The same money would buy a lot more electricity through solar power than that fracked methane pipeline could generate.
Update 2 March 2017: Added tables; fixed some typos.
Ramez Naam, his blog, 21 September 2016,
New Record Low Solar Price in Abu Dhabi — Costs Plunging Faster Than Expected
Small, big, huge, and PDF versions of each and every one of the 144 alignment maps FSC filed with FERC in May 2016 are on the LAKE website.
![[21040-510-ALS-00001 STA: 00+00 TO 50+00, POLK COUNTY, FLORIDA]](http://www.l-a-k-e.org/govt/ferc/2016-05-20--fsc-implementation-plan/small/20160520-5173-31474756-0002.jpg)
21040-510-ALS-00001 STA: 00+00 TO 50+00, POLK COUNTY, FLORIDA
PDF
Follow the link for details of what, and how you can help.
For maps of the rest of the Southeast Market Pipelines Project (SMPP, including Sabal Trail), see SMPP.
-jsq
Investigative reporting costs money, for open records requests, copying, web hosting, gasoline, and cameras, and with sufficient funds we can pay students to do further research. You can donate to LAKE today!
Front page today in the newspaper of record in the largest city in the Suwannee River Basin: the WWALS protest against DAPL and Sabal Trail at the US 84 Withlacoochee River bridge last Saturday, between Quitman and Valdosta, GA.
Desiree Carver, Valdosta Daily Times, Friday, September 23, 2016, front page,
Sabal protests continue,
The WWALS Watershed Coalition stood on the bridge between Brooks and Lowndes County Saturday to show solidarity with Dakota Access Pipeline opponents in Dakota and to continue its battle against the Sabal Trail natural gas pipeline.
That’s the US 84 bridge over the Withlacoochee River, on the Continue reading
A fairly insightful piece on the how oil price rises drive more fossil fuel production,
currently fueled by debt because wages of most workers have been falling, still misses two big points: solar prices continually plumetting now undercut all fossil fuel prices, and dirtier fossil fuel extraction and its massive colonial invasion of pipelines are meeting resistance everywhere, including at the regulatory-captured puppet agencies like FERC.
“Tyler Durden”, ZeroHedge, 13 May 2016, Submitted by Gail Tverberg via Our Finite World blog, The Real Oil Limits Story – What Other Researchers Missed, Continue reading
The Commission’s designated first speaker
confused order with good.
Chairman Bill Slaughter
required a sitting judge to go to the podium to speak,
even though he had not required that for multiple Spectra pipeline reps
the previous morning.
Nottinghill is finally resolved,
after yet more probing questions by Commissioners; more than they
asked the Spectra reps.
A
VSU professor
and
a landowner
asked very good questions about the pipeline,
a
KLVB board member gave a report,
and
Gretchen asked the Commission to post Planning Commission minutes online.
Two people were appointed; one spoke. The two beer licenses, a liquor license, the decorative special tax lighting district for Windstone, the contracts, the resolution to ask the legislature for an additional judge, and the bids were all approved with little discussion. The settlement for back pay it turns out didn’t actually involve employees having to sue to get paid.
Here’s the amended agenda with the two added items, plus links to the videos and a few notes. See also the previous morning’s Work Session.
LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERSContinue reading
AMENDED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2013, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2013, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street — 2nd Floor
A local landowner said that with no open access in Georgia,
Sabal Trail Transmission should have no standing to use
Georgia eminent domain law.
And Sabal Trail must comply with local, state, and federal laws and
ordinances, including ones that could be passed by the Lowndes
County Commission, she said at their
10 December 2013 Regular Session.
For example, a depth ordinance, or an ordinance requiring
a minimum distance from homes or schools.
Or a tax on the pipeline easement.
She recommended
PipelineSafetyInfo.com.
She asked for the Commissioners to use their voice.
As WCTV quoted her in their coverage, she said,
I don’t want to have to fear for my children as they sleep at night.
County Manager Joe Pritchard shuffled papers and
alleged County Attorney Walter G. Elliott yawned during these
citizen presentations.
Mindy Bland noted Commissioner Powell had asked for Continue reading
How about a profit-sharing venture the pipeline partners and the County? A VSU professor asked that at the 10 December 2013 Regular Session of the Lowndes County Commission.
