FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Valdosta, 23 March 2014 — All
of south Georgia and north Florida drinks out of the
Floridan Aquifer, where the FERC Scoping meetings and a
SpectraBusters community panel meet this week about Sabal
Trail’s attempt to take our lands to gouge a 100-foot
right of way for a 36-inch methane pipeline through our
fragile karst limestone, risking turning our springs into
sinkholes.
How about we recognize every place is
the worst place for the water-risking land-taking hazardous methane pipeline,
and get on with
sun, wind, and water to power Florida, Georgia, Alabama,
and
all the other states?
According to Stanford University researchers, we can do that, and we can do it 100% by 2050, using technology that’s already available. For Florida, that’s 20% rooftop solar PV (half residential and half commercial and governmental), 47.9% solar PV plants, 10% concentrating solar plants, 5% onshore wind, 15% offshore wind, 1% each wave and tide, 0.1% hydroelectric. So that’s 77.9% sun, 20% wind, 1% wave, 1% tide, and 0.1% hydro.
Requiring 0% nuclear, 0% coal, and 0% natural gas. That’s right, Florida doesn’t need methane to shut down coal and nukes. All the Sunshine State needs is sun, wind, and water.
With 355,500 construction jobs and 149,000 operation jobs, $20.1 billion or 3% of Florida’s GDP saved in avoided health costs, 2,210 Floridans not dead from air pollution.
Oh, and 42.9% less energy used over all, plus energy costs to customers cut more than in half.
Who are you going to believe? Researchers at Stanford who have no financial stake in the outcome? Or pipeline companies and utility companies that stand to profit from taking Continue reading Less cost, more jobs, and better health with sun, wind, and water power for Florida, or a dirty destructive methane pipeline?
Florida newspaper reporters are not buying the pipeline company’s spin. Instead they write about the fragile limestone that holds our drinking water in the Floridan Aquifer, damage to which can easily turn a spring into a sinkhole. Wednesday, the Orlando Sentinel about Spectra’s safety record, and today Morgan Watkins wrote for the Gainesville Sun, Expert: Pipeline would cross Santa Fe at the worst spot,
Standing along the bank of the Santa Fe River near the riverside house in southern Suwannee County his family has owned since 1967, Kevin Brown pointed to the spot where a natural gas pipeline is expected to cross underneath the ground.
But Brown’s brother David, a geologist, and other concerned folks hope to persuade the company leading the project to select what they consider a safer crossing point….
The river and the surrounding area is pockmarked with springs and sinkholes. Exposed limestone — a crumbly, fractured rock — Continue reading Sabal Trail at worst spot –expert in Gainesville Sun
A reporter for a major newspaper is calling Spectra on its safety record, and calling Spectra’s responses “not good enough”! After thirty years of Spectra safety promises, that’s putting it mildly. A Maine resident put it this way after the Spectra’s Searsmont compressor blowout: “we were clearly lied to”.
Lauren Ritchie wrote for the Orlando Sentinel today, Safety record of natural-gas pipeline partner raises concerns,
Spectra Energy Corp. along with FPL’s parent, NextEra Energy, would bury the 473-mile Sabal Trail pipeline expected to carry 1 billion cubic feet per day of natural gas to just south of Orlando in Osceola County, where it would connect to another line for eventual delivery to FPL in Martin County.
Spectra’s safety record, however, leaves something to be desired.
Take, for example, the company’s Texas Eastern pipeline, a 9,200-mile Spectra project connecting Texas with the markets in the Northeast.
Between 2006 and 2013, the company had 21 “incidents” along the line, causing Continue reading Methane pipeline safety record questioned –Lauren Ritchie
Mark Boxley, wrote for The (Louisville, Ky.) Courier-Journal 13 February 2014, Ky. gas line explosion injures 2; homes evacuated,
Two homes were destroyed, 20 residences were evacuated and two people received non-life threatening injuries early Thursday in Adair County after a natural gas transportation line exploded, leaving a 60-foot crater near Highway 76 in Knifley.
The first call came in at about 2:04 a.m. EST when residents heard and felt rumbling under their feet, said Adair County Emergency Management Agency director Greg Thomas. Then came the explosion and a ball of fire, he said.
Continue reading Thirty years after Spectra’s Beaumont, KY explosion little has changed
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Valdosta, 16 March 2014 —
Florida forms the field for the pipeline fight this week, at
a Suwannee County Commissioners meeting and three FERC
Scoping Meetings. Plus later a SpectraBusters panel on the
issues.
The Congress member for all of the north Florida path of the proposed Sabal Trail methane pipeline invites you to a Town Hall in Ocala Monday.
On Ted Yoho’s facebook page, this event:
Ocala Town Hall
Hosted by Congressman Ted Yoho
6:30-7:30pm Monday 17 March 2014
3733 SW 80th Avenue, Ocala, FLCome join me for a Town Hall meeting on Monday, March 17th at Westport High School. I’ll be there to give an update on what is happening in Washington as well as answer any questions or concerns. Doors open at 6:00 pm. Hope to see you there!
Florida’s Third Congressional District includes part or all of all of the north Florida counties on the pipeline path: Madison County, Hamilton County, Columbia County, Suwannee County, Gilchrist County, Alachua County, Levy County, and Marion County.
Continue reading Ted Yoho (FL-03) Town Hall in Ocala, FL tomorrow 17 March 2014
“But this isn’t an issue just for tree-huggers.
It’s one that every person who uses water ought to latch on to,”
she wrote.
I added the links and the images below to what Lauren Ritchie wrote in the Orlando Sentinel yesterday, Move path for natural-gas pipeline to protect water supply,
Only a relatively small piece of a proposed natural-gas pipeline that is to cross three states would come through a corner of south Lake County, but the route is directly through one of the most environmentally sensitive areas in Florida.
And, unfortunately, the pipeline is to be built by a company whose safety record is hardly sterling and whose tendency is to stare silently when asked questions about accidents.
I’d recognize the pipeline company from that description. Continue reading Water supply more important than methane pipeline –Lauren Ritchie
Wouldn’t it be sad if Spectra, Williams, and FPL had to announce this?
Katy wrote for NoFrackedGasinMass.org 13 March 2014, ONCE UPON A TIME, TGP WANTED TO PUT A PIPELINE THROUGH WAKEFIELD, SAUGUS AND LYNNFIELD …,
“Tennessee Gas Pipeline regrets to inform you that its Essex-Middlesex Project is being terminated. Delays from the protracted permitting process have caused the project to become uneconomical to the extent that Tennessee and the project’s customer, DistriGas of Massachusetts, have agreed to discontinue the project.”
-jsq
Bob Hastings of the Alabama Sierra Club reports from the
Alabama FERC Scoping Meetings. -jsq
I attended both the Alexander City and Butler hearings, and was disappointed in both. There was apparently a lot of apathy and/or intimidation among people affected.
There were about 50-75 people at Alex City but only about 7 people spoke. I read the Alabama-Georgia-Florida Sierra Club statement, and got a few compliments after the meeting.
At Butler, there were only 7 people present (plus about 15 “company” employees who answered questions, but there were not many questions). Because of the small group, we sat in a circle with the FERC reps and listened to their statements and asked a few questions. No landowners made statements and I agreed to submit mine online. It was a long drive for not much information.
I was also told that about 25 people attended the Seale hearing but no one submitted comments (according to Bill Braun, a “first zero” for FERC hearings).
Bill Braun was the FERC representative (a contract environmental consultant) from Minnesota who described the projects at all three hearings in Alabama, along with Kara Harris.