Tag Archives: pipeline

Let’s stop Sabal Trail before it makes any more mistakes

Thanks to Julie Bowland for the picture of my VDT op-ed today. -jsq

jsq op-ed in VDT The same day the Sabal Trail was quoted in the VDT August 5th as saying it had done enough subsurface analysis on our fragile karst limestone topography, a sinkhole opened up next to Shiloh Road. Sabal Trail already had to move its Albany compressor station because arrowheads had been found there. The pipeline itself is a much bigger mistake: let’s stop it before it damages our property values, forests, rivers, or our people.

Spectra Energy’s paid staff are continue to assert that Sabal Trail’s proposed gouge through our fields, farms, and under our rivers will proceed according their plan to profit executives and investors in Houston, Texas.

Actually, Continue reading

Citi agrees fixing climate change is profitable

Save more by acting to fix climate change, on similar overall investment for trying to deal with unfixed effects, says Citi Global Perspectives & Solutions (GPS). Save more on similar expense: that’s profiting by fixing climate change. Fastest way to do that with least expense: deny all new pipelines, all LNG export, and end fracking.

Dana Nuccitelli, Guardian, 31 August 2015, Citi report: slowing global warming would save tens of trillions of dollars: A report from America’s 3rd-largest bank asks why we’re not transitioning to a low-carbon economy, Continue reading

Renewable energy world’s second largest source of electricity

Why are we building any new natural gas pipelines when solar and wind have already won the world? Plus solar and wind don’t frack, don’t need any fuel, don’t require eminent domain, and don’t suck up any cooling water.

Alex Kirby, Climate News Network, 19 August 2015, World’s Second Largest Source of Electricity Is Now Renewables, Continue reading

Land is not just money: appeal tax valuations today

Appeal today if you think there’s more to land (or business) and woods and fields and streams than money, unlike the Tax Assessors, whose revaluation would drive development into agricultural areas of the county where it doesn’t belong, while avoiding populated areas such as the south side of Valdosta. We can expect pipeline companies and utilities from other states to think nothing of pillaging our lands for their profit. We shouldn’t expect that of our neighbors whom we elected Tax Asssessors. If you have affection for your land, your county, your neighborhood, today’s the deadline to appeal your valuation. And there will be an election later.

As Wendell Berry said,

Whatever has happened in what economists call “the economy,” it is generally true that the land economy has been discounted or ignored.

Are the Tax Assessors boomers? Are you a sticker? Wendell Berry explains: Continue reading

Hamilton County, FL Commission considers opposing FL-DEP Sabal Trail permit 2015-07-21

Local resident Chris Mericle asked his county commission to once again oppose the Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline, this time by opposing a permit the Florida Department of Environmental Protection proposes to issue for Sabal Trail to bore under the Suwannee River and other sovereign submerged lands and wetlands of Florida.

This time, Continue reading

County and news media digging deeper on Shiloh sinkhole story

Will nearby buildings fall into this 120-foot sinkhole? Will Shiloh Road have to be moved like Snake Nation Road was? What about sinkhole insurance? If there are “fault lines” causing sinkholes heading westwards in Lowndes County, wouldn’t they cross the proposed path of the Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline? What will Lowndes County do if that thing goes in and a sinkhole opens under it? What if Sabal Trail declares such a sinkhole force majeure and doesn’t pay?

More on the usual detour on Shiloh Road. Joe Adgie, VDT, 6 August 2015, Sinkhole threat to Shiloh Road, Continue reading

Videos: MAZ tabled, Naylor Boat Ramp and Sabal Trail CWTBH @ LCC 2015-07-28

The proposed MAZ changes were tabled for 90 days, they approved everything else, and welcomed new Utilities Director Steve Stalvey again, at the 5:30 PM Tuesday 28 July 2015 Regular Session of the Lowndes County Commission. Valdosta City Council Sandra Tooley didn’t fill out a form and so didn’t get to speak, but another citizen asked about the Naylor Boat Ramp (answer after the meeting: on schedule for this fall) and about Sabal Trail (answer: none).

See also Continue reading

Videos: MAZ again, Lake Alapaha, Emergencies, but no Sabal Trail @ LCC 2015-07-27

300x297 Parcel 0181 001, in Davidson Road, by John S. Quarterman, 27 July 2015 The proposed MAZ changes have “absolutely nothing to do with” the 23 acres on Davidson Road that were proposed to be rezoned R-21 back in 2010, after the county paved Davidson Road, said County Chairman Bill Slaughter at yesterday morning’s Lowndes County Commission Work Session. County Planner Jason Davenport said he had hoped to get “on the same page with Moody” before that same evening’s Planning Commission meeting for the MAZ ULDC Text Amendments, but as yet he had nothing to report, and tabling was an option. I don’t think that word “ultimately” means what he thinks it does. See more below about Davidson Road.

Not on the agenda were three, no four, reports:

Like the MAZ changes, also requiring a public hearing Tuesday evening is Continue reading

MAZ again, Lake Alapaha, Emergency Management and Liability, but no Sabal Trail @ LCC 2015-07-27

While Dougherty County, Albany, and their state and federal reps plan a joint opposition meeting to the Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline invader, there’s nothing about that pipeline on Monday’s 8:30 AM agenda of the Lowndes County Commission. Three items on emergency response, emergency planning, and 911 operations, plus one on liability, but nothing about the invading pipeline soft target.

The highly controversial Moody Activity Zoning Districts (MAZ) are back, despite massive opposition. The Planning Commission will hear MAZ again Monday evening, and because there’s only one day from then until the County Commission can vote on MAZ Tuesday, the County Planner says: Continue reading

Exxon acted on climate change in 1981, funded deniers 27 more years, and is back at same Malaysia oil and gas field

Exxon showed more sense three decades ago than now, when it’s back at the same Malaysian oil and gas field it backed off from in 1981 because it would release massive amounts of carbon dioxide that would accelerate climate change. It’s time to end the era of fossil fuels and get on with changing the world to cheaper, faster, and far cleaner sun, wind, and water power.

A decade before Al Gore’s 1992 book Earth in the Balance, years before Bill McKibben’s 1989 book The End of Nature, before the same year as the publication of the first GISS scientific study on Climate impact of increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide in Science,, according to Suzanne Goldenberg, The Guardian, 8 July 2015, Exxon knew of climate change in 1981, email says — but it funded deniers for 27 more years, Continue reading