Dr. Hochschild listed a few benefits Spectra rep. Brian Fahrenthold had claimed the previous morning.
Considering the vast profits Florida Power and Light and Sabal Trail stand to make from the use of our land, I know they can do a lot better than hotel stays, Big Macs, and temporary jobs. Mr. Fahrenthold claimed the pipeline would be economically beneficial because it will supposedly bring in $460 million in property taxes over the next sixty years.
First I’d like to know if an independent agency came up with that projection, or if Continue reading
What costs
less than a latte or a slice of pizza?
A day’s electricity from Florida Power and Light, according to
FPL VP Pam Rauch who also is NextEraEnergy VP and President of yet
another pipeline company shell that wants to pull a 100 foot gas pipeline through
Georgia for the benefit of Florida.
Still more
names in the pipeline shell game:
Pamela Rauch who filed FP14-2 for
Florida Southeast Connection LLC (FSC),
is
Vice President, Development and
External Affairs for NextEraEnergy
and
Vice President of External Affairs for Florida Power & Light
Company (FPL) in January since 2008;
on her
LinkedIn profile
she has the NextEra logo next to the FPL name.
Here’s a nice picture of her
making a case for an FPL rate increase for, among other things,
“our ability to finance the billions of dollars in improvements that keep reliability high and bills low, and that create thousands of jobs for you and your neighbors.”
Those would include “modernizations” as Spectra rep Andrea Grover put it in Moultrie like closing coal plants and building this pipeline through Georgia by Spectra Energy, a company with a corrosive-record of property damage and PCB-spilling environmental damaga for neighbors like hers in Florida. We could have more jobs for people right here through rooftop solar, and we’d get energy, reduced bills, and no risk of PCB or other spills.
What do you think about this, neighbors in Georgia? Maybe you’d like to get the Lowndes County Commission to get Spectra and maybe FSC to come explain themselves?
FERC file list for FP14-2 and text of the preliminary filing approval for Florida Southeast Connection: Continue reading
The Sabal Trail roadshow rolled on to Florida, but hasn’t bowled over at least one landowner.
Dave D’Marko wrote for mynews13.com yesterday, Pipeline bringing gas, concerns to Floridians,
A new gas pipeline is coming to Florida that will pump up to a billion cubic feet a day to Florida Power and Light customers.
But some property owners aren’t happy. The company plans to take the pipeline right through their land. Sabal Trail Transmission met with landowners in Kissimmee Tuesday night. Another meeting is planned at South Lake High School in Groveland Wednesday.
Gertrude Dickinson, 82, got her first letter in June, warning her a company was bidding to bring a gas pipeline to Florida and her property was being considered. She didn’t wait for the project to gain approval, which it did later in the summer, and started fighting it immediately.
“I said I want a map of exactly where you are putting that pipe on my land and how much you are going to use,” Dickinson said.
She said what she got in return was this map showing all three states the 465 mile pipeline would go through, and a dot showing the general area she lived in Sumter County. What it didn’t explain is why they wanted to go through her land, and not the state-owned prairie across the street.
Well, that all sounds familiar. And look who’s down there speaking for Spectra:
Andrea Grover, a spokesperson for Sabal Trail Transmission, is part of the “Right of Way” team meeting with 3,000 landowners along the corridor. She said so far 80 percent have given permission for land surveying.
But Dickinson posted no trespassing signs, refusing to let surveyors on her land. Signs on her property point out she suffers from a condition known as auditory recruitment, which means noise from construction would be greatly amplified in her ears. She says previous episodes have led to heart attacks.
The company said it will reimburse owners fair value for their property, but Dickinson doubts that would be much in this economy.
“I can buy a few bags of groceries with the money and that’s it, and for what? They’ve taken my property, and my entrance, and my life possibly who knows,” she said.
-jsq
The path of the pipeline through Lowndes County
(and part of Brooks and Hamilton) is shown in these
maps that were on easels at the
Spectra presentation at Wiregrass Tech last night.
Brooks @ US 84 and Withlacoochee River:
Lowndes @ Spain Ferry Road:
Continue reading