Tag Archives: Santa Fe River

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.

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

Petition Florida Congress members to oppose Sabal Trail

It’s time for Florida members of Congress to join the four Georgia Congressmen who have told FERC to fix its broken process or deny a permit for Sabal Trail.

Citizens of Florida can petition their members of Congress either by:

  1. Printing and signing a PDF petition from the website of WWALS Watershed Coalition. (Petitions for Georgia and Alabama are also on there.)
  2. Signing online a form put up by Gulf Restoration Network that will send directly to your members of Congress.

SpectraBusters continues to assist these and an increasing Continue reading Petition Florida Congress members to oppose Sabal Trail

Hike to the Suwannee River with Sierra Club against Sabal Trail – Jan. 16, 2016

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Live Oak, FL, January 12, 2016 — Stepping up its support for local and larger groups opposing the proposed Sabal Trail pipeline, this Saturday Sierra Club is hosting a meeting culminating in a hike to the Suwannee River to see where Spectra Energy of Houston, Texas proposes to drill under the iconic Suwannee River into Suwannee River State Park. Media are invited to see people from Florida and south Georgia stand up for our rivers and our Floridan Aquifer.

When: Saturday, 16 January 2016 – 11 AM with hike at 1 PM

Where:  Suwannee River State Park

3621 201st Path, Live Oak, FL

15 miles west of Live Oak on US 90 Continue reading Hike to the Suwannee River with Sierra Club against Sabal Trail – Jan. 16, 2016

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

Confirmed: Resolution against Sabal Trail today at Suwannee County Commission 2015-11-17

Suwannee County residents please come speak, and everyone else please come be seen (you can speak, too). Facebook event. Come defend property rights, water, and air in Suwannee County from the Sabal Trail invader, and that helps defend where you are, too.

When: 6PM Tuesday 17 November 2015

Where: 218 Parshley Street Southwest, Live Oak, Florida, 32064

2015-11-03--suwbocc

From the draft minutes of the Nov. 3rd meeting Continue reading Confirmed: Resolution against Sabal Trail today at Suwannee County Commission 2015-11-17

Why Georgia Doesn’t Need the Palmetto Pipeline –Poets Love Birds

The Suwannee River faces invasion by both Kinder Morgan’s Palmetto petroleum products pipeline and Spectra Energy’s Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline. Plus the Savannah, Ogeechee, Altamaha, Satilla, and St. Mary’s River are threatened by the Palmetto Project, Chattahoochee, Flint, Withlacoochee, and Santa Fe Rivers are threatened by Sabal Trail, plus most both projects is above the fragile Floridan Aquifer. All for no known local benefit; just to profit corporate greed.

Curtis and Norma Beaird, Poets Love Birds, 30 April 2015, Why Georgia Doesn’t Need the Palmetto Pipeline: Our Filing to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC),

We are writing this article because we are very concerned about the proposed Palmetto Pipeline to be built in the state of Georgia. Kinder Morgan plans to build 360-mile pipeline that will run from Belton, South Carolina to Jacksonville, Florida. According to the Savannah Riverkeeper, 218 miles of the pipeline will be in Georgia and 142 miles of the pipeline will be built in South Carolina. This pipeline would move refined petroleum products, to include denatured fuel ethanol. …

According to Push Back the Pipeline:

In the continental U.S., there are only 42 free-flowing rivers greater than 124 miles in length. Georgia contains five of these rivers, three of which are in the path of the proposed pipeline, Altamaha, Ogeechee, and Satilla Rivers. The Okefenokee Swamp is also the headwaters of the St. Marys and the Suwanee River, which flows to the Gulf of Mexico.

Georgia also contains most of the free-flowing 205-mile Alapaha River, which fortunately isn’t currently the target of any pipeline. However, Spectra Energy proposes to gouge its Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline under the 115-mile Withlacoochee River in Georgia. And Sabal Trail would cross the Suwannee River in Florida, so the Suwannee is a target of both pipelines: Palmetto in Georgia, and Sabal Trail in Florida.

Here’s Curtis Beaird’s FERC filing, which notes that Kinder Morgan has not proven any need Continue reading Why Georgia Doesn’t Need the Palmetto Pipeline –Poets Love Birds

Likely loss of drilling fluid in limestone under rivers –FL DEP to FERC

Apparently the Florida Department of Environmental Protection complained to FERC that any drilling under our blackwater rivers would leak contaminants into the karst limestone that contains our drinking water Floridan Aquifer:

Update 2015-04-03: Additions now that FERC eLibrary is working, including third point below.

  • Sabal Trail underestimated karst features—additional, more recent data available from agencies including LiDAR, potentiometric surface maps, and cave maps.
  • Highest agency concern is associated with likely loss of drilling fluid associated with HDDs in limestone bedrock including at the Suwannee, Santa Fe, and Withlacoochee rivers.
  • Drilling fluid loss would have an environmental impact; risk and magnitude of impact on groundwater, wells and springs should be based on updated, site-specific information.

Filed with FERC 1 April 2015 as Continue reading Likely loss of drilling fluid in limestone under rivers –FL DEP to FERC