Tag Archives: insurance

Would you buy a used car from Sabal Trail?

Why should we accept any risk from a pipeline company that has repeatedly claimed not to be familiar with the public record of its long list of corrosion, leaks, and explosions? A pipeline company that has claimed land values wouldn’t be affected? That it’s “hard to believe” its own law firm sent threats of eminent domain to landowners, despite copies of those letters being sent to newspapers and FERC? That Georgia counties need its gas, after those same counties had already passed resolutions wanting Sabal Trail’s pipeline out of their county and state? A pipeline company that claims the Sunshine State needs its gas when its own figures show half the acreage could produce just as much solar power? Why should anybody in Albama, Georgia, or Florida accept any risk from that company from Houston, Texas?

Sabal Trail claimed theirs is a safe company and leaks and explosions seldom happen, until confronted on-camera with a list of incidents. Continue reading Would you buy a used car from Sabal Trail?

No eminent domain for water-threatening unnecessary Sabal Trail pipeline –GA Rep. Dexter Sharper District 177

The state representative for Valdosta and parts of Lowndes County cited their two resolutions and enumerated lack of need for a pipeline, threatening letters from Sabal Trail, alternative routes next to a school, ill effects on business including on forestry and agriculture and private property valuations, potential sinkholes due to drilling under the Withlacoochee River, including on the preferred route, or anywhere in the fragile karst limestone containing the Floridan Aquifer, plus Spectra Energy’s own SEC filings say it doesn’t have insurance to cover the kinds of safety problems in Spectra’s own history nor those pointed out by Southern Natural Gas Company. Dexter Sharper noted local evidence that solar power is cheaper and safer, and echoed the Lowndes County Democratic Party in writing:

“…we have a moral obligation to leave our children and grandchildren with an earth as safe, beautiful, and majestic as the one bequeathed to us by our parents and grandparents.”

For all these reasons, on behalf of my constituents and the citizens of Lowndes County and the state of Georgia, I oppose the Sabal Trail pipeline anywhere in the County of Lowndes or the State of Georgia.

I urge that FERC reject any permit for the Sabal Trail pipeline, or at the very least move it entirely out of the State of Georgia.

Filed 7 January 2015 with FERC as Accession Number: 20150107-5100, “Comment of Dexter Sharper, Georgia State Representative, District 177, under CP15-17.” Continue reading No eminent domain for water-threatening unnecessary Sabal Trail pipeline –GA Rep. Dexter Sharper District 177

SpectraBusters moves to intervene on Sabal Trail et al.

No domestic need for the fracked methane, which Spectra Energy’s CEO has said it wants to export; no insurance despite Spectra’s track record of safety violations; environmental destruction of water and soil: for these and other reasons SpectraBusters, Inc. has filed a motion to intervene with all three parts of the fracked methane pipeline project including Sabal Trail, using a form of filing that other groups could copy.

300x222 All three dockets selected, in How to intervene, by John S. Quarterman, for SpectraBusters.org, 17 December 2014 How can eminent domain be conferred on Sabal Trail, where there is no benefit to the public, there is zero provision for disaster accountability, and no real attempt at a real environmental impact study? Along with the EPA, a taxpayer funded agency, we’d like answers to these questions that we have posed to FERC for the past year.

Here’s how you or your organization can file a motion to intervene.

Filed with FERC 24 December 2014 as Accession Number: 20141224-5069, “Motion to Intervene of SpectraBusters, Inc. under CP15-17, et. al..” Continue reading SpectraBusters moves to intervene on Sabal Trail et al.

Listen to the people you are supposed to protect –Laura Dailey to FERC

“We have the opportunity to be world leaders in the renewable energy revolution! Shall we let that opportunity go to Germany or China, by default?”

Filed with FERC 15 November 2014:

Laura Dailey, fort white, FL.

On this final day to plead my/our case, it is time for the FERC to look at the bigger picture and stop caving to the short term fixes. We are in trouble, and you can help by voting to DENY THE SABAL TRAIL METHANE PIPELINE! Leave the gas in the ground…..where it’s already conveniently stored!

