Dear SpectraBusters and Allies,
Happy Thanksgiving!
Thanks to all who get out on the street, into the halls of government, or on the media: public awareness is the key to winning this fight.
Thanks to all who quietly and often anonymously help Continue reading Happy Thanksgiving!
Looks like Spectra is still making stuff up.
Apparently Spectra got one of its usual pipeline distributors
to make a deal in Georgia for Sabal Trail
without that distributor ever asking
its own customers whether they needed the gas.
This is very convenient for undercutting opposition to Sabal
Trail’s threats of Georgia eminent domain,
but not very useful to the named counties or to Sabal Trail’s
own credibility.
Remember Sabal Trail’s FERC Filing in Docket CP15-17 said on page 11: Continue reading MGAG didn’t contact local governments before agreeing with Sabal Trail
Transco’s formal FERC filing of 18 November 2014 isn’t online and the visible “supplement” is almost entirely privileged and hidden from the public, with no new maps or any other new information visible to the public. Why? Because Transco’s ability to compete is more important to FERC than the public’s right to know what this invader from Houston wants to do to local lands:
“These hydraulic flow model files models are proprietary and include competitively sensitive data regarding Transco’s market-area system design and flow conditions, disclosure of which to Transco’s competitors could cause substantial harm to Transco’s continuing ability to compete for new markets and firm transportation commitments.
So, as predicted, Transco has filed, and PF14-6 is of no further use, replaced by Docket number CP15-16.
Accession Number: 20141119-5018, “Supplement to November 18, 2014 Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Company, LLC application for a CP&N [Hillabee Expansion Project – Hydraulic Flow Model Files] under CP15-16.” is quoted below, and Accession Number: 20141119-5019 has twelve (12) PDF files all marked “PRIVILEGED – Transco ? Hillabee Expansion Project ? Supplemental Information”.
Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Company, LLC
Continue reading Williams Company formal filing CP15-16 for Hillabee Expansion Project
Facebook event:
Due to local opposition to an unnecessary fracked methane pipeline,
the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) made Sabal Trail
(FPL and Spectra Energy) produce four new route alternatives,
and FERC set a deadline of November 15th for comments on them.
http://spectrabusters.org/2014/10/15/sabal-trail-notice-of-eis-intent-and-route-alternatives-2/
Here’s how to send your ecomments to FERC before then: Continue reading Ecomment to FERC by Nov 15th
Apparently Williams Company’s Atlantic Sunrise pipeline wasn’t enough to push Marcellus Shale fracked methane through Transco to Sabal Trail: Spectra Energy has bought directly into that action through yet another Pennsylvania pipeline.
PennEast also announced 17 October 2014 it prefiled as FERC docket PF15-1-000.
And PennEast listed some Open Houses 10,12,13, and 18 November 2014 in Pennsylvania and New Jersey,
so friends and colleagues may want to go there and object,
like
many did at the Atlantic Sunrise PF14-8 Scoping Meetings.
FERC’s ecomment system has been flooded with objections ever since the pre-filing of 7 October 2014, such as
this one of 9 October 2014: Continue reading Spectra buys into PennEast Pipeline for Marcellus Shale fracked gas to Transco
A FERC comment period ending 15 November 2014 seems to mean
Sabal Trail will miss its 31 October formal filing date.
No relief suggested for crossing the Withlacoochee River at the border
of Brooks and Lowndes Counties, Georgia (or inside Lowndes County
next to Valdosta, according to
several of the previous alternatives).
And every proposed path still crosses the Suwannee River
into Suwannee County.
Maybe that’s because the Dougherty County Commission and the Albany City Council actually stood up for their citizens, as did Gilchrist County (see Wacassassa Flats Alternative), while the Suwannee County Commission swallowed Sabal Trail disinformation and the Lowndes County Commission and the Valdosta City Council did little (except one letter from the Chairman) or nothing (except one letter from one Council member).
There’s still time for Dougherty, Lowndes, and all the other
counties and cities
to pass ordinances, and to lobby state and federal agencies and
elected and appointed officials.
Oh, and there’s an election going on.
Also no mention of Sabal Trail’s Jasper, Florida Open House, 5-7:30 Tuesday 21 October 2014, but STT’s newspaper notice said the public is invited, so y’all come!
Filed with FERC today, 15 October 2014, Supplemental Notice of Intent to Prepare an Environment Impact Statement for the Planned Southeast Market Pipeline Project and Request for Comments on Environmental Issues etc. re Sabal Trail Transmission, LLC under PF14-1.
-jsq
Docket No. PF14-1-000
Continue reading Sabal Trail Notice of EIS Intent and Route Alternatives
You can
donate to SpectraBusters to
help stop the unnecessary, environmentally damaging,
and hazardous Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline,
and its siblings Transco Hillabee and FSC, too.
You can help pay for contacting landowners (so they’ll hear something more than pipeline company PR), for contacting the public with billboards (currently we’re aiming for I-75 southbound near Lake City), and other work, ranging from research possibly up to legal assistance. Donate online today!
And don’t forget to send an ecomment to FERC.
Send your
ecomment to FERC today or tomorrow for the Oct 11th
Global Frackdown event by
Food & Water Watch.
Easiest way is to use
FERC’s ecomment system:
here’s how to do that.
Or
follow
this link
for FERC postal address, telephone number, and email address.
And you can call your newspaper or radio or TV station and recommend they
publish the SpectraBusters op-ed,
It don’t pass the smell test: FPL’s extra natural gas pipeline.
FPL wants federal eminent domain to gouge a hundred-foot right of way for a yard-wide fracked methane pipeline through Alabama, Georgia, and Florida, claiming Florida needs new power. That don’t pass the smell test.
Or encourage reporters to write a story about it. Or write your own letter to the editor or op-ed or rant and rave or call in to your local radio station.
You can also Continue reading Comment to FERC for the Global Frackdown
FPL wants federal eminent domain to gouge a hundred-foot right of way
for a yard-wide fracked methane pipeline
through Alabama, Georgia, and Florida,
claiming Florida needs new power.
That don’t pass the smell test.
http://spectrabusters.org/2014/09/14/we-grow-increasingly-concerned-dougherty-county-commission-to-ferc/
Nationwide electricity demand continues to decline, as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reminded the pipeline-permitting Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in April. EPA asked FPL why it couldn’t implement conservation, efficiency, compressed gas storage, or other energy sources. http://spectrabusters.org/2014/04/23/explain-why-the-gas-is-needed-epa-to-ferc/#decreasing-electricity-sales
FPL projected 13% electricity demand increase in its 2014 ten-year plan to the Florida Public Service Commission (FL PSC). A third pipeline would be a 50% increase. Why? http://spectrabusters.org/2014/04/24/fpls-own-projections-dont-support-need-for-a-new-pipeline/
Sabal Trail, the pipeline joint venture of FPL and Spectra Energy of Houston, claims Duke Energy needs Continue reading It don’t pass the smell test: FPL’s extra natural gas pipeline –SpectraBusters
The end of October is the beginning of
the formal FERC filing process,
at least if Sabal Trail files October 31st as Andrea Grover has predicted.
FERC not only takes comments during a formal filing, which usually lasts
about a year, but as that process begins your group also can
become an intervenor, which provides additional legal capabilities.
Follow
the link for details about FERC’s pre-filing and formal filing processes,
with graphical and textual timelines.
Commenting with and watching the FERC process, or filing as an intervenor, is a great way to keep up with what’s going on. But depending on FERC alone would be foolish, since the same day Albany and Dougherty County citizens overwhelmingly opposed the pipeline in a public meeting, FERC approved Cove Point LNG export in Maryland, despite massive public opposition.
Fortunately, it’s not just FERC that decides Continue reading FERC formal filing process for Sabal Trail