![\"Vdt\"](\"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/8855744994a752f7749f2cbba8d7f73c.jpg\")
<\/a>\r\nDesiree Carver, Valdosta Daily Times, Friday, September 23, 2016, front page,\r\n\r\nSabal protests continue<\/a>,\r\n\r\n\r\nThe WWALS Watershed Coalition stood on the bridge between Brooks and\r\nLowndes County Saturday to show solidarity with Dakota Access\r\nPipeline opponents in Dakota and to continue its battle against the\r\nSabal Trail natural gas pipeline.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n
\r\nThat’s the US 84 bridge over the Withlacoochee River, on the\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nWithlacoochee and Little River Water Trail<\/a>.\r\nThe place where Sabal Trail wants to bore under the Withlacoochee is within sight from the bridge.\r\nDespite a historic 128 to 34 vote to deny river-drilling easements by the Georgia House of Representatives in March,\r\nSabal Trail sued in Lowndes County Superior Court, the state declined to defend,\r\nand\r\nand a judge on July 29th 2016\r\n\r\ngave Sabal Trail an easement under the Withlacoochee River<\/a>.\r\nDespite much un-evaluated evidence and an outstanding lawsuit by Sierra Club, Flint Riverkeeper, Greenlaw, and other parties,\r\nthe Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on August 25th 2016\r\n\r\ngave permission for Sabal Trail to commence drilling under Georgia rivers<\/a>.\r\n
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\r\n\r\nAccording to\r\n\r\na release from WWALS<\/a>, the stance was to “help\r\ndemand the Army Corps reevaluate its permit for Sabal Trail just\r\nlike its permit for the Dakota Access Pipeline.”\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n
\r\nThe story notes WWALS has opposed Sabal Trail “since it was announced in 2013.”\r\nIt adds that the Sabal Trail natural gas pipeline would run from Alabama through Georgia and Florida,\r\nincluding Lowndes County.\r\nThe story also says through Valdosta, but actually not quite,\r\nalthough\r\n\r\nthe Valdosta City Council did approve an excellent resolution<\/a> against that pipeline.\r\nSo did Moultrie, Colquitt County, Brooks County,\r\n\r\nand others<\/a>, including\r\nthe Lowndes County Commission<\/a>.\r\nUnfortunately the Lowndes County Commission a year later\r\n\r\ntook money from Sabal Trail for an easement through the closed county landfill<\/a>.\r\n
\r\nContinuing with the VDT story:\r\n
\r\n\r\nGroup members held signs at the county line as part of #NoDAPL\r\nSolidarity Weeks of Action, bringing attention to concerns over both\r\nSabal Trail and Dakota Access Pipelines.\r\n<\/p>\r\n
\r\nThe Dakota Access Pipeline is a 1,172 mile pipeline that would\r\ntransport do mestically produced light sweet crude oil from North\r\nDakota to Illinois, according to Energy Transfer Crude Oil Company\r\n<\/p>\r\n
\r\nThis pipeline has caught national attention as the Standing Rock\r\nSioux tribe, whose reservation is near the pipeline’s proposed\r\nroute, expressed concerns over potential leaks or spills.\r\n<\/p>\r\n
\r\nAccording to\r\n\r\na press release<\/a> on the tribe’s website<\/a>. “sacred\r\nplaces containing ancient burial sites, places of prayer and other\r\nsignificant cultural artifacts were destroyed by Energy Transfer\r\nPartners.”\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n
\r\nWe have similar problems with Sabal Trail, which has already bulldozed a site\r\nin Florida where the landowner spread her grandmother’s ashes<\/a>, and they’re aimed at another Florida site that has graves close to the pipeline path.\r\n
\r\n\r\nAs of Sept. 6, Enbridge Inc., one of the companies behind the Dakota\r\nAccess Pipeline, merged with Spectra Energy. the company behind\r\nthe Sabal Trail pipeline, according to the Spectra Energy website.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n
\r\nActually, that Spectra announcement says\r\n\r\nSpectra Energy Corp and Enbridge Inc. will combine to create North America’s largest energy infrastructure company.<\/a>\r\nUnless SEC or FTC or DoJ or somebody blocks it, or one of the companies pulls out,\r\nthat merger will probably happen, making the result the largest pipeline company in North America.\r\nThat’s just counting the two companies’ existing pipelines, as shown on the map they distributed, which doesn’t show the ones they are building, such as DAPL\r\nand Sabal Trail.\r\n
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\r\nLast year, the other company behind DAPL,\r\n\r\nEnergy Transfer, announced it was buying Williams Company<\/a>,\r\nthe owner of Transcontinental Gas Pipeline Company (Transco), from which Sabal Trail plans to get its gas.\r\nWhich would be both of the DAPL pipeline companies (Energy Transfer and Enbridge)\r\nowning both of the pipeline companies behind Sabal Trail (Transco and Spectra).\r\n
\r\nHowever, that merger of Energy Transfer and Williams failed.\r\nAlison Sider, Wall Street Journal, 29 June 2016,\r\n\r\nEnergy Transfer Equity Calls Off Williams Merger:\r\nETE allowed to walk away after lawyers say they wouldn’t be able to deliver tax opinion<\/a>.\r\nFortune and Reuters, 1 July 2016,\r\n\r\nAlmost Half of Williams Directors Quit a Day After Energy Transfer Merger Fails<\/a>,\r\n
\r\n\r\n…Williams on Wednesday said it would seek damages against Energy\r\nTransfer, believing the company had no right to end the deal. It\r\npreviously said that damages could be as much as $10 billion….\r\n<\/p>\r\n
\r\nETE Chief Executive Kelcy Warren, a Dallas billionaire, set his\r\nsights on Williams last year to transform his company into one of\r\nthe world’s biggest pipeline networks. He made an unsolicited bid\r\nlast June and reached a deal in late September that was then worth\r\n$33 billion.\r\n<\/p>\r\n
\r\nBut oil and gas prices dropped significantly after the merger was\r\nannounced. The companies’ shares fell sharply, and investors started\r\nto worry that the $6 billion cash portion of the deal would saddle\r\nETE with too much debt.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n
\r\nMaybe the source of the $3 billion for the Sabal Trail boondoggle, Florida Power and Light (FPL), should worry about the debt it’s probably stacking up\r\nto borrow in advance against its ratepayer charges, now that FPL has admitted\r\nin\r\n\r\nits 2016 Ten Year Plan<\/a>, in boldface in the Executive Summary:\r\n
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