Lowndes County citizen Larry Rodgers
received
this letter from Sabal Trail
as dramatized in this
video, which
also contains many “Pipeline? No!” signs with spectrabusters.org on them,
thanks to WACE.
That letter and
a response by Larry Rodgers’ attorney Bill Langdale
are included with
the SpectraBusters letter to the judge in Leesburg, GA,
where Sabal Trail is demanding eminent domain authority against
other landowners, and those landowners are countersuing for criminal trespass. Continue reading Video dramatization of landowner receiving Sabal Trail eminent domain threatening letter
Category Archives: Law
Sabal Trail repeatedly sent letters to landowners claiming Georgia eminent domain authority –SpectraBusters to judge
SpectraBusters sent examples of Sabal Trail’s many threats of eminent domain, in this letter to Leesburg for the ongoing eminent domain and criminal trespass trial.
Re: Case number 14CV208RS
Judge Rucker SmithTo: Cindy Clark
Civil Deputy Clerk
County Courthouse
100 Leslie Highway
Leesburg, Georgia 31763If it please the court,
SpectraBusters, Inc. is a Georgia nonprofit corporation with board members and other participants in all three states directly affected by the Sabal Trail proposed pipeline: Georgia, Florida, and Alabama. The SpectraBusters board voted Monday March 30th 2015 to send this letter to the court to express our concerns about Sabal Trail’s attempts to claim Georgia eminent domain long before it tried to claim customers in Georgia, as well as possible ill effects throughout the pipeline route, especially in Georgia, if the judge were to rule in this case for application of Georgia eminent domain. Even with Sabal Trail’s claimed agreement with the Metropolitan Gas Authority of Georgia (MGAG), Sabal Trail is still “a long way” Continue reading Sabal Trail repeatedly sent letters to landowners claiming Georgia eminent domain authority –SpectraBusters to judge
Leesburg hearing
Still Tim to file an amicus brief.
Georgia has no use for new pipelines –AJC
Four pipeline projects surround Atlanta, and Georgia’s governor won’t comment. Spectra’s Andrea Grover did, though, saying the Albany compressor station would be no louder than “a modern-day dishwasher.”
Dan Chapman, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 3 April 2015, Pipeline project fuels fight on state’s future,
VALDOSTA — Southwest Georgia is roiling mad over a proposed gas pipeline to Florida that virtually nobody in Atlanta, except Ted Turner, has heard about.
John Carlton looks over a gopher tortoise hole a few feet away from a 1954 easement for an 8 inch natural gas line on his property at Morrison Pines Plantation in Moultrie. The planned Sabel Trail pipeline would run 50 feet over from the existing line. Carlton is undecided on the proposal.
Photograph credit: Curtis Compton, AJC
Oil (Palmetto) vs. gas (Sabal Trail) pipelines at FERC
FERC’s role for oil pipelines is different than for natural gas pipelines. FERC doesn’t actively promote petroleum products pipelines through federal eminent domain like it does for fracked methane; instead it leaves oil pipeline eminent domain to the states, which for Georgia seems to mostly mean the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT).
FERC’s website says about Regulating Oil Pipelines:
The Commission’s responsibilities include:
- Regulation of rates and practices of oil pipeline companies engaged in interstate transportation;
- Establishment of equal service conditions to provide shippers with equal access to pipeline transportation; and
- Establishment of reasonable rates for transporting petroleum and petroleum products by pipeline.
So Kinder Morgan’s Palmetto petroleum products Project does fall under FERC, but not the same way as for Sabal Trail’s fracked methane pipeline.
These FERC oil roles help explain why Continue reading Oil (Palmetto) vs. gas (Sabal Trail) pipelines at FERC
Grasping at semicolons: Sabal Trail fail in Leesburg
Semicolons and disjunctive ands vs. propaganda, subterfuge, and fraud yesterday in Leesburg, GA, and evidentiary briefs will be received by the judge over the next 20 days.
After patiently listening to Spectra attorneys detail how a 1920s
version of Georgia pipeline eminent domain law had a semicolon
that they claimed separated “in the State of Georgia” from their
pipeline, Judge Smith later remarked that the legislature passing
a bill that removed the semicolon could be used to infer that they
intended to remove the semicolon.
Sabal Trail also tried to argue that the “and” in the same sentence
was a disjunctive that similarly separated.
The judge seemed more interested in the basic question:
does Sabal Trail provide gas to customers within the State of Georgia?
The landowners’ attorney made it even more interesting, referring to Continue reading Grasping at semicolons: Sabal Trail fail in Leesburg
Return to Leesburg, GA for Sabal Trail legal hearing against landowners
Last summer
Sabal Trail limped away from Leesburg, Georgia
without any ruling about eminent domain.
They’re heading their pipeline posse back to town this Tuesday, 24 March 2015,
for an 11:30 AM hearing on a motion of summary judgment against the same
landowners, the Bells.
This is an opportunity for pipeline opponents to show up at the hearing or write a letter of support for the Bells.
Send your letter here and we’ll probably also publish it.
If you can’t come in person, for letters here is contact information Continue reading Return to Leesburg, GA for Sabal Trail legal hearing against landowners
Yes, Palmetto Pipe Line falls under FERC
There’s never been any doubt that Kinder Morgan’s Palmetto Project
to gouge through South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida to Jacksonville
is an interstate pipeline and therefore under the jurisdiction of FERC.
It does aready have one FERC docket. The only reason it doesn’t have
a pre-filing or regular filing FERC docket is it just hasn’t gotten
that far in the FERC process yet.
Update 2015-03-26: Actually, FERC doesn’t have nearly as much authority over oil pipelines.
FERC’s own docket OR15-13, was Continue reading Yes, Palmetto Pipe Line falls under FERC
Justice was served at last for the Seneca Lake protesters
This, Sabal Trail, is what a historical precedent looks like.
They protested fracked methane storage, were arrested,
charged,
and the charges were just dismissed with prejudice,
which means they case can’t be brought back on those charges.
Everything they said about Seneca Lake
applies equally to the Sabal Trail pipeline,
the Palmetto Pipeline, Elba Island LNG export, and the rest of the
whole cash-out-before-the-carbon-bubble-pops fossil fuel boondoggle.
Sometimes, in good conscience, citizens must engage in non-violent acts of civil disobedience to protect our sacred trust.
Surveying for the unnecessary, destructive, and hazardous Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline is not “imperative”, no matter how many threatening letters Sabal Trail sends. These are our sacred trust: Continue reading Justice was served at last for the Seneca Lake protesters
Eminent domain final notice from Sabal Trail
How many landowners has Sabal Trail sent final notices like this?
Update 2015-03-23: Added transcription; see more background here and you can write to the Clerk of Superior Court in Leesburg, GA against a possible summary judgement for surveying eminent domain in a hearing Tuesday morning 11:30 AM March 24th 2015.
It is imperative that Sabal Trail begin performing the remaining surveys. Please consider this letter as Sabal Trail’s final request for permission to conduct the surveys on a portion of your property…. Please note that Georgia statute O.C.G.A. 22-3-88, sets forth survey authority as related to this Project which has been affirmed in Georgia Court.
Imperative for a company from Houston to profit by gouging through local land and under our rivers and maybe into our aquifer. Not imperative for those of us who live here.
And the only Georgia court decision I’ve heard of is Continue reading Eminent domain final notice from Sabal Trail