Tag Archives: Safety

Spectra to answer questions about pipeline @ LCC 2013-12-09

Received yesterday.
Good first step. Will the Commission also have Spectra speak at the Regular
Session, like they did ADS back in February?
Will it make that a public hearing?

Update 11:30 AM:
Pipeline meeting set:
Commissioner gathers opposing views by Matthew Woody, front page of the VDT this morning. -jsq

From: Demarcus Marshall <marshall at lowndescounty.com>

Date: Friday, October 25, 2013 7:51 AM

To: Tim Bland

Cc: Matthew Woody

Subject: Sabal Trail Pipeline

Tim and Residents along the Proposed Sabal Trail Pipeline,

Brian Fahrenthold of Sabal Trail Pipeline contacted me yesterday and
requested an audience with the Lowndes County Commissioners. I have
submitted to the chairman a slot for him to address the
commissioners at our December 09, 2013 work session.

I am writing
you to ask Continue reading →

Schedule of Open Houses required by FERC for Sabal Trail

After the series of divide-and-conquer landowner meetings
Spectra just held, another series of Open Houses starts in December:

here’s the schedule.
Later, FERC may hold and sponsor Scoping Meetings.
Local counties can hold public hearings in addition to all these,
and Andrea Grover said in front of multiple witnesses that Spectra
would speak and answer questions at such a county public hearing.

Update 3 Dec 2013:
Brooks County, Georgia already had a citizen speak.
Lowndes County, Georgia is having Sabal Trail speak.
See the calendar.
See also
Sabal Trail’s own list of open houses.

There’s also a meeting of the

corporate cast of characters
with FERC on November 5, 2013.
I wonder if intervenors could attend that meeting, at least by telephone?

The Open House roadshow gets to Albany Dec 11, Moultrie Dec 12,
and Clyattville Dec 16,
interleaved with meetings in Alabama and Florida.

Here’s
FERC’s definition of Open Houses: Continue reading →

WCTV on the pipeline

Spectra said “more rural” “lessens stakeholder impact”.
What do you think about that, rural landowners whose land Spectra wants?
County Chairman Bill Slaughter said
the most positive thing he’s said so far,
“we’re going to be looking out for the citizens of Lowndes County”,
about this
natural gas pipeline potentially ripping a 100 foot right of way
through this county and many others in Georgia, Florida, and Alabama
for the benefit of Florida Power and Light.
And Valdosta, you’re not for sure out of the pipeline path:
remember

FERC could choose that Option B through Valdosta that is Spectra’s
alternate route.

James Buechele wrote for WCTV yesterday,

Pipeline Would Cut Through Florida & Georgia, Continue reading →

Florida opposition to Spectra pipeline

The Sabal Trail roadshow rolled on to Florida, but hasn’t
bowled over at least one landowner.

Dave D’Marko wrote for mynews13.com yesterday,

Pipeline bringing gas, concerns to Floridians,

A new gas pipeline is coming to Florida that will pump up to a
billion cubic feet a day to Florida Power and Light customers.

But some property owners aren’t happy. The company plans to take
the pipeline right through their land. Sabal Trail Transmission met
with landowners in Kissimmee Tuesday night. Another meeting is
planned at South Lake High School in Groveland Wednesday.

Gertrude Dickinson, 82, got her first letter in June, warning her a
company was bidding to bring a gas pipeline to Florida and her
property was being considered. She didn’t wait for the project to
gain approval, which it did later in the summer, and started
fighting it immediately.

“I said I want a map of exactly where you are putting that pipe on
my land and how much you are going to use,” Dickinson said.

She said what she got in return was this map showing all three
states the 465 mile pipeline would go through, and a dot showing the
general area she lived in Sumter County. What it didn’t explain is
why they wanted to go through her land, and not the state-owned
prairie across the street.

Well, that all sounds familiar.
And look who’s down there speaking for Spectra:

Andrea Grover, a spokesperson for Sabal Trail Transmission, is part
of the “Right of Way” team meeting with 3,000 landowners along the
corridor. She said so far 80 percent have given permission for land
surveying.

