Tag Archives: Alabama

Petition against Sabal Trail by Gulf Restoration Network

Johanna de Graffenreid, Gulf Restoration Network, 11 November 2015, EPA Warns – Sabal Trail Pipeline Threatens Gulf,

Last week, thanks to the courageous efforts of community members across the nation who stood up to the oil industry in their backyards, President Obama vetoed the northern leg of the Keystone XL pipeline. Unfortunately, there’s no rest for the weary and a new threat to our Gulf is rearing its ugly head. Unless we stand up to Spectra Energy, and the EPA intervenes, the Sabal Trail Pipeline will begin construction in 2016.

There’s more, and a link to a petition to Stop the Southeast Market Pipeline.

Please sign.

“If I am not for myself who is for me? If I am not for others, what am I? And if not now, when?” —Hillel the Elder

Or, as the Texians said at Gonzales, the Georgians at Fort Morris, and the Spartans at Thermopylae:

Come and Take It!

Please sign this petition.

-jsq

FERC meetings for Draft Environmental Impact Statement 28 Sep 2015 – 8 Oct 2015

Two weeks for all the public meetings, rushing to make the 20 November 2015 final EIS notice date, Meeting schedule for a final decision 18 February 2016.

The Draft EIS released Friday 4 September 2015 is very long, but the most basic question is very short: why is FERC rushing to rubberstamp the unnecessary, destructive, and hazardous Sabal Trail pipeline and its fracked methane siblings Hillabee Transco and FSC when there’s neither need nor public benefit?

The Sunshine State should go straight to solar power.

If you don’t want any of these pipelines, you can send in your comments both to FERC and to state and local agencies and elected officials in Georgia, Florida, and Alabama, and show up at these FERC meetings to protest. You can also still file a motion to intervene with FERC. And don’t forget to call Georgia Gov. Deal.

Filed with FERC 4 September 2015 as Accession Number: 20150904-3011, “Notice of Availability of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the Proposed Southeast Market Pipelines Project re Florida Southeast Connection, LLC et al under CP14-554 et al.” Continue reading FERC meetings for Draft Environmental Impact Statement 28 Sep 2015 – 8 Oct 2015

Deny Sabal Trail, said U.S. Rep. Sanford Bishop, and FERC ignored him

Citing the GDOT denial of KMI’s Palmetto Pipeline and numerous specific hazards of Spectra Energy’s proposed Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline (sinkholes in karst limestone and a compressor station next to Albany’s water wells, all for no benefit to Georgia, by a company with a poor safety record), U.S. Rep. Sanford Bishop (GA-02) wrote to FERC (PDF):

I believe that FERC should deny STT’s application for a Certificate of Public Necessity.

And he told FERC to tell Sabal Trail to stop suing his constituents for eminent domain.

A year after Rep. Bishop listened in Albany for two hours to complaints about Sabal Trail, Dougherty County and Albany, Georgia filed followup letters to their resolutions against that pipeline. Neither FERC nor Sabal Trail answered them, so their Representative in the U.S. Congress forwarded their letters with that sharp cover letter. Three weeks later, FERC still hasn’t even filed his letter in their e-comment system, much less responded to it.

Just how lawless is FERC, anyway? Doesn’t a member of the U.S. House Committee on Appropriations give them pause? Continue reading Deny Sabal Trail, said U.S. Rep. Sanford Bishop, and FERC ignored him

Kinder Morgan FERC filing to ship fracked methane to Jacksonville

The pipeline companies are in cahoots to export through all our lands. 300x194 Exhibit F: Compressors and loops; Suwannee, Columbia, and Bradford Counties, Florida, in Jacksonville Expansion Project, by FGT, for SpectraBusters.org, 31 March 2015 Beware especially Suwannee, Columbia, Bradford, and Clay Counties, Florida. Beware Atlantic coastal Georgia, the same Kinder Morgan (KMI) of the Palmetto petroleum products Project to Jacksonville wants to push fracked methane to Jacksonville, apparently for export. Beware Alabama, Georgia, and Florida on the proposed path of Sabal Trail: This new Florida project could ship Sabal Trail fracked methane to Jaxport for LNG export.

In March 2014 TECO Peoples Gas announced intention to ship fracked methane to Jacksonville, which the Jacksonville Business Journal interpreted as for export, since Continue reading Kinder Morgan FERC filing to ship fracked methane to Jacksonville

Duke Energy buys into Sabal Trail

Are Spectra and FPL running short on money so they have to take on a new investor? Has the opposition cost them $225 million already?

The AP story includes two misconceptions. After protests continuing into this year, a criminal trespass lawsuit against Sabal Trail, and multiple parties filing amicus briefs, this is all AP remembers:

The pipeline drew protests from southwest Georgia residents last year, who said they do not want a pollution-emitting compression station near their homes.

And despite Sabal Trail’s continued failure to demonstrate need, AP repeats this old canard:

Currently there are only two major pipelines that deliver natural gas to Florida. Both are nearing capacity.

Not if the Sunshine State gets on with solar power, like even the most corrupt state (Georgia) is doing.

