbying group, including Florida and Albama, taking those draft bills back to their legislatures and often getting them passed. Now you know why the same bad bills to ban home rule on fracking, to block renwable energy portfolios, to impose a solar tax, and of course to promote fracked methane pipelines, show up at the same times in states all across the country.

Brendan Keefe and Michael King, WXIA-TV, 22 May 2015, Legislators and corporate lobbyists meet in secret at Georgia resort. They found out quite a bit before ALEC had off-duty deputies throw them out of their hotel. Continue reading Spectra, Duke, NextEra, Williams, all members of ALEC super-lobby group

Etowah River boring incident, Transco Dalton Expansion Project pipeline

Transco spilled oil into the Etowah River, the same Transco of the Hillabee Expansion Project in the Southeast Market Pipelines Project with Sabal Trail. Map, crossing at Historic Ford According to a local report Transco did nothing to clean up the oil or damage to the riverbed. This was part of Transco’s Dalton Expansion Project, FERC docket CP15-117, one of the many segmented projects discovered by WWALS Watershed Coalition that should have been considered cumulatively by FERC as part of SMPP, according to FERC’s own rules and a federal court ruling.

The Etowah River crossing is by open cut instead of HDD. Here’s why. FERC Accession Number: 20160502-5381, “EPA Region 4 review/comments for Dalton Expansion EA, CP15-117”, Continue reading Etowah River boring incident, Transco Dalton Expansion Project pipeline

Sabal Trail sues Georgia landowners for federal eminent domain –Atlanta Journal Constitution

Which Houston, Texas pipeline company has sued Ted Turner, Bob Graham, and dozens of other Georgia landowners, including a Georgia Centennial Farm? That’s right, Spectra Energy, as in the Sabal Trail fracked methane boondoggle.

Dan Chapman, AJC, 1 May 2016, South Georgia pipeline fight turns into battle over eminent domain,

A Texas company wants to condemn private property in Georgia for a pipeline to deliver energy to Florida.

Continue reading Sabal Trail sues Georgia landowners for federal eminent domain –Atlanta Journal Constitution