Tonight, Tuesday March 15, 2016, Hamilton County unanimously voted to request that the Army Corps of Engineers perform an independent study on site concerning the ommisions and discrepancies contained in the final environmental study that FERC and Florida DEP used to issue the permit for the Sabal Trail pipeline.

These ommisions in the EIS were discovered by Mr Chris Mericle when comparing a geological study by local geologist Dennis Price with the final EIS Sabal Trail study submitted to FERC on which FERC based the permit for the Sabal Trail pipeline.

Hamilton County was prompted to write this letter after attending the Suwannee BOCC workshop a few weeks ago where members of both boards hiked the Suwannee River crossing and saw for themselves the numerous sinkholes in and around the pipeline route. A route that Sabal Trail claimed the closet sinkhole was 750′ from the pipeline route.

One Hamilton County commissioner asked if Suwannee County was still taking an unheard of neutral stance on this for export fracked gas pipeline.

Thank you to all of the commissioners of Hamilton County for taking action to protect their constituents and our sole source of water – the Floridan Aquifer.

Debra J.