Interestingly, there’s no press release from any of Sabal Trail, Spectra, NextEra, or FPL about this, but there’s this obviously slanted Duke Energy PR, 5 May 2015, Duke Energy buys 7.5% of previously announced Sabal Trail pipeline that will meet growing need for natural gas in Southeast U.S., Continue reading Duke Energy buys into Sabal Trail

If eminent domain is hardship to Mineral Interest Owners, it’s hardship to everyone else

If affected salt and other minerals in subsurface caverns are enough to deny a FERC permit, drinking water in the Floridan Aquifer should be, too. 1. Turtle Bayou Resolutions Marker, By Jim Evans, October 13, 2012 The “first formal protest of Texas colonists against Mexican tyranny” was signed at Turtle Bayou, Chambers County, Texas, where an Alabama Company four years ago wanted to store natural gas underground with an associated pipeline that FERC denied. Communities and local governments throughout the Floridan Aquifer have signed protests against fossil fuel company tyranny in the form of the unnecessary, destructive, and hazardous Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline.

FERC denied that permit application for Turtle Bayou Gas Storage Company in 2011; one of only two pipeline applications that FERC’s John Peconom could find that FERC ever denied. The applicant appealed. FERC replied in Dockets CP10-481-002 and CP10-481-000, ORDER DENYING REQUEST FOR REHEARING OR RECONSIDERATION (Issued April 11, 2012), Continue reading If eminent domain is hardship to Mineral Interest Owners, it’s hardship to everyone else

Sabal Trail contractor yards

300x388 Dougherty County, GA Compressor Station, CONTRACTOR YARD #2-3, in Sabal Trail Contractor Yards, by John S. Quarterman, for SpectraBusters.org, 20 February 2015 It’s not just the pipeline or the compressor stations: Sabal Trail has filed maps of contractor yards, some of them miles away from the pipeline path, at least one next to an airport (Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia).

Filed with FERC as Accession Number: 20150220-5131, “Sabal Trail Transmission, LLC submits supplemental information on adopted alternatives and information on other reroutes and modifications under CP15-17.”, RR1_Vol-II-A_FIGURE-1.1-2_YARDS.PDF and RR1_Vol-II-A_FIGURE-1.1-3_YARDS.PDF. Continue reading Sabal Trail contractor yards

FERC tells Sabal Trail to fix 17 pages of errors

John Peconom of FERC has told Sabal Trail to provide copious detailed information by 27 March 2015, including numerous items about karst limestone, such as:

Utilize publicly available LiDAR data and cave information to further characterize karst areas crossed by the Project facilities.

and

Provide summary assessments of the Direct Pipe, open cut, aerial, and intersect crossing methods as alternatives to the proposed HDD crossings of the Withlacoochee River in Brooks and Lowndes Counties, Georgia and the Suwannee River, Santa Fe River, and Withlacoochee Rivers in Florida. Also, summarize any modified HDD techniques/methods considered at these specific crossings.

Is this just FERC helping one of its funding organizations (FERC is 100% funded by the industries it “regulates”)? Or maybe even FERC is getting tired of Sabal Trail?

Filed with FERC 27 February 2015 as Accession Number: 20150227-3071, “Letter requesting Sabal Trail Transmission, LLC to file within 30 days the Environmental Information Request for the Sabal Trail Project under CP15-17.” Continue reading FERC tells Sabal Trail to fix 17 pages of errors

Sabal Trail announced pipe supplier contracts before filing with FERC

Rubberstamp FERC process? Sabal Trail seems to think so, since it announced two contracts with Berg Pipe to manufacture pipe several days before it even formally filed with FERC for a permit, and the winning contractor announced a full week before that filing. Sabal Trail claimed economic benefits for Alabama and Florida, but apparently couldn’t come up any for Georgia. You can contact your local, state, and federal elected and appointed officials about this.

FERC published Sabal Trail’s formal filing 21 November 2015. Earlier that same week, 17 November 2015, Sabal Trail put out two press releases, one each for Alabama and Florida: Continue reading Sabal Trail announced pipe supplier contracts before filing with FERC

New England doesn’t need more gas pipelines: stockpile instead

Still more evidence that new natural gas pipelines are an unneeded boondoggle.

Kathryn R. Eiseman, Commonwealth Magazine, 20 January 2015, New gas pipelines can be avoided: Back-up fuel incentives are the way to go,

LAST WINTER’S NATURAL gas price spikes, and resultant electric rate hikes, continue to be used to justify the push for massive expansion of gas infrastructure. Yet a successful program to incentivize New England’s power generators to contract for back-up fuel for this winter undermines the argument for more pipelines. This winter’s lower wholesale gas and electric prices indicate that the rate hikes themselves could have been avoided had such measures been more fully implemented for the 2013-2014 winter.

Measures like contracting to buy gas from peak load plants that sometimes sat idle last winter. And measures like storing gas when it’s cheap to use in the winter.

In fact, ISO-NE intentionally excluded LNG storage incentives from last winter’s winter reliability program, telling the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that gas-market-related solutions “would lower gas prices and send the wrong signal about the relative scarcity of natural gas. These lower prices would also be reflected in the electricity market.” In other words, allowing prices to rise would help convince the public Continue reading New England doesn’t need more gas pipelines: stockpile instead