Category Archives: Water

Stop the Sabal Trail pipeline –Food & Water Watch

An ally takes action against the methane pipeline and for clean water and springs. Food & Water Watch today posted Stop the proposed natural gas highway near Florida’s Springs: Tell Florida lawmakers to keep our springs safe!

It’s linked to a petition, Sign the petition to keep the Sabal Trail Pipeline out of Florida!:

The Sabal Trail is a proposed pipeline that would run from Alabama to Florida carrying natural gas extracted through fracking. Experts fear that this pipeline will endanger our water resources as well as senstive ecosystems in Florida, like our precious springs. The pipeline will also encourage more hydraulic fracking or “fracking.” Fracking is a type of gas drilling that injects millions of gallons of hydraulic fluids — a mixture of chemicals, water and sand — into a well to create pressure that cracks open rock underground, releasing natural gas. This process can deplete and contaminate local water, damage the environment and threaten public health.

Please follow the link and sign!

-jsq

Extend the FERC scoping period and obtain critical information from Sabal Trail Transmission –Greenlaw

Two of the most organized Riverkeepers in Georgia, plus the Georgia Sierra Club and a group of landowners in Dougherty County, Georgia, have retained environmental law firm Greenlaw to address the Sabal Trail Pipeline. The task is difficult because of lack of information from Sabal Trail and from FERC. Here Steve Caley of Greenlaw spells out what his clients have asked for and how it’s been refused. You can help by also asking FERC or your elected officials to ask FERC to provide the missing information and to extend the Scoping Period. The PDF of the letter includes the attached documents. -jsq

April 7, 2014

Continue reading Extend the FERC scoping period and obtain critical information from Sabal Trail Transmission –Greenlaw

Sabal Trail will be expected to adhere and honor all Lowndes County Ordinances –Bill E Slaughter, JR to FERC

Filed with FERC 11 April 2014. These are apparently the items he referred to Saturday 29 March 2014 at the SpectraBusters panel at VSU. There’s much more that can be done but this is a good step forward. -jsq

Bill E Slaughter, JR, Hahira, GA.
April 10, 2014

To whom it may concern:

If the route for the proposed Sabal Trail Pipeline comes through any part of Lowndes County as Chairman of the Lowndes County Commission and on the behalf of the Commission and Citizens of Lowndes County I would like to address several concerns we have with the Sabal Trail Pipeline Docket # P14-1-000.

  1. All road crossings must obtain a Lowndes County R/W Encroachment Permit for each crossing which will include all information required by the Lowndes County Engineer.
  2. All road crossings shall be perpendicular to the R/W.
  3. All road crossings shall be Continue reading Sabal Trail will be expected to adhere and honor all Lowndes County Ordinances –Bill E Slaughter, JR to FERC

Cancelled! Paddle Against the Pipeline on the Withlacoochee River

Update 9PM 16 April 2014: Cancelled due to flood-stage water levels in the Withlacoochee River, with more rain expected Friday. To be rescheduled.

7:30 AM Saturday 19 April 2014 on the Withlacoochee River between Valdosta and Quitman, put in at Old Quitman Road on the Brooks County side (just south of US 84): Paddle past where the proposed Sabal Trail methane pipeline would cross the Withlacoochee River, digging into our fragile karst limesone, above our drinking-water Floridan Aquifer. This is a joint event of Continue reading Cancelled! Paddle Against the Pipeline on the Withlacoochee River

Panel Discussion, Sabal Trail Pipeline, Valdosta State University

PDF

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Valdosta, 28 March 2014 — Come to the SpectraBusters community panel about the Sabal Trail methane Pipeline Saturday at Valdosta State University, to learn how the pipeline could affect you, your property, and our community. Discussion will be followed by a question and answer session, in this free event, to which elected and appointed officials and candidates and the public are invited.

Saturday
29 March 2014
3PM to 5PM
Lowndes County
Georgia
SpectraBusters Community Panel
Student Union Theater
Valdosta State University
1500 N. Patterson Street
Valdosta, GA 31698

(229) 333-5800
Continue reading Panel Discussion, Sabal Trail Pipeline, Valdosta State University

Core drill sampling

Seen on Our Santa Fe River 20 March 2014. -jsq

Gas Pipeline Alert:

Core drill sampling: What happened and what DID NOT happen… Last week, OSFR, residents and Christopher Byrd (IREPHA lawyer) stopped Sabal Trails from drilling for core samples for the purpose of building a drilling platform on both sides of the Santa Fe River.

OSFR began receiving phone calls and emails last week about this drilling procedure. We were absolutely certain that this was a “cart before the horse” problem. There have been no completed Continue reading Core drill sampling

TREPO allies with SpectraBusters and pipeline opponents

Received Monday 25 March 2014 as a PDF. -jsq

Three River Estates Property Owners, Inc.
P.O. Box 148
Fort White, FL 32038-0148
386-497-3320

Position Statement on Sabal Trail/Spectra Energy Methane Pipeline

The Three River Estates Property Owners (TREPO) Board of Directors joins with other homeowners and conservation groups in strongly opposing the placement of the Sabal Trail Methane gas pipeline, anywhere in the Ichetucknee Springs Basin & Ichetucknee Trace & surrounding areas. We specifically oppose Continue reading TREPO allies with SpectraBusters and pipeline opponents

No Pipeline in our Aquifer in north Florida and south Georgia

PDF

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.

Continue reading No Pipeline in our Aquifer in north Florida and south Georgia

Less cost, more jobs, and better health with sun, wind, and water power for Florida, or a dirty destructive methane pipeline?

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?

Sabal Trail at worst spot –expert in Gainesville Sun

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