Category Archives: Safety

Pipeline complaints heard at Lowndes County Commission @ LCC 2013-10-22

You don’t see this every day. After several citizens spoke in the Commission meeting against the proposed Sabal Trail pipeline and asked for the Lowndes County Commission to help them, four Commissioners stayed afterwards to listen to citizens:

Four Commissioners listening to citizens
L-R: Tim Bland, a citizen who spoke in the meeting, Joyce Evans (District 1), Matthew Woody (VDT), John Page (District 4), Bill Slaughter (Chairman), Carol Singletary, Demarcus Marshall (District 5), and other citizens.
Pictures by John S. Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 22 October 2013.

Richard Raines (District 2) left quickly, saying he didn’t feel well.

Crawford Powell (District 3) spent the same time talking to County Engineer Mike Fletcher (who was at the Spectra meeting a week ago) about what could be done. There are things the county can ask for, and maybe get, that individual citizens cannot so easily accomplish.

Video of the Commission meeting will follow, including the citizens speaking.

-jsq

Spectra Energy fined $15 million for PCB spills at 89 pipeline sites –EPA

Those PHMSA fines weren’t the half of Spectra Energy’s leaks and environmental violations. Do we want a record-EPA-fined pipeline company running PCBs through our counties? Don’t we have enough PCBs in the ADS landfill in Lowndes County that’s in a recharge zone for the aquifer we all drink out of? Haven’t we already imported enough hazardous wastes from the Seven Out Superfund site in Waycross? Maybe the Lowndes County Commission should hear about these things tonight.

L.A. Times, 21 October 1989, Pipeline Firm to Pay Record EPA Fine, Continue reading →

Spectra pipeline property damage and safety record

Sabal Trail Transmission reps promise us their pipeline will be safe, but their parent company Spectra Energy has had twenty one incidents since 2006 for $8,564,246 in property damage, according to PHMSA, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline & Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.

That Final Order of 21 December 2012 to Spectra CEO Gregory L. Ebel for $134,500 for violating both federal regulations and Spectra’s own internal company policies was only a in the flaming bucket. Another, marked in red as MAT’L/WELD/EQUIP FAILURE, PUMP/COMPRESSOR-RELATED EQUIPMENT for $251,170 in property damage on 13 March 2012 in Marietta, York County, Pennsylvania, could be related to that compressor incident Spectra first said was nothing. Most of the others are about “internal corrosion” such as a Spectra employee says they never bothered to check for.

Here’s the current list of incidents from PHMSA, no doubt each with its own sordid story:

Serious Incidents are denoted in red.

Continue reading →

Request pipeline town hall –Tim Bland to LCC

Received yesterday. Tim Bland wrote “This is what I emailed to all of the commissioners on Friday.” I added a few links and pictures. -jsq

Commissioners,

I would like to start by thanking Demarcus Marshall for attending the meeting held by Sabal Trail at Wiregrass Tech on Wednesday. It is nice to know that some of our elected officials are concerned about this project.

After talking with many of the affected landowners at this meeting, it appears that there is a general misconception about the certainty of this proposed pipeline. The officials from Sabal Trail, both in writing and in person, are telling landowners that this pipeline is coming and there is little any of us can do to prevent it. This appears to be the main reason for the high approval rating for the initial surveys. We were told that if we did not willingly participate in the survey, there would be little consideration given to our input and opinions when the pipeline is built. We were also told Continue reading →

NRC back up: many nukes down

Newly down nukes Now that the NRC is back up, we can see all the nukes that went down during the government shutdown: nine of them. If they’re not safe to run without NRC looking over their shoulder, are they safe to run at all? And two came back up. Was that a prudent thing to do? Meanwhile, solar panels don’t need an NRC.

Entergy’s chronically faulty Pilgrim 1 was the last to fall during the shutdown, while Southern’s defect-shipped Farley 1 was one of the first:

Newly down nukes

Continue reading →

Chinese nukes in Britain

Bad news from Britain. Let’s hope U.S. NRC doesn’t take this as a precedent.

The Telegraph, today, Chinese companies to buy big stake in next generation of British nuclear power,

George Osborne, the Chancellor, has announced that the UK will allow Chinese companies to take a stake in British nuclear power plants.

The decision could lead to China taking a future majority stake—and even be allowed to own up to 100 pc—in the development of the next generation of British nuclear power.

Mr Osborne made the announcement on Thursday the last day of a week-long trade visit to China after a visit to Taishan nuclear power station on the coast near Hong Kong.

Taishan is a collaboration between French energy company EDF and the China General Nuclear Power Company.

EDF is at the heart of UK Government Continue reading →

Spectra met Lowndes and Valdosta @ Pipeline 2013-10-16

Spectra Energy subsidiary Sabal Trail Transmission held a landowner one-on-one at Wiregrass Tech last night. Matthew Woody of the VDT was there, as was one Valdosta City Council member, one Lowndes County Commissioner, and at least two county staff, plus some landowners (“might as well get something out of this”, several said at the food bar), one of whom was a match for Andrea Grover.

Matthew Woody, VDT:

Continue reading →

Many safety violations at Georgia nukes, and NRC is shut down

Georgia’s two nuclear sites got more than a safety violation a month over a dozen years, and now the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is shut down. Maybe we need power sources that don’t need so much safety inspection, like solar and wind and efficiency and conservation.

AP wrote yesterday, 166 violations issued at Ga. nuclear power plants,

A congressional study expected to be released later this month shows that two nuclear power plants in Georgia were issued 166 safety violations between 2000 and 2012.

The unreleased Government Accountability Office report obtained by the Associated Press shows that Plant Hatch in Baxley was issued 90 safety violations during the time period. According to the report, three of the violations were higher-level offenses.

According to the report, Plant Vogtle in Waynesboro was also issued 75 safety violations between 2000 and 2012.

Allison Macfarlane wrote on the NRC blog 9 October 2013, From the Chairman: An Update on the NRC Shutdown, Continue reading →

Pipeline dog and pony in Albany Monday

Monday in Albany, Tuesday in Moultrie, and tonight in Valdosta, the pipeline roadshow is rolling through Georgia towards Florida. These are not public hearings or town halls: the pipeline company seems to be trying to get landowners in the path to show up, but anybody can attend.

Brad McEwen wrote for the Albany Herald yesterday, Residents attend pipeline forum,

Sabal Trail Transmission LLC, which is a joint venture between energy giants Spectra Energy Corp. and NextEra Energy Inc., hosted the event to give citizens an opportunity to ask questions and learn more about the proposed project.

Set up like an open house, the forum had 15 Sabal Trail subject matter experts on hand to greet residents and Continue reading →

Spectra pipeline meeting tonight at Wiregrass Tech @ Pipeline 2013-10-16

Spectra Energy will tell us how great their proposed pipeline will be, as it cuts a 100-foot wide path from Anniston, Alabama to Orlando, Florida through south Georgia, using eminent domain to make you sell your land, to deliver gas from fracking in Pennsylvania for the benefit of Florida Power and Light. Maybe you’d like to ask Spectra reps Brian Fahrenthold or Andrea Grover a few questions, like can we see a map of the proposed route, with parcel numbers, and what about those fines for violating federal regulations and Spectra’s own corporate operating procedures?

Added: facebook event.

Tonight (Wednesday) 16 October 2013 5:00-7:30 pm.
Wiregrass Georgia Tech (Atrium)
4089 Val Tech Road
Valdosta, GA

The Wiregrass Tech contact is Christy Cobb; she wasn’t in when I called yesterday. Tech’s web server still seems to be down, but Google has cached her as: Continue reading →