EVERY DAY we wake to an invitation from the sun! In fact, the planet itself runs on solar, and most European countries already understand this. Even China just made a huge commitment to solar. Contrary to what the lobbyists are telling you, FLORIDA DOES NOT NEED THIS GAS!!

From the standpoint of transparency, there is none! I have asked Continue reading Listen to the people you are supposed to protect –Laura Dailey to FERC

Inadequate insurance and safety plus eminent domain and environmental destruction by Sabal Trail –OSFR

Merrillee Malwitz-Jipson of Our Santa Fe River sent this letter yesterday to the same newspapers Sabal Trail has been in recently. -jsq

Sabal Trail’s spokesperson distributing large quantities of disinformation

“Safety, public input, federal monitoring, jobs, tax revenue, exceed federal safety requirements, reliability, affordable, clean, thorough review, latest proven technologies:” these are all good little meta tags and nice sounding words and phrases used by Andrea Grover, public relations employee for Sabal Trail, in her recent editorial about that company’s proposed natural gas pipeline which was carried by newspapers in the southeastern United States.

But let us point out a few facts that this editorial fails to mention. There were plenty of public input meetings (we attended seven of these, and we read the minutes from others) and the input was overwhelmingly negative. Issues of concern include Continue reading Inadequate insurance and safety plus eminent domain and environmental destruction by Sabal Trail –OSFR

Questions from SpectraBusters, Inc. to FERC

FERC’s ecomment system was malfunctioning, so Beth emailed this on behalf of the board, which unanimously approved it earlier that same day. She also forwarded it to John Peconom of FERC and to her U.S. Rep Ted Yoho (FL-03) and to Rep. Sanford Bishop (GA-02). Here is contact information for your elected officials and candidates. -jsq

From: Beth Gordon
To: efiling <efiling@ferc.gov>
Date: Sat, Apr 19, 2014 6:05 pm
Subject: PF14-1 Sabal Trail Pipeline

To Whom it may Concern at FERC:

I am the President of a group of citizens and landowners from Alabama, Georgia, and Florida affected by the Sabal Trail Pipeline. Here are some important questions we hope you will answer for us. We have had no answers from FERC representatives at any other time. These are the questions we would like answered:

  1. Is lack of justification of energy need by Florida sufficient for FERC staff to recommend denying a permit for the Sabal Trail pipeline? Continue reading Questions from SpectraBusters, Inc. to FERC

Pipelines, property values, and insurance

What happens to your property values or homeowners insurance a pipeline company takes your land to gouge a path for its fracked methane or oil? It affects the property values not just of your land, but of your neighbors’, and yours and their property insurance. It also opens the pipeline company and associated businesses to civil lawsuits. And FERC’s assertion that federal law supersedes state and local laws for eminent domain does nothing to stop such lawsuits; many such lawsuits are winning lately. Not even the federal government is immune from pipeline lawsuits.

Stop the Pipeline has a good article, mostly about land near fracking wells: LOSS OF PROPERTY VALUES, DIFFICULTY GETTING MORTGAGES AND HOME INSURANCE,

“Another illustration is the gentleman who has had 63 acres for sale now for several years. He purchased the property as an investment, and now has three pipelines and an above ground valve. He can not give this property away. As he reaches retirement age his retirement has been stolen from him. This is no different than Enron or any other scandal, only it has been made legal thievery. There are two other pieces of property that have been for sale for several years, one of which is a large parcel of about 70 acres and the other is about 10 acres.”

The insurance industry has been studying this issue for years, and wants to steer clear of it. Continue reading Pipelines, property values, and insurance

No fracking insurance: how long until no pipeline insurance?

What if negative publicity around pipelines gets as big as around fracking? Given the many recent high-profile pipeline accidents, that may already be happening. What happens to pipeline companies’ own insurance then? What happens to your homeowner or farm insurance?

