Category Archives: Law

Greenlaw files Air Quality objections to Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline

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, 2014

Sabal Trail Natural Gas Pipeline Threatens Air Quality in Southwest Georgia

GreenLaw files comments objecting to proposed natural gas pipeline
 

Atlanta, 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

Not willing to exchange for money –Council of the Original Miccosukee Simanolee Nation

Bobby C. Billie at Lee County, GA Courthouse Bobby C. Billie of the Council of the Original Miccosukee Simanolee Nation Aboriginal Peoples came to the hearing in Leesburg, GA for Sabal Trail Transmission v. the Bell family. Thanks to Trisha Springstead, here is a PDF with several documents from that Council; the first Statement and the main images are inline here in HTML. -jsq

Council of the Original Miccosukee Simanolee Nation
Aboriginal Peoples
Statement
November 21, 2013

300x383 1845 Indian Boundary, in Council of the Original Miccosukee Simanolee Nation, by John S. Quarterman, for SpectraBusters.org, 21 November 2013 In the 1700’s and 1800’s The Miccosukee Simanolee Nation entered into Agreements with the United States and entered into an Executive Agreement with the United States in 1842, which guaranteed and recognized the Miccosukee Simanolee Nation Aboriginal Peoples’ title to about 5 million acres in south Florida. The Agreement was confirmed by Executive Order of the President in 1845. The Agreement has never been repudiated nor terminated Continue reading Not willing to exchange for money –Council of the Original Miccosukee Simanolee Nation

Kinder Morgan tries stealth pipeline expansion in Massachusetts

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

Sabal Trail pipeline hearing in Leesburg, GA and WALB TV

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

Another speed-permit LNG export bill: H.R. 3301

LNG export to Canada or Mexico with almost no permitting and no environmental review of anything but the part that crosses the border. That’s H.R. 3301, just passed by the U.S. House of Representatves, but not yet taken up by the Senate, and already the presdent’s administration “strongly opposes” it; so strongly his advisors recommend vetoing it. Apparently H.R. 6 for blanket export to all WTO countries isn’t likely to pass, so fracked methane pushers are trying a similar approach for fewer countries. Get it across the nearest borders, and then export to other countries? Previously listening Sanford Bishop (GA-02 Albany) voted for both bills in the full House.

On Congress.gov, H.R. 3301 – North American Energy Infrastructure Act 113th Congress (2013-2014) and on govtrack.us.

North American Energy Infrastructure Act—(Sec. 3) Prohibits any person from constructing, connecting, operating, or maintaining a cross-border segment of an oil or natural gas pipeline or electric transmission facility at the national boundary of the United States for the import or export of oil, natural gas, or electricity to or from Canada or Mexico without obtaining a certificate of crossing under this Act.

Requires the Secretary of State, Continue reading Another speed-permit LNG export bill: H.R. 3301

Pipeline opponents converge on Leesburg, GA to help landowners countersue

Landowners countersue fracked methane pipeline company; supporters converge on Leesburg, GA

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Valdosta, July 8th 2014 — As far as 400 miles from Hendry County, Florida, people converge Thursday to support landowners in Lee County, Georgia as they countersue Sabal Trail Transmission about surveying without permission for a huge 36-inch fracked methane pipeline on a hundred-foot right of way.

Watershed groups including WWALS watershed coalition and Our Santa Fe River will be there, representing all the major tributaries of the Suwannee River, in this peaceful assembly to oppose the pipeline. Continue reading Pipeline opponents converge on Leesburg, GA to help landowners countersue

Farmers counter-sue Spectra over British Columbia pipeline

Pipeline suit and countersuit in British Columbia! Spectra Energy sued six Chilliwack farmers (east of Vancouver) and the farmers countersued. Which sounds quite a bit like what’s happening three thousand miles southeast of there in Leesburg, GA this Thursday July 10th, where a group of farmers is countersuing Spectra for trespass. Spectra is telling the same joke in both cases: the vast majority of landowners are for the pipeline, and opponents are only a few outliers. Troublesome farmers, not wanting their crops destroyed without even any compensation, imagine that! Those pesky outliers in Canada have delayed mighty Spectra a year already.

Alina Konevski wrote for Chilliwack Progress 11 June 2013, Farmers defiant as gas company demands access,

Members of the Fraser Valley Association of Pipeline Landowners, led by president Gord Mitchell, want a stringent contract with Spectra Energy before the company enters their land to replace an outdated pipeline under their fields.

Negotiations have failed. Mitchell was served Continue reading Farmers counter-sue Spectra over British Columbia pipeline

Peaceful Assembly at Pipeline Trial, Leesburg, GA, July 10th 2014

A landowner is suing Sabal Trail Transmission for going on their land after being told not to. It’s a public hearing, so interested parties can come from anywhere to attend in a peaceful, lawful assembly.

Update 2014-07-08: See press release.

If the place or date gets changed, everyone is invited to come anyway. , PDF 

Date:Thursday 10 July 2014
Times:10AM assemble outside
11AM hearing inside
Where:  Lee County Courthouse
100 Leslie Highway
Leesburg, Georgia 31763
Case:Sabal Trail Transmission v. James E. Bell II and Robert Bell
Case number 14CV208RS
What:Alabamians, Georgians, Floridians, and everyone opposed to this unnecessary fracked methane pipeline, here is an opportunity to show you don’t want this hazardous destruction of the environment and property rights so a few companies can profit at everyone else’s expense.

You can also do some of these other things: Continue reading Peaceful Assembly at Pipeline Trial, Leesburg, GA, July 10th 2014

See the FERC rubberstamp machine in action

You’ve heard the song, now see the FERC rubberstamp machine in action in videos of Sabal Trail interrogated in Gilchrist County, Florida @ GCC 2014-02-20, of the Valdosta FERC Scoping Meeting @ FERC 2014-03-04, and of the Moultrie FERC Scoping Meeting @ FERC 2014-03-05. See FERC refuse to release a tax-paid RFP and tax-paid-staff-reviewed proposals for an environmental contractor, and then see that very same contractor admit that the Sabal Trail pipeline would take twice the acreage to produce as much power as solar PV, while FERC refuses to consider that the pipeline would be far more environmentally damaging, more expensive, and would take much longer.

Nevermind landowners get only a one-time payment from the pipeline company, not rent and FERC has no Continue reading See the FERC rubberstamp machine in action

Song: We all know FERC’s a Rubber Stamp Machine!

We’ve all seen it here in Alabama, Georgia, and Florida, and our allies from New York went to FERC in DC to sing it: FERC’s a rubberstamp machine!

Here’s the video:


We all know FERC’s a Rubber Stamp Machine!
Video by NY Friends of Clean Air and Water

We all know FERC’s a Rubber Stamp Machine!
(Federal Energy Regulatory Commission)
Recorded the 1 May 2014 (day of Minisink trial at the DC Circuit Court of Appeals).

LYRICS:
We’re here at FERC to have our say
So listen closely, don’t walk away
This is your country It’s yours to save Continue reading Song: We all know FERC’s a Rubber Stamp Machine!