Tag Archives: EPA

Ask Sabal Trail to invest in solar farms instead of pipelines –Alton Paul Burns @ TCC 2014-12-09



He concluded, “There’s nothing beneficial to the state of Georgia in this pipeline.”
Some Commissioners had never heard of Sabal Trail:
now they have, from local resident Alton Paul Burns,
at their

9 December 2014 Thomas County Commission Regular Session,
and they know it could come right through Thomasville.

Discussing

among themselves, one Commissioner remarked that the pipeline
wouldn’t go through her place, but it was still a concern, and they
should ask Sabal Trail to come explain themselves.

Later, Continue reading →

Children, cancer clusters, citizen water tests @ GA EPD 2014-07-17



Citizens are not convinced EPA, GA-EPD, and GA Dept. of Health
are doing enough to find what’s causing widespread sickness and death
in Waycross, GA.
They asked questions and provided data and anecdotes for more than
an hour, demanding more testing and answers, at a meeting
about the Seven Out Superfund and other air and water contamination,
for example from CSX and AGL.

Georgia Department of Health did

offer a new survey, with local help.
She also offered to send a local health dept. rep. right out whenever
they were alerted a certain site stunk after rains.
EPA and GA-EPD admitted there was a problem and said they were
trying to fix it,
which is a step forward from

their preliminary Waycross meeting last November.
But not a big enough step or quick enough to satisfy Waycross people who are or
who know many who are sick or dying.

They asked very insightful questions, about Continue reading →

EPA hearings in AJC: where’s the second step about natural gas?



AJC on the

EPA hearings this week:
they didn’t print my proposed second step for natural gas,
but they did quote Sierra Club on efficiency.

Kristina Torres wrote for the AJC today,

EPA brings ‘clean power’ plan to Atlanta. Will it hurt Georgia? Continue reading →

Solar freakin’ roadways




Solar Roadways has raised $1,884,633 in six weeks from Earth Day to now
on a goal of $1,000,000 in indiegogo
(which was already

a record for most contributors with 36,000 people at $1.5 million).
Yes, to all those who have asked me, I think it could work.
Add solar roadways to rooftop solar and solar farms and wind,
and
the EPA’s new CO2 rule (which doesn’t even do much about coal for years
and does nothing about about “natural” gas)
will seem like a quaint baby step in a few years after this happens: Continue reading →

Children dying, mothers crying: Silentdisaster accuses state of hiding true health risks

Seen on

Silentdisaster.org’s facebook page.
The
EPA and GA-EPD meeting last November
and later test results did not satisfy them.
Wastewater from that Waycross contamination

was shipped to the Pecan Row Landfill in Lowndes County,
adding to

the other toxic materials in that landfill.
-jsq

PDF

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

April 1, 2014

By: Silentdisaster.org, a citizens group in Waycross, Georgia



Testing conducted by the Georgia Environmental Protection Division
(EPD) have left residents frustrated and angry. Many children are
sick and have died from being poisoned by toxic chemicals and
residents who live, week-to-week on small budgets, are spending
their own money to do testing because they don’t trust government
officials who are paid ˜to protect the people and keep them safe’.
They should be spending their money on feeding their families and
getting well. The lack of honesty in the EPD’s reports is a disgrace
to our community and our State.

Newly released environmental testing results Continue reading →

Spectra reps unfamiliar with Spectra fines @ LCC 2013-12-09



Both of Spectra’s principal representatives to the Lowndes County Commission
and the Dougherty County Commission claim not to be familiar
with Spectra’s well-known public record of safety violations,
and some of what they say contradicts the public record,
so how can we believe any of their safety assertions about
Spectra’s proposed Sabal Trail Transmission pipeline?

Update 3PM: more evidence from Pennsylvania and elsewhere.

As I’ve mentioned
before,
Spectra’s Andrea Grover told us that
everyone in Pennsylvania was happy now, after I asked her
about

the Steckman Ridge compressor station leak
in front of reporter Matthew Woody,
at the

16 October 2013 Spectra meeting at Wiregrass Tech in Valdosta.
There’s more beyond
the article about pipeline fines and incidents

Woody wrote 24 November 2013 for the Valdosta Daily Times (VDT), the local
newspaper of record.

Her excuse for the compressor leak, if I recall correctly,
was that Continue reading →

U.S. EPA, GA DNR, GA Health Dept., and landfill in Lowndes County @ EPA 2013-11-14



At the

EPA meeting in Waycross about the Seven Out Superfund site,
EPA, GA EPD, and state health officials also had information about
crossover contamination in Lowndes County.




Matthew J. Huyser, On-Scene Coordinator for U.S. EPA,
told me that before

EPA shipped those 196,500 gallons of wastewater from Seven Out to the Pecan Row Landfill in Lowndes County
they had applied procedures that were supposed to ensure those liquids
were no longer toxic and had tested them to be sure.
He said he would send me the specifics on that.
I didn’t ask him whether

CSX toxic wastes were shipped to Lowndes County.



Huyser also said EPA had checked the record of that receiving landfill
before sending anything there, and it had a good record.
He seemed surprised to learn Continue reading →

EPA, GA EPD, and Southeast Health in Waycross about Seven Out Superfund @ EPA 2013-11-14



Now

EPA is convinced that the public wants answers, after dozens of citizens
turned out to ask questions at

Waycross City Hall 14 November 2013.
A study of contamination sampling is in peer review,
and

GA EPD and

GA Health Dept. are also involved.
Citizens and

silentdisaster.org and

Satilla Riverkeeper and

WWALS Watershed Coalition are watching.





Matthew J. Huyser, EPA (l. standing blue shirt),

Jim Brown, GA EPD (c. standing white shirt),

Ashby Nix, Satilla Riverkeeper (facing Brown, paper in hand),

Joan Martin McNeal, silentdisaster.org (r. in group)





Roger Naylor, Public Relations Director for Southeast Health District,
is quite familiar with

Janet McMahan’s discovery of arsenic in groundwater
and says Continue reading →

Meeting with EPA about Seven Out Superfund Site in Waycross 24 Nov 2013


Facebook event by Joan Martin McNeal:



When: Thursday, November 14, 2013 6:30pm

Where:

City Hall, 477 Pendleton St., Waycross, GA

Will we get help Or will it be just another story? EPA Meeting
Scheduled for Thursday, November 14 at 6:30 PM Waycross City Hall to
give us an update on Seven Out Superfund Site. They will also have
on hand the Georgia Dept of Health. PLEASE MARK YOUR CALENDAR NOW!


View Larger Map

-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 →