Tag Archives: Sabal Trail Transmission

Videos: HEAT on Sheriff finances @ LCC 2016-09-13

Half the meeting (11 1/2 minutes) Tuesday was Commissioners grilling Sheriff Chief Deputy Joe Crow about the cost of High Enforcement of Aggressive Traffic (Heat): how less funding is provided the more successful the program is, and federal funding may go away, leaving the county to foot the bill. Chairman asked for monthly statistical updates. Commissioner Demarcus Marshall moved to approve continuation of the grant, plus a statement in favor of the grant including a disclaimer that the county would “work to preserve” as much of the grant as possible if state funding goes away.

They approved finally fixing the railroad bridge over Old Quitman Highway. and similar but less complicated (no railroad) for the Jumping Gulley Road bridge. Nobody mentioned that the Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline proposes to cross Jumping Gulley Road half a mile west of that bridge, and then to open cut through Jumping Gulley Creek just south of the state line.

Snake Nation Road is getting an emergency $168,928 box culvert repair, which isn’t fast enough for former Commissioner Richard Lee, who Continue reading

FPL admits no need for new electricity until 2024: so why Sabal Trail?

17%, 13%, now 0% new electricity needed in Florida, according to FPL? And the Sabal Trail excuse of coal plant “modernization” has already been accomplished without Sabal Trail? While even FPL is now deploying solar power and admits solar “is now significantly influencing FPL’s resource planning”? So what is the Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline boondoggle for, then?

Two years ago I pointed out that FPL’s own projections in its ten-year plans Continue reading

Bell Brothers v. Sabal Trail Attorney Fees

You can help prevent this happening to you or your neighbors. Sabal Trail will use this to intimidate anyone who opposes them, just like they’ve been using previous court cases to scare people all along. Fortunately, the Bells have already provided a way everyone can help and thereby demonstrate we the people do not want Sabal Trail. The Bell brothers have set up a gofundme campaign. If you can’t contribute, you can help publicize it.

In the same case that people travelled to Leesburg, GA to attend twice, from Dougherty County and Lowndes County, GA and from places in Florida as far south as the Everglades, the Bell Brothers lost Continue reading

Southern Company buying half of SONAT from KMI

SO is buying 50% of SONAT from KMI, as multiple people have pointed out, including someone from Southern Company. SO: SONAT in the Southeast Unfortunately SO is not just investing in existing pipelines: this purchase is about “specific growth opportunities”, and yes, it’s tied to SO’s recent purchase of AGL. Southern Company needs to stop plugging dying 20th century fossil fuels and get on with what it’s already started with solar power (and offshore wind).

Southern Company PR 10 July 2016, Southern Company, Kinder Morgan enter Southern Natural Gas pipeline strategic venture, Continue reading

Yoho hikes Sabal Trail pipeline route

Calling on Austin Scott GA-08 and Sanford Bishop GA-02 and other members of Congerss to also ask the Corps for a Supplementary Environmental Impact Study (SEIS) about Sabal Trail discrepancies. Same story appeared in the Suwannee Democrat yesterday.

Page 5A Thomas Lynn, Valdosta Daily Times, 17 May 2016, Yoho hikes Sabal Trail pipeline route,

LIVE OAK. Fin. — US. Rep. Ted Yoho hiked with around 30 opponents to the Sabal Trail pipeline through Suwannee River State Park’s Big Oak Trail in north Florida to look at sinkholes near the proposed route.

The morning hike was a result of Continue reading

Solar price drops setting invisible price limit for ever-dirtier fossil fuel extraction

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

Videos: Attorneys v Carter Way tar baby, Appointment, big subdivision, Hwy 84 lift station @ LCC 2016-05-10

Multiple attorneys (ka-ching!) were needed to negotiate access for the county to fix private Carter Way, which the Lowndes County Commission approved unanimously at its 10 May 2016 Regular Session. This is the same Commission that signed an easement with Sabal Trail because they didn’t want to spend attorney fees to defend a lawsuit. The same Sabal Trail that wants to put its three-foot pipe only three feet deep just downhill from where Carter Way washed out.

County Planner Jason Davenport showed an updated site plan for 6.a. REZ-2016-10 Freedom Heights, 4301 Bemiss Rd, C-H to P-D, but as usual it’s not posted on the county’s website, and you had no way of seeing it before the meeting unless you filed an open records request three days before.

Commissioner Clay Griner remembered flooding, fence, and forgot the third thing a constituent asked him for about 6.b. REZ-2016-11 Creekside West Subdivision, 7551 GA Hwy 122 W. Developer Young Tillman said the changes were because Continue reading

Solar farm or fracked methane pipeline with explosions?

Which do you want? A 31 megawatt solar farm such as is building next to Albany, Georgia, built by Southern Company subsidiary Georgia Power to power 5,000 homes, and that won’t leak or explode? Or the Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline that could blow up like


Photo: US Army/Fort Benning.


KERRY JOBE VIA AP

another Spectra Energy 36″ pipeline this morning in Pennsylvania, badly burning a man and incinerating his house? After which Spectra declared force majeure, which Bloomberg spells out as “Force majeure is declared to remove a company from contractual obligation because of events beyond its control.” So apparently any promises Spectra or Sabal Trail made to you, your city, county, or state, it can just declare force majeure and get off the hook. Even for a 40-mile-long and 4,000-foot-high plume of smoke.

Russell Grantham, AJC, 29 April 2016, Old power gives way to new power in south Georgia, Continue reading

Carter Way Correction by Bill Slaughter @ LCC 2016-04-12

Thanks to Lowndes County Chairman Bill Slaughter, here’s a correction to Fixing private road Carter Way next to proposed Sabal Trail fracked methane path @ LCC 2016-04-12.

From: Bill Slaughter
Subject: Carter Way
Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2016 21:04:14 +0000

John,

I got a call today regarding comments that have been made about Agenda Item 7.h on your blog page, for clarification COWART & Sons was not awarded a contract for this emergency repair the contractor was Rountree Construction!

We requested a temporary easement from property owner Cowart & Sons to allow Rountree Construction to perform the work on a private road Continue reading

Fixing private road Carter Way next to proposed Sabal Trail fracked methane path @ LCC 2016-04-12

Cowart & Son, Carter Way If heavy rains washed out culverts on Carter Way, why would we not expect them to wash up the proposed Sabal Trail pipeline, aimed barely 500 feet to the west, downstream on Tiger Creek? And why didn’t the county mention that the company to which they just awarded an emergency no-bid contract to fix a private road owns extensive properties on that same private road? Actually, no: see correction.

The Lowndes County Tax Assessors online database shows Cowart & Son own Parcel 0017 024 of 13.09 acres on Carter Way. Yet the item 7.h. Carter Way agenda sheet for yesterday’s 12 April 2016 Regular Session of the Lowndes County Commission. mentions “Over 10 residences and a telecommunications tower” on Carter Way, but never mentions that the contractor, Cowart & Sons, just awarded that emergency no-bid contract for $67,822 to fix culverts on Carter Way, is also located on Carter Way. Actually, Rountree Construction got the contract; see correction. It’s still an emergency no-bid contract for a private road.

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
COMMISSION AGENDA ITEM Continue reading