But Dickinson posted no trespassing signs, refusing to let surveyors
on her land. Signs on her property point out she suffers from a
condition known as auditory recruitment, which means noise from
construction would be greatly amplified in her ears. She says
previous episodes have led to heart attacks.

The company said it will reimburse owners fair value for their
property, but Dickinson doubts that would be much in this economy.

“I can buy a few bags of groceries with the money and that’s it,
and for what? They’ve taken my property, and my entrance, and my
life possibly who knows,” she said.

-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 →

Spectra pipeline property damage and safety record

Sabal Trail Transmission reps promise us

their pipeline will be safe,
but their parent company Spectra Energy has had
twenty one incidents since 2006 for $8,564,246 in property damage,
according to PHMSA, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline & Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.

That Final Order of 21 December 2012
to Spectra CEO Gregory L. Ebel for $134,500

for violating both federal
regulations and Spectra’s own internal company policies was only a
in the flaming bucket.
Another,
marked in red as

MAT’L/WELD/EQUIP FAILURE,
PUMP/COMPRESSOR-RELATED EQUIPMENT
for

$251,170 in property damage on 13 March 2012 in Marietta, York County, Pennsylvania,
could be related to that

compressor incident Spectra first said was nothing.

Most of the others are about
“internal corrosion” such as

a Spectra employee says they never bothered to check for.

Here’s the current list of incidents from PHMSA, no doubt each with its
own sordid story:

Serious Incidents are denoted in red.

Continue reading →

Request pipeline town hall –Tim Bland to LCC

Received yesterday. Tim Bland wrote
“This is what I emailed to all of the commissioners on Friday.”
I added a few links and pictures.
-jsq

Commissioners,

I would like to start by thanking Demarcus Marshall for attending
the meeting held by Sabal Trail at Wiregrass Tech on Wednesday. It
is nice to know that some of our elected officials are concerned
about this project.

After talking with many of the affected landowners at this meeting,
it appears that there is a general misconception about the
certainty of this proposed pipeline. The officials from Sabal
Trail, both in writing and in person, are telling landowners that
this pipeline is coming and there is little any of us can do to
prevent it. This appears to be the main reason for the high
approval rating for the initial surveys. We were told that if we
did not willingly participate in the survey, there would be little
consideration given to our input and opinions when the pipeline is
built. We were also told Continue reading →

NRC back up: many nukes down

Now that the NRC is back up, we can see all the nukes that
went down during the government shutdown: nine of them.
If they’re not safe to run without NRC looking over their shoulder,
are they safe to run at all?
And two came back up.
Was that a prudent thing to do?
Meanwhile, solar panels don’t need an NRC.

Entergy’s

chronically faulty Pilgrim 1
was the last to fall during the shutdown,
while Southern’s

defect-shipped Farley 1
was one of the first:

Continue reading →

Chinese nukes in Britain

Bad news from Britain.
Let’s hope U.S. NRC doesn’t take this as a precedent.

The Telegraph, today,

Chinese companies to buy big stake in next generation of British nuclear power,

George Osborne, the Chancellor, has announced that the UK will allow
Chinese companies to take a stake in British nuclear power plants.

The decision could lead to China taking a future majority
stake—and even be allowed to own up to 100 pc—in the
development of the next generation of British nuclear power.

Mr Osborne made the announcement on Thursday the last day of a
week-long trade visit to China after a visit to Taishan nuclear
power station on the coast near Hong Kong.

Taishan is a collaboration between French energy company EDF and the
China General Nuclear Power Company.

EDF is at the heart of UK Government Continue reading →

Spectra met Lowndes and Valdosta @ Pipeline 2013-10-16

Spectra Energy subsidiary Sabal Trail Transmission held

a landowner one-on-one at Wiregrass Tech last night.
Matthew Woody of the VDT was there, as was one Valdosta City Council
member, one Lowndes County Commissioner, and at least two county staff,
plus some landowners (“might as well get something out of this”,
several said at the food bar), one of whom was a match for Andrea Grover.

Matthew Woody, VDT: