Tag Archives: Hamilton County

Explain karst, sinkholes, discrepencies, and routes around Albany and the Withlacoochee River –FERC to Sabal Trail

FERC just directed Sabal Trail to actually address problems raised by citizens and local government agencies, plus numerous discrepencies FERC itself detected. Opposition to this unnecessary and hazardous fracked methane pipeline is having effects, even with rubberstamping FERC. But watch out Tifton, Valdosta, Thomasville, and The Villages! You’re now on possible routes.

Sabal Trail is to provide details for Greenlaw’s route-around-Albany proposals on behalf of Sierra Club and others Valdosta, you’re back in two proposed routes, the the one you saw last summer, plus one down I-75 that would go right past Lowndes High School and also past The Villages in sinkhole-prone Sumter County, Florida. Tifton, you’re not safe; look at that Hillabee route. Thomasville watch out: you’re on a new proposed route.

Sabal Trail is to provide alternatives to minimize effects on or completely avoid the Withlacoochee River, and this is even before the Hamilton County Commission’s resolution against the pipeline gets to FERC.

FERC’s letter is peppered with requirements to cooperate with federal, state, and local agencies especially including about land use and environmental requirements and land approvals.

It explicitly says that all surveys Continue reading Explain karst, sinkholes, discrepencies, and routes around Albany and the Withlacoochee River –FERC to Sabal Trail

Avoid the Withlacoochee River and karst limestone –Hamilton Co. FL to FERC

After citizens familiar with the springs, shoals, and sinkholes of the Withlacoochee River and the fragile karst limestone that contains them and the Floridan Aquifer, source of drinking water for all of Florida and south Georgia, the north Florida county of Hamilton passed a resolution asking FERC to have the Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline avoid those geological formations. According to a letter already forwarded to FERC by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and also quoted in part to FERC by the Suwannee River Water Management District, that would mean there’s basically nowhere that pipeline would be safe in north Florida (or south Georgia, which has the same limestone substrate).

Joyce Marie Taylor updated in the Suwannee Democrat 25 August 2014, Hamilton fights back against Sabal Trail pipeline,

A special meeting was called on Friday, Aug. 22, and the board voted to pass Resolution 14-10 that expressed their concerns about the proposed pipeline route across the Withlacoochee River that forms the western boundary of Hamilton County.

A portion of the resolution states, Continue reading Avoid the Withlacoochee River and karst limestone –Hamilton Co. FL to FERC

Sabal Trail pipeline considered harmful for karst limestone Floridan Aquifer –FL-DEP

There’s no safe way for the yard-wide Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline through the fragile karst limestone containing the Floridan Aquifer, according to what Florida’s Department of Environmental Protection told FERC back in April. And what’s this about seven foot pipeline depth in Florida, while Spectra’s Andrea Grover complained in the Valdosta Daily Times about requests for five feet deep in Georgia?

FL-DEP points out that caves might not support a pipeline and testing or drilling could easily cause sinkholes. Plus blasting could change local hydrology.

The situation is actually worse than FL-DEP described. We don’t know that contamination couldn’t come from BCPs carried from Spectra’s Texas Eastern pipeline, or radon from the Marcellus Shale, in addition to the solvents FL-DEP mentioned. We don’t know the pipeline would carry only a gaseous product; it could be sold and used for something else. And as DEP says, it’s not just leaks that are the problem: the pipeline would require large amounts of testing water that would have to come from somewhere and go back somewhere, presumably contaminated with whatever was in the pipeline. What guarantee do we have that contamination wouldn’t go down those borings under our riverbeds?

Filed with FERC 18 April 2014 as four pages of the 74-page “Florida State Clearinghouse comments on Dockets # PF14-1, et al Notice of Intent to Prepare an Environmental Impact Statement for the Planned Southeast Market Pipelines Project (Sabal Trail and Florida Southeast Connection Projects).” Some of it was also submitted to FERC by Florida’s Suwannee River Water Management District, but there is new material here; especially that superimposition map. Continue reading Sabal Trail pipeline considered harmful for karst limestone Floridan Aquifer –FL-DEP

Avoid highly sensitive water resource features –SRWMD to FERC

Filed with FERC 18 April 2014. Avoid karst limestone, unconfined aquifer, caves, springs, wetlands, drilling under rivers, blasting, or using groundwater for testing pipes or disposing of it afterwards, and where can a pipeline go?

SUWANNEE
RIVER
WATER
MANAGEMENT
DISTRICT

April 18.2014 Continue reading Avoid highly sensitive water resource features –SRWMD to FERC

Ted Yoho (FL-03) Town Hall in Ocala, FL tomorrow 17 March 2014

The Congress member for all of the north Florida path of the proposed Sabal Trail methane pipeline invites you to a Town Hall in Ocala Monday.

On Ted Yoho’s facebook page, this event:

Ocala Town Hall
Hosted by Congressman Ted Yoho
6:30-7:30pm Monday 17 March 2014
3733 SW 80th Avenue, Ocala, FL

Come join me for a Town Hall meeting on Monday, March 17th at Westport High School. I’ll be there to give an update on what is happening in Washington as well as answer any questions or concerns. Doors open at 6:00 pm. Hope to see you there!

Florida’s Third Congressional District includes part or all of all of the north Florida counties on the pipeline path: Madison County, Hamilton County, Columbia County, Suwannee County, Gilchrist County, Alachua County, Levy County, and Marion County.

Continue reading Ted Yoho (FL-03) Town Hall in Ocala, FL tomorrow 17 March 2014

The Trans-Pacific Partnership and LNG exports

The same U.S. House subcommittee that wants to export liquid natural gas is pushing the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The two subcommittee members are from Alabama and Florida represent counties in the paths of two Spectra methane pipelines.

Ted Poe (R TX-02) of Houston, Chairman of the SUBCOMMITTEE ON TERRORISM, NONPROLIFERATION, AND TRADE of the COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES spelled out the connection to natural gas in the panel discussion for the hearing on The Trans-Pacific Partnership: Outlook and Opportunities,

Hopefully, we will change that and become an exporter, especially of natural gas.

This meshes with his remark hearing on natural gas exports:

The Department of Energy has not approved an application to export to a country we don’t have a Free Trade Agreement with in 2 years.

Presumably he meant FERC, which bills itself as an independent agency. The point remains the same: Chairman Poe wants more free trade agreements for more LNG exports. In his opening statement to the TPP hearing he spelled out that he considers the Trans-Pacific Partnership to be a free trade agreement: Continue reading The Trans-Pacific Partnership and LNG exports

House subcommittee wants to export gas

Is this what that proposed pipeline is really for, exporting gas for profit of gas company executives at the cost of our local land? Rep. Ted Yoho (R FL-03) of north Florida is on this House subcommittee.

25 April 2013, NATURAL GAS EXPORTS: ECONOMIC AND GEOPOLITICAL OPPORTUNITIES: HEARING BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON TERRORISM, NONPROLIFERATION, AND TRADE OF THE COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS, FIRST SESSION,

Opening statement by Chairman Ted Poe (R TX-02) of Houston:

Five years ago, companies were building terminals to import natural gas at the cost of billions of dollars because analysts agreed that the United States’ economy was going to need natural gas from overseas. Today, that scenario has changed 180 percent. Import terminals lie dormant. The Department of Energy has 19 applications waiting to get permission to export natural gas. Thanks to breakthroughs, the United States’ natural gas reserves have climbed 72 percent since 2000 and 49 percent since 2005. The amount of natural gas that is technically recoverable in the United States is 97 times greater than all of the natural gas we consumed in 2011. In plain terms, this means we have an abundance of natural gas that we are not using. It is just sitting there, and this is really not smart policy, or smart business.

Rep. Ted Poe (R TX-02)

A big reason why is Continue reading House subcommittee wants to export gas