Via Greenlaw, comments on GA-EPD air permit application #22637. Sinkholes, CO2, NOX, VOCs, potential damage to people, animals, longleaf pine trees, air, and water. The best part: Nonami recommends if the compressor station should be built, it should be powered by solar panels. If others want to file comments, the application number and the address are in here. -jsq
Fracked methane pipelines require testing with local water,
which goes back into the local watersheds, not unlike
what just happened with the brine spill in North Dakota:
Cleanup area nearly 2 miles down ravine after ND saltwater spill; separated pipe suspected Article by: JOSH WOOD , Associated Press Updated: July 10, 2014 – 10:00 PM http://www.startribune.com/nation/266545571.html?utm_content=buffer7947c&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer
Received today. Note this says Georgia EPD does have authority over an air permit for the Albany compressor station. State agencies do have direct as well as indirect roles. -jsq
Press Release
For Immediate Release
July 14, 2014Sabal Trail Natural Gas Pipeline Threatens Air Quality in Southwest Georgia
GreenLaw files comments objecting to proposed natural gas pipelineAtlanta, GA — Last week, additional concerns were raised about a proposed
natural gas pipeline that threatens to cut across large swaths of Southwest Georgia, including longleaf pine tracts. GreenLaw, on behalf of a number of conservation groups, filed comments with the Georgia Environmental Protection Division (GA EPD) that raised objections about air quality along the pipeline, including a proposed compressor station outside Albany, Georgia. Continue reading Greenlaw files Air Quality objections to Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline
Spectra competitor Kinder Morgan is trying to fly under residents’ radar to gouge its hundred-foot Tennessee Gas Pipeline (TGP) right of way through Massachusetts. This is another $3 billion boondoggle that, like Spectra’ Sabal Trail pipeline through the southeast, could easily be replaced by solar power and conservation, which would keep LNG export from running up the price of existing methane gas supplies.
Nick Miller wrote for Nashoba Publishing 11 July 2014, Why Kinder Morgan fears an informed public,
Kinder Morgan is proposing to build a large, high pressure natural gas pipeline through 45 towns in Massachusetts, including Groton.
More than five month ago, agents of this company entered the town of Groton and began requesting that affected residents sign survey permission forms. They did not disclose Continue reading Kinder Morgan tries stealth pipeline expansion in Massachusetts
Spectra’s squad of seven left Leesburg unsatisfied.
The Bell family agreed to let pipeline surveyors on their land,
with strict conditions, but there was no agreement on eminent domain,
and Spectra will have to come back for a jury trial about trespass
in Lee County, Georgia.
The judge, perhaps emboldened by the fourteen protesters,
some of whom drove as much as 9 hours to get there,
refused to even call the surveying agreement a consent order;
it will be a consent agreement.
So Spectra’s Andrea Grover got nothing they can use against
other landowners.
The above is some of what I saw at the Leesburg, GA courthouse yesterday. Wright Gazaway was there for WALB TV, with a letter from the judge permitting videoing in the courtroom; he reported yesterday, Lee County residents protest pipeline, Continue reading Sabal Trail pipeline hearing in Leesburg, GA and WALB TV
What company prints its sustainability report on wind-powered paper,
yet pipes a greenhouse gas
20 times worse than CO2?
Yep, it’s Spectra Energy, also bragging about how
respectful they are to Sabal Trail “stakeholders”.
Selling fracked methane through a 36-inch pipe in a hundred-foot gash
through forests and wetlands with a thousand-foot explosive radius
is like selling cigarettes and claiming you’re for good health.
Tobacco companies can’t get away with that any more,
and why should fossil fuel companies?
On the very last page of a 16-page report, 2013 Sustainability Highlights Report, Spectra Energy says:
This paper is manufactured using clean, renewable wind-power energy and carbon offsets for additional savings.
That’s the only mention of wind or renewable energy in the document, while solar power is not mentioned even once.
And look at Spectra’s Purpose on page 2: Continue reading Sustainable Spectra? Like healthy cigarettes?
You can join this new ally in telling FERC to say no to that useless,
damaging, and dangerous fracked methane Sabal Trail pipeline.
Cathy Harrelson wrote for Gulf Restoration Network 12 June 2014, Say ‘No’ to the Sabal Trail Pipeline,
Florida’s besieged waterways are facing a new threat: Sabal Trail Transmission, LLC, wants to run a natural gas pipeline over, under and through our aquifers, rivers and springsheds. Our waters are already under threat from runoff pollution and over-pumping, and this major pipeline would risk sinkholes, gas leaks and aquifer contamination. Florida’s water is too important to take these risks— but we can say ‘no’ today!
Sabal Trail is seeking Continue reading Say No to Sabal Trail! –Gulf Restoration Network
The same Office of Fossil Energy (FE) that authorizes
LNG exports now reports that methane leaks from fracking wells
and pipelines are at least as bad for the climate as CO2 from coal.
Add to that the destruction of
private property rights, wetlands and forests, and overuse
and contamination of groundwater, and fracked methane
is a disaster.
Plus it diverts resources that could be used
to go straight to solar and wind power.
Steven Mufson wrote for the Washington Post 9 June 2014, Exporting U.S. natural gas isn’t as “clean” as you think,
The report is titled “Life Cycle Greenhouse Gas Perspective on Exporting Liquefied Natural Gas from the United States.”
It says the benefits of cleaner, more efficient combustion of natural gas are largely offset by methane leakage in U.S. production and pipelines and by methane leaks and energy used in the process of liquefying and transporting the LNG. In the case of shipping LNG from the U.S. gulf coast to Shanghai, the greenhouse gas benefits could in some cases be completely offset by those factors when measured over a 20-year period, the report says.
The Energy Department report was released Continue reading LNG exports worse than coal –U.S DoE
Of course FPL and Spectra don’t want FERC to look at fracking,
but nothing in FERC’s own rules says it can’t,
and a recent court case might be a precedent to get it to do so.
Maybe Audubon Florida is discovering trying to tinker with pipeline routes
is like signing up for the 1885 Berlin Conference that divided Africa
by drawing lines on a map.
Sierra Club Florida, Georgia, and Alabama already understand the only
appropriate route for that fracked methane boondoggle is no route,
with new power from the sun.
I’ve added a few links to these quotes from what Susan Salisbury wrote for the Palm Beach Post 5 May 2014, Fracking not an issue with pipeline for FPL’s plants, firms say, Continue reading Sabal Trail and FSC want FERC to avoid considering fracking
Would this U.S. Court of Appeals ruling mean FERC needs to
consider the cumulative effects of the proposed Sabal Trail pipeline
on the same properties as the existing SONAT pipeline?
And what about those
LNG export authorizations FERC has repeatedly
claimed it knows nothing about?
And how can FERC justify that project at all, given that
solar power is faster, cheaper, and far less environmentally damaging?
Katie Colaneri wrote for NPR 6 June 2014, Court rules federal regulators must consider cumulative impacts of pipeline project,
Regulators violated federal law by not considering the cumulative environmental impacts of multiple upgrades to a natural gas pipeline that runs from Pennsylvania to New Jersey, a federal appeals court said on Friday.
Three environmental groups argued the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) should not have been allowed to conduct an environmental review for one expansion project on the Tennessee Gas Pipeline without considering three other proposed upgrades on the same line.
The U.S. Court of Appeals agreed.
The judges ruled that FERC failed “to include any meaningful analysis of the cumulative impacts of the upgrade projects.” The judges also found Continue reading FERC has to consider cumulative pipeline effects