Tag Archives: Suwannee County

Alternative 3: Albany, Camilla, Thomasville, Monticello, Capps FERC to Sabal Trail

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: Continue reading →

Nova Scotia banned fracking; will southeast U.S. ban fracked methane pipelines?

Yesterday
Nova Scotia announced a ban on fracking.
Will local or state governments in the southeast, now threatened
by the Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline,
ban such pipelines?
Especially since FERC has now directed Sabal Trail to examine
routes through Americus, Cordele, Ashburn, Tifton, Adel, Valdosta, and even Thomasville,
in addition
to the ones it already proposed through Dougherty, Colquitt, Brooks, and Lowndes Counties?

Sierra Club Canada wrote about public meetings
in its Media Release of 28 August 2014,

Government of Nova Scotia Needs to Ban Fracking,

“Public meetings held by the panel were attended by an
overwhelming majority of well-informed citizens who had deep
concerns about fracking,” according to [Gretchen] Fitzgerald,
“Those concerns should be met with the type of leadership they
deserve: an immediate, legally binding ban.”

And the Nova Scotia government listened.
Bruce Erskine wrote for The Herald Business 3 September 2014,

Nova Scotia to ban fracking,
posting a video in which you can hear
Energy Minister Andrew Younger say: Continue reading →

GA-EPD to SRWMD re: VLD WWTP per OSFR

The head of GA EPD went to Florida to explain Valdosta.
Pictured is

Judson Turner, Director, Georgia Environmental Protection Division
telling the
Suwannee River Water Management District

what Valdosta is doing to stop

sewage from flowing down the Suwannee River from
Valdosta’s Withlacoochee Wastewater Treatment Plant.
Found
on OSFR. -jsq

PR by Abby Johnson, Office of Communications,
Suwannee River Water Management District,

RWMD gets Valdosta wastewater treatment plant update,

LIVE OAK, FL, August 13, 2014 — The Governing Board of the
Suwannee River Water Management District (District) was given an
overview and update at their August 12 meeting about the wastewater
treatment plant in Valdosta, Ga., which affects the Withlacoochee
and Suwannee rivers.

More than 90 area concerned residents and Continue reading →

A Suwannee County Commissioner publishes agenda packets

Commissioner Ricky Gamble
publishes the entire agenda packets even though the
Suwannee County Commission does not.

Suwannee County itself
publishes the basic agenda, such as

the current one for 3 June 2014,
and so does

the Suwannee County Democrat.

That newspaper also for the agenda packet
links to

Commissioner Ricky Gamble’s website,
which

has a page with Commission agendas,
including Continue reading →

Lowndes County sewer spill may contaminate Suwannee River

WCTV went downstream to Suwannee County, Florida, to see further effects after the

Valdosta PR that revealed what happened with the Lowndes County sewer leak.
One of their interviewees recommends escalating this ongoing problem
(first
Valdosta’s Withlacoochee Wastewater Treatment Plant flooded,
and now this) to the state governors’ level.

Eames Yates wrote for WCTV 27 April 2013,

Suwannee River Could be Contaminated After Lowndes Sewer Spill,

Travis Luttrell also vacations in Suwannee County. He said “it’s a
pretty big administrative challenge between the two governors. And
is something that needs to be worked out between state to state and
hopefully we can overcome the administrative challenges it might
take to fix these kinds of problems.”

The Florida Department of Health also issued the advisory for
Hamilton, Levy, Lafayette and Madison counties.

Here’s the WCTV video:

-jsq

Suwannee County sinkholes —WCTV

Sinkholes in

Seffner, Fort Myers,
Tallahassee,
and now even closer.
Follow the Withlacoochee River south to the Suwannee River,
and two counties south of us in Suwannee County, Florida,
they’ve got dozens of sinkholes,

one of them massive, with another one this month,
including apparently a cavern under some yards.
This is in the same Floridan Aquifer that underlies Lowndes County,
where we had

a road drop into a sinkhole three years ago
and sinkholes were discovered under a man’s garage and yard last year.

Greg Gullberg 4 March 2013,

The Science Behind Sinkholes,

Mikell Cook says he and his neighbors have learned more about
Geology than they ever cared to since last summer when Tropical
Storm Debby swept through much of Florida leaving Live Oak and
surrounding areas peppered with sinkholes.

He and his neighbors live in the town of McAlpin, where

Continue reading →

Valdosta famous for wastewater in rivers all the way to the Gulf

The VDT had a small front page headline yesterday:

“Floridians warned about river contamination”.
That story was also heard in Florida, in
Madison, Gainesville, and elsewhere,
emphasizing something that Valdosta didn’t mention:
people live downstream of Valdosta’s wastewater spill,
all the way down the Withlacoochee and the Suwannee Rivers
to the Gulf of Mexico.
The story also made the AJC.

Green Publishing, Inc, which covers Madison, Lee, and Greenville, Florida, reported yesterday,

ALERT: FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH WARNS OF POSSIBLE WASTEWATER CONTAMINATION:
GA wastewater plan overflow may impact Withlacoochee and Suwannee Rivers.

TALLAHASSEE- The Florida Department of Health (DOH) today issued a
caution to residents in the counties surrounding the Withlacoochee
and Suwannee rivers. The Withlacoochee Water Pollution Control Plant
in Valdosta, GA has overflowed into the Withlacoochee River, which
flows south, connecting with the Suwannee River.

Other news venues carrying the story: