Tag Archives: Floridan Aquifer

Spectra speaks about that AL-GA-FL natural gas pipeline

One of the promised public hearings appeared within a week, and the pipeline company made all sorts of promises and emphasized how busy and important it is. The pipeline rep caused opposition from a second county commissioner, and inadvertently revealed some possible means of opposition.

Carlton Fletcher wrote for AlbanyHerald.com 16 September 2013, Spectra official discusses natural gas pipeline,

Brian Fahrenthold, the state and local government affairs director for Houston-based Spectra Energy, assured commissioners and landowners impacted by the pipeline that his company will “meet or exceed all safety standards” required by federal officials during construction of the $3 billion project that will, when completed, send 1 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day into Florida from central Alabama.

“We’re in the early rows of activity right now, and this is a marathon,” Fahrenthold said. “We operate close to 19,000 miles of pipeline in the United States, and we have an outstanding safety record. Almost 15 percent of the natural gas used in the United States flows through our system.”

Fahrenthold answered questions from commissioners and from members of the public during a lengthy public hearing, assuring those gathered at the downtown Government Center Spectra is open to any pipeline route alterations that are viable.

“We keep hearing that there is an alternate route being proposed by some (landowners) in the community, but we haven’t seen it,” Fahrenthold said. “If there is such a route proposal, we’re open to it.”

Well, that’s cute: he says landowners should band together and do the pipeline company’s work for it. How about we start by demanding to see Spectra’s current route maps?

And look at this! Remember Commissioner Ewell Lyle spoke up for closely monitoring the pipeline and noted it wasn’t just a local issue? Spectra listened: Continue reading

Pipeline concerns about Flint River and Floridan Aquifer heard by Dougherty County Commission

Someone reminded her County Commission they can do something about the pipeline, only a few counties from here. At least one county commissioner there gets it that “it’s clearly not just a local issue. It’s a Southeast issue.” And the pipeline company has now promised public hearings in that county.

Dougherty County Chairman Jeff Sinyard followed up within a few days on his promise to do something. Carlton Fletcher wrote for AlbanyHerald.com 9 September 2013, County Commission hears concerns about pipeline,

Dinorah Hall told commissioners at their business session that the proposed $3 billion pipeline would pose danger to the environment and to residents in the path of the 465-mile project.

“It is within your authority to advocate citizens’ safety first by proposing an alternate site for the large, industrial compression station that will be used to push the gas through the pipeline and an alternate route away from more heavily populated areas,” Hall said. “Just imagine the catastrophic impact a pipeline disaster could have on our natural resources such as the Flint River and our underground aquifer.”

Commission Chairman Jeff Sinyard encouraged Hall and other impacted landowners to attend the commission’s work session Monday to discuss their concerns with project representatives.

“It is very, very important that they meet every legal and environmental requirement on this project,” Sinyard said of Houston-based Spectra Energy Corp., which is building the pipeline to supply gas to Florida Power & Light. “We expect them to use professional, non-bullying dialogue when talking with our citizens, and we’re going to do everything we can to see that this project negatively impacts the least number of citizens.”

Local residents are still just NIMBY, but District 4 Commissioner Ewell Lyle said, Continue reading

Waste from Superfund site in Waycross went to Lowndes County landfill

What was in that waste water that went into landfill in an aquifer recharge zone, with surface runoff into the Withlacoochee River? The 44 shipments from the toxic waste site in Waycross to the Pecan Row landfill in Lowndes County were “Non RCRA Regulated Liquids”, but “PCBs are not defined as hazardous wastes” and according to the U.S. Department of Energy, “To be a hazardous waste, a material must first be a solid waste.” So “Non RCRA Regulated Liquids” apparently says nothing about hazard or toxicity.

Cover 44 shipments went from the “7 Out Site” to “Pecan Row, Valdosta, GA” for $59,495.00 total of your federal tax dollars paid to Veolia, according to pages 12 and 13 of Final Report, Task Order # F-0032, Seven Out LLC Tank Site, Waycross, Georgia, Contract No. 68S4-02-06 for Emergency and Rapid Response Services, EPA Region 4, Prepared By WRS Infrastructure & Environment, Inc., 5555 Oakbrook Pkwy, Suite 175, Norcross, Georgia 30093, May 2, 2006.

Is this where those PCBs in the landfill came from? EPA itself says, Are polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) regulated under RCRA as a hazardous waste?

PCBs are not defined as hazardous wastes (Memo, Weddle to Verde; May 18, 1984 (RCRA Online #12235)). However, it is possible that PCBs may be incidental contaminants in listed hazardous waste (e.g., solvent used to remove PCBs from transformers) or may be present in wastes that are characteristically hazardous. In these cases, wastes that otherwise meet a listing criteria or are characteristically hazardous are still subject to RCRA regulation regardless of PCB content.

Pecan Row, Valdosta, GA page 1 However, to avoid duplicative regulation with Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), certain PCB containing wastes that exhibit the toxicity characteristic are exempt from regulation under RCRA (Monthly Call Center Report Question; September 1996 (RCRA Online #14014)). Section 261.8 exempts from RCRA Subtitle C regulation PCB-containing dielectric fluid and the electric equipment which holds such fluid if they satisfy two criteria. First, these PCB wastes must be regulated under the TSCA standards of Part 761. Second, only the PCB wastes which exhibit the toxicity characteristic for an organic constituent (waste codes D018-43) may qualify for the exemption (§261.8).

Apparently any liquid wastes from a Superfund site would be “Non RCRA Regulated Liquids”, according to U.S. DoE EH-231-034/0593 (May 1993), Exclusions and Exemptions from RCRA Hazardous Waste Regulation,

Pecan Row, Valdosta, GA page 2
  • any solid or dissolved material introduced by a source into a federally owned treatment work (FOTW) if certain conditions, described in Sect. 108 of the FFCA of 1992, are met;
  • industrial wastewater discharges that are point source discharges regulated under section 402 of the Clean Water Act [§261.4(a)(2)]

If a Superfund site is not a federally owned treatment work, what is? And if the Seven Out site was not an industrial wastewater point source, what is?

Sample waste manifest, Onyx Pecan Row, Valdosta, GA The Onyx Waste Manifests on pages 75-120 say the materials were “Non-Hazardous Non-Regulated Waste water”. (Onyx became Veolia Environmental Services in 2005, according to Veolia.) As we’ve seen, “Non-Regulated” apparently means little. We don’t know what was in that waste water that went into a landfill in a recharge zone for the Floridan Aquifer, the source of our drinking water, and with surface runoff into the Withlacoochee River.

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Aquifer recharge and drainage from Seven Out Superfund site, Mary Street, Waycross, GA

The Seven Out Superfund site is not in any of the severe aquifer recharge zones in Ware County, fortunately, but drainage from it goes right across Waycross into the Satilla River, carrying who-knows-what pollution with it. It’s time to find out what pollution, where it comes from, and what plume of toxic chemicals it is making underground. Continue reading

Moody Family Housing is in aquifer recharge zone @ LCC 2013-08-27

The Moody Family Housing just rezoned is in a recharge zone for our drinking water supply, the Floridan Aquifer. What will keep runoff from this subdivision from feeding through the wetlands and sinkhole into the aquifer? Should we depend on county engineering, which never put in the traffic calming measures required for nearby Nelson Hill, or other county staff, who gave waivers for other required items there, or just didn’t require them to be implemented? What assurances can we get from our county government that Moody Family Housing won’t pollute our drinking water?

WRPDO Title Alone The above map is a detail from Lowndes County’s own Water Resource Protection Districts Ordinance (WRPDO) overlay Map. Here’s an even more detailed view courtesy VALOR GIS (turn on Streams and Waterbodies, NWI Wetlands, Muncipal Boundaries, and Groundwater Rechard Areas): Continue reading

Landfill is in aquifer recharge zone

In a recharge zone for our drinking water supply, the Floridan Aquifer, is the Pecan Row Landfill with its PCBs and coal ash. That proposed landfill pipeline requiring cutting through the vegetative buffer along an unnamed tributary to Spring Branch? Also at least partly in the recharge zone. Continue reading

Fukushima has contaminated its aquifer; what about our aquifer?

