Watch out Dougherty, Mitchell, and Thomas Counties Georgia,
and Jefferson, Taylor, Lafayette, Suwannee, and Columbia Counties, Florida, and the Flint, Ochlockonee, Aucilla, Ecofina, Suwannee, and Santa Fe Rivers: Alternative 3 is for you!
County Commissions and city councils in the county seats of Camilla, Thomasville,
Monticello, Perry, Mayo, Live Oak, and Lake City
may want to

take action like Jefferson County already did to stop water bottling,
as may Alachua, Gainesville, Ocala, Wildwood, The Villages, and Ferndale in Alachua, Marion, Sumter, and Lake Counties, Florida.

Alternative 3 in
FERC’s recent instructions for Sabal Trail to “include analyses” begins
like

Alternative 2 near Armena, GA and goes through Albany,
then veers due south.

Alternative 3
beginning at approximately MP 141 (near Albany, Georgia) and following Highway 82 to Highway 19 (Slappy Boulevard) in Albany, Georgia; then following Highway 19 through Albany, Camilla, and Thomasville, Georgia to the FGT pipeline corridor south of Capps, Florida; then following the FGT pipeline corridor to I-75 and the Alternate 1 and 2 routes to the proposed endpoint.

Here’s a

very rough map of the whole route of Alternative 3, including the FGT pipeline part:

The north-south part of the route was pretty easy to follow from
Mile Point 141 as in
Alternative 2
to Capps, Florida along the highways FERC specified,
through Albany, Camilla, Pelham, Thomasville, and Monticello,
and crossing the Fint and Ochlockonee Rivers.

The Florida Gas Transmission (FGT) route was a bit harder, because
FGT’s maps are very vague.
and the

National Pipeline Mapper shows you only county by county and
not much local detail to compare to.
The Florida Public Service Commission has

a somewhat informative map.

This deliberate vagueness is apparently because natural gas pipelines are national security
assets.
Terrorism, you know.
So remind me,

why would we want to build more of these really obvious enemy targets?

You can compare an FGT map to a map of Florida counties:

And if you turn on satellite view in google maps and zoom in,
you can see the FGT pipelne as its right of way gouges
a wide swath through every forest in its path, just like
Sabal Trail wants to do.
So I used that to draw this rough map of FGT from south of Capps to I-75,
passing through Perry, Florida, and parts of Jefferson,
Taylor, Lafayette, Suwannee, and Columbia Counties, Florida.
Plus it would cross the
Aucilla, Ecofina, and Suwannee Rivers, and after it joins
Alternative 1, it still would cross the Santa Fe River.

Jefferson County is the one that already passed

a land-use ordinance
to prevent Nestlé or any other water bottling company from
sucking up its local waters.
Well, Jefferson County, Sabal Trail wants to cross your
Aucilla River.
Plus pressure testing that pipeline

would require a lot of water
that would also have to go back contaminated into local watersheds,
as the EPA reminded FERC back in April.
Here’s an

action letter suggesting that and other possibilities
for county commissions and city councils, not to mention state and federal
agencies.

What say we call off the pipeline and deploy clean, safe, affordable

solar power instead, for jobs, power, and lower electric bills right
here where we need them?
After all,

Sabal Trail’s own figures show
it would take half the land of that pipeline to produce just as much solar power.

-jsq