Tag Archives: Floridan Aquifer

Please call your GA state rep. today to keep Sabal Trail out

They’re voting today. Here’s who to call to ask to vote No on SR 954. And below is why. If you don’t live in Georgia, you probably know somebody who does: please ask them to call their GA state rep.

More solar jobs than in oil and gas extraction John S. Quarterman, Valdosta Daily Times, today, 22 March 2016, Still possible to keep Sabal Trail out,

After two years going to Sabal Trail open houses and FERC scoping meetings, filing e-comments, guiding them to the river crossings and a legal hearing in Jasper, FERC still tells us customers for Spectra Energy from Houston, Texas, constitute a need that outweighs local property rights, environmental destruction, and hazards to our Withlacoochee and Suwannee rivers and the Floridan Aquifer, and to taxes, life, and limb.

Yet Georgia is the fastest-growing U.S. solar market, while solar Continue reading Please call your GA state rep. today to keep Sabal Trail out

Keep calling to strip Sabal Trail easements from SR 954 in the GA House

Sabal Trail’s allies have failed three times to pass this bill! Please keep calling your state legislators Transportation System Alternatives, Alabama, Georgia, Florida so they will stay strong voting against SR 954 until Sabal Trail and Transco easements are taken out of it. The next vote is scheuduled for Tuesday, March 22nd, so please call them through the weekend.

If you don’t live in Georgia, you probably know somebody who does, so you can ask them to call their Georgia state rep. to stop easements for Sabal Trail to drill under the Chattahoochee, Flint, Ochlockonee, and Withlacoochee Rivers, and Okapilco and Hannahatchee Creeks. Stop it in Georgia, and that will stop it in Florida and Alabama!

Follow this link for all the Georgia statehouse members in the pipeline path. Or type in Continue reading Keep calling to strip Sabal Trail easements from SR 954 in the GA House

Strip Sabal Trail easements from SR 954 in the Georgia House of Representatives

You can help stop eminent domain easements for Sabal Trail from passing the Georgia statehouse! (PDF handout)

Follow this link for all the Georgia statehouse members in the pipeline path. Or type in your ZIP code here to find your Georgia House member: http://openstates.org/find_your_legislator/

If you don’t live in Georgia, you probably know somebody who does, so you can ask them to call their state rep.

There’s a longer writeup here.

Resolution against Sabal Trail pipeline –Groveland, FL 2014-04-21

In April 2014 the Groveland, Florida City Council unanimously voted to ask FERC Summary to move the Sabal Trail pipeline off of private property and the Green Swamp and onto Florida state lands.

The vote is recorded in their minutes of April 21, 2014:

  1. Resolution 2014-04-06: Sabal Trail Transmission Line
    Action: Motion to approve
    Moved by Vice Mayor James Smith, Seconded by Council Member John Griffin.
    Vote: Motion carried by unanimous roll call vote (summary: Yes = 5).
    Motion approved.

The text of the resolution is in their agenda packet: Continue reading Resolution against Sabal Trail pipeline –Groveland, FL 2014-04-21

Suwannee County Commissioners and public to hike to Sabal Trail Suwannee River Crossing

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Live Oak, February 10, 2016 — The date has been set to go see where Spectra Energy of Houston Texas has been permitted by the Picture by Alton Burns Federal Energy Regulatory (FERC) in Washington, DC to drill under the Suwannee River for its Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline despite widespread local opposition. The Suwannee Board of County Commissioners already voted a resolution to move Sabal Trail’s compressor station. Still mulling stronger action, the SBOCC agreed at a recent meeting to go with local guides, including WWALS Watershed Coalition board member Chris Mericle, on a hike with the public to where FERC said construction monitoring was important for the river and our drinking water in the Floridan Aquifer, but Sabal Trail should be left to self-monitor. The day and time have been set: 8:15 AM Thursday February 18, 2016.

All interested individuals will meet at: Continue reading Suwannee County Commissioners and public to hike to Sabal Trail Suwannee River Crossing

Movie online: At What Cost? Pipelines, Pollution and Eminent Domain in the Rural South

Now streaming online: At What Cost? Pipelines, Pollution and Eminent Domain in the Rural South, by Mark Albertin. And yes, he’s happy for it to be shown elsewhere; just ask, and you can set up a local viewing like in Live Oak last night, or the previous premieres along the Georgia coast.

Most of the issues are the same for Spectra Energy’s invading Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline as for Kinder Morgan’s invading Palmetto petroleum products pipeline that is the subject of the movie. Thanks to Push Back the Pipeline for getting this movie made about Kinder Morgan’s proposed petroleum products pipeline from South Carolina across the Georgia coast to Jacksonville, Florida. Special thanks to Eileen, Lori, and Debra and the Woman’s Club of Live Oak for the movie showing last night, to WWALS Watershed Coalition and the Woman’s Club of Live Oak for hosting, and to Our Santa Fe River, and Gulf Restoration Network for helping promote it.

Don’t forget the hike to the Suwannee River Sabal Trail crossing 8:15 AM Thursday 28 February 2016 with Suwannee and Hamilton County Commissioners.

Spectra Energy of Houston, Texas wants to gouge Sabal Trail from Continue reading Movie online: At What Cost? Pipelines, Pollution and Eminent Domain in the Rural South

Videos: Citizens against Sabal “Sinkhole” Trail pipeline to FERC in Albany, Moultrie, Valdosta, and Lake City

Citizens renamed Sabal Trail the Sinkhole Pipeline because it doesn’t belong in the sinkhole-prone karst limestone of the Floridan Aquifer. FERC can’t say they weren’t told, since videographers followed them through all four cities so far; see for yourself.

Albany, Monday 28 September 2015, videos by Thomas Swain

Moultrie, Tuesday 29 September 2015, videos by Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE)

“You tell us you’re sorry and it happens again”, said Continue reading Videos: Citizens against Sabal “Sinkhole” Trail pipeline to FERC in Albany, Moultrie, Valdosta, and Lake City

New sinkhole in Lowndes County terrain Sabal Trail wants to gouge through

Twice in five years a sinkhole big enough to risk rerouting a road appears in Lowndes County, Georgia, in the same fragile karst limestone Valdosta limesink terrain Sabal Trail proposes to gouge through What if a sinkhole drops under that pipeline, and, like FGT in 2013, Sabal Trail declares force majeure and doesn’t pay?

See On the LAKE Front, 2015-08-06, County and news media digging deeper on Shiloh sinkhole story, Continue reading New sinkhole in Lowndes County terrain Sabal Trail wants to gouge through

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

What Sabal Trail wants to do to our rivers

After a long string of safety incidents and later-contradicted assertions in the media, would you trust Sabal Trail to drill under your rivers in your aquifers and near your farms, schools, homes, and springs?

Here’s stage two of Sabal Trail’s three-stage horizontal directional drilling (HDD) method, 300x98 River Crossing -- HDD Method, in What Sabal Trail wants to do to our rivers, by John S. Quarterman, for SpectraBusters.org, 5 February 2015 according to its document How We Cross Rivers and Streams,