Fukushima is dumping radioactive water into its aquifer. Plant Hatch is the same design and sits above the Floridan Aquifer we drink out of. Can’t happen here? On 19 December 2001 TEPCO said there was no possibility of a tsunami large enough to knock out Fukushima Daiichi. Plant Hatch is the same design as Fukushima, and while a tsunami really is unlikely at Hatch, for all we know Hatch still has substandard fire protection and the risk if Hatch does go bad is like the risk if a French reactor goes bad: soil contamination the size of France and Germany (or larger than Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina, and north Florida) plus radioactive contamination of the aquifer we drink out of.

Harvey Wasserman wrote for the Progress today, The Fukushima Nightmare Gets Worse, Continue reading

Clean Green Metro Florida by Brookings Institution

Amy Liu spoke about globalization last week in Orlando, Leaders will seize the clean economy about clean industries leading economic growth. Even though she was talking linear growth, her Metropolitan Policy Program at Brookings Institution has some interesting points that mesh with the exponential growth like compound interest Georgia can get on with in solar and wind power.

The Florida Economic Development Council 2013 FEDC Conference 26-28 June 2013 was the venue for Amy Liu’s A Globally Competitive Florida: Regional Opportunities in the Next Economy. To summarize her slides (which are in a format not easily linkable, she bashes Congress to motivate cities leading. In particular, Florida’s 20 metro ares have 61.75 of land area, 94.1% of population, and 95.9% of output. Nothing surprising there: cities are densely populated. Two of the biggest in Florida are in our Floridan Aquifer: Orlando and Jacksonville. (She didn’t mention the aquifer; I did.)

The national economic recovery is slow, the middle class has been hard-hit, and Florida is recovering faster, except on unemployment. The U.S. population is rapidly getting older and by 2050 53.7% will be minorities, each of which have very different educational achievements, and much of this is happening in metro areas.

Her solution is Continue reading

Ask Georgia Power to conserve our water –Garry Gentry for WWALS @ GA PSC 2013-06-18

Garry Gentry read the WWALS Watershed Coalition letter at the Georgia Public Service Commission meeting Tuesday 18 June 2013.

The recent rains have swollen our blackwater rivers, Withlacoochee, Willacoochee, Alapaha, and Little, under our longleaf pines and Spanish-moss-covered oaks, and filled up the tea-colored tannin waters in our frog-singing pocosin cypress swamps here in central South Georgia. But that was only a dent in our protracted drought that ranges from mild to extreme, with projections not much better….

There is no need to use our Floridan Aquifer water to build more baseload power plants while Georgia lags behind Michigan, Massachusetts, and even tiny New Jersey and Maryland in solar power.

WWALS calls on the PSC to ask Georgia Power to conserve our water and to bring jobs to south Georgia through solar power and wind off the Georgia coast.

You can read the complete letter. Here’s the video:


Ask Georgia Power to conserve our water –Garry Gentry for WWALS
Georgia Power proposed closing of coal plants,
Administrative Session, GA Public Service Commission (GA PSC),
Doug Everrett (1: south Georgia), Tim Echols (2: east Georgia), Chairman Chuck Eaton (3: metro Atlanta), Stan Wise (5 north Georgia), Bubba McDonald (4: west Georgia),
Video by John S. Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),
244 Washington Street SW, Atlanta, GA, 30334-9052, 18 June 2013.

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What causes sinkholes?

Fake and real sinkholes form in the same porous limestone underground here in the Floridan Aquifer, and we get an explanation of that from another limestone area in western New York.

Nalina Shapiro wrote for WIVB.com yesterday, What’s behind sinkholes in WNY?

So what causes these sinkholes to form?

University at Buffalo Geology Professor Dr. Marcus Bursik says there are two types of sinkholes. One type is caused by aging infrastructure, like old pipes that burst underground and eventually cause a collapse on the surface. This is more common and is sometimes called a “fake sinkhole.”

Like the Sinkhole on US 82 near Tifton August 2012, caused by a broken water main, and since filled in. The other type is much more common: Continue reading