CBS News 13 July 2012, Insurer Won’t Cover Gas Drill Fracking Exposure,

The memo reads: “After months of research and discussion, we have determined that the exposures presented by hydraulic fracturing are too great to ignore. Risks involved with hydraulic fracturing are now prohibited for General Liability, Commercial Auto, Motor Truck Cargo, Auto Physical Damage and Public Auto (insurance) coverage.”

It said “prohibited risks” apply to landowners who lease land for shale gas drilling and contractors involved in fracking operations, including those who haul water to and from drill sites; pipe and lumber haulers; and operators of bulldozers, dump trucks and other vehicles used in drill site preparation.

And it’s not just actual claims: Continue reading No fracking insurance: how long until no pipeline insurance?

WV polluter files bankruptcy: why should we expect better from Sabal Trail?

A shell company lasted only weeks before filing bankruptcy after polluting a West Virginia river and drinking water for 300,000 people. No assets, no insurance, as near as I can tell. Sabal Trail Transmission is a shell company owned by Spectra Energy and NextEra and managed by Spectra: what assets does it have, and what insurance has it offered in case its pipeline corrodes and leaks like Spectra has been fined for or one of its compressor stations leaks like in Pennsylvania or Maine or residents have to evacuate as Spectra’s Susan Waller said would happen in case of a “true emergency”? Who will pay for the local first responders, or property damage, or a polluted aquifer?

Nick Visser wrote for The Huffington Post 17 January 2014, Freedom Industries, Company Behind West Virginia Chemical Spill, Files For Bankruptcy,

The company behind the massive chemical spill that made tap water unsafe for more than 300,000 West Virginians has filed for bankruptcy, according to documents obtained by The Huffington Post.

According to bankruptcy filings, Freedom Industries, wholly owned by Chemstream Holdings Inc., filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Friday. Freedom Industries owns the storage facility responsible for leaking up to 7,500 gallons of 4-methylcyclohexane methanol (a coal-cleaning chemical also known as crude MCHM) into West Virginia’s Elk River.

And Freedom Industries was only formed a few weeks ago. Steven Mufson wrote for the Washington Post (undated), One week after W. Va. toxic spill, new owner of Freedom Industries puts firm in bankruptcy,

It took just one week for Pennsylvania coal mining executive Cliff Forrest, the new owner of Freedom Industries, to discover that one of the six-decade-old storage tanks he had acquired Dec. 31 was leaking a toxic chemical into the Elk River that supplies water to about 300,000 West Virginians….

Forrest, through another firm he owns, paid Continue reading WV polluter files bankruptcy: why should we expect better from Sabal Trail?

Local Levy County paper reports on landowner’s presentation to the Levy County Commission- a bit late.

Lou Elliott Jones wrote for the Williston Pioneer Monday, December 30, 2013 at 2:54 pm Williston lawyer asks county for help with pipeline

Williston resident and attorney Beth Gordon asked the Levy County Commission to use its authority to address safety and insurance concerns with the proposed Sabal Trail LLC gas pipeline that will be built through Levy County.

But while the commissioners listened, they did not debate taking any action. Commissioner Mike Joyner of Morriston (R-District 3) recommended Gordon speak with another attorney who is handling business for several residents with the pipeline company.

Gordon, who has also filed a protest against the line with the Florida Public Service Commission, said the 36-inch pipeline that will carry methane gas at 1,200 pounds per square inch of pressure through Alabama, Georgia and Florida will be buried only 3 feet from the surface. The line is being built by Spectra Energy for Florida Power and Light.

She asked the commission to invite Spectra Energy representatives to attend a commission meeting to answer residents’ questions about the pipeline. She said an open house hosted by Sabal on Dec. 9 in Williston did not provide answers to residents’ concerns. “Most people don’t even know we have it coming through.”

“The commission has many things it can do,” Gordon said. “It can require county easements to be used for the pipeline. It can require a certain amount of insurance.”

If an accident were to occur, Gordon said, “You certainly will be happy to have that insurance rather than having to sue Spectra Energy.”

See also Local Levy County web-based news site covers Levy County Commission.