{"id":5722,"date":"2013-09-22T17:21:28","date_gmt":"2013-09-22T21:21:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/?p=5722"},"modified":"2013-09-22T17:22:54","modified_gmt":"2013-09-22T21:22:54","slug":"spectra-speaks-about-that-al-ga-fl-natural-gas-pipeline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2013\/09\/spectra-speaks-about-that-al-ga-fl-natural-gas-pipeline.html","title":{"rendered":"Spectra speaks about that AL-GA-FL natural gas pipeline"},"content":{"rendered":"

\r\nOne of the\r\n\r\npromised public hearings<\/a>\r\nappeared within a week,\r\nand the pipeline company made all sorts of promises and emphasized\r\nhow busy and important it is.\r\nThe pipeline rep caused opposition from a second county commissioner,\r\nand inadvertently revealed some possible means of opposition.\r\n

\r\nCarlton Fletcher wrote for AlbanyHerald.com 16 September 2013,\r\n\r\nSpectra official discusses natural gas pipeline<\/a>,\r\n

\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nBrian Fahrenthold, the state and local government affairs director\r\nfor Houston-based Spectra Energy, assured commissioners and\r\nlandowners impacted by the pipeline that his company will\r\n“meet or exceed all safety standards” required by\r\nfederal officials during construction of the $3 billion project that\r\nwill, when completed, send 1 billion cubic feet of natural gas per\r\nday into Florida from central Alabama.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n“We’re in the early rows of activity right now, and this is a\r\nmarathon,” Fahrenthold said. “We operate close to 19,000\r\nmiles of pipeline in the United States, and we have an outstanding\r\nsafety record. Almost 15 percent of the natural gas used in the\r\nUnited States flows through our system.”\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nFahrenthold answered questions from commissioners and from members\r\nof the public during a lengthy public hearing, assuring those\r\ngathered at the downtown Government Center Spectra is open to any\r\npipeline route alterations that are viable.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n“We keep hearing that there is an alternate route being\r\nproposed by some (landowners) in the community, but we haven’t seen\r\nit,” Fahrenthold said. “If there is such a route\r\nproposal, we’re open to it.”\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nWell, that’s cute: he says\r\nlandowners should band together and do the pipeline company’s\r\nwork for it.\r\nHow about we start by demanding to see Spectra’s current route maps?\r\n

\r\nAnd look at this!\r\nRemember\r\n\r\nCommissioner Ewell Lyle spoke up for closely monitoring\r\nthe pipeline and noted it wasn’t just a local issue?<\/a>\r\nSpectra listened:\r\n

\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nThe Spectra official drew the ire of District 5 Commissioner Gloria\r\nGaines when he spoke of the “beautiful homes in Commissioner\r\n(Ewell) Lyle’s district” that the company had chosen to bypass\r\nwith its pipeline route through Dougherty County.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n“My district’s south of the (Southwest Georgia Regional)\r\nairport,” Gaines said. “Did you find less desirable\r\nhomes in that area? I’d like to make sure that the beauty of the\r\nhomes is not a consideration when you’re making a decision on the\r\nroute this pipeline will take.”\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nFahrenthold told Gaines he only had taken a ride along a section of\r\nLyle’s district after arriving in Albany the night before and told\r\nher: “All homes are equal in my estimation.”\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nListen to him twist and turn!\r\n

\r\nIncluding claiming his company doesn’t really determine the pipeline route:\r\n

\r\n

\r\nFahrenthold told commissioners Spectra would not file an application\r\nto the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission until all surveys had\r\nbeen completed and regulatory requirements met. He said that would\r\nprobably come some time in the fourth quarter of 2014. With FERC\r\napproval, right-of-way agreements would be completed at some time in\r\nthe first quarter of 2016. Construction would then be scheduled to\r\nbegin, some time in the third quarter of 2016, with testing in early\r\n2017 and operations to start in May 2017.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n“What we are bringing to you at this stage is a proposal\r\nonly,” Fahrenthold said. “The FERC will determine the\r\nactual route. According to our proposed timeline, it will be three\r\nyears from today before we ever put a shovel in the ground.”\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nWhere is this proposed timeline?\r\nLet’s see it.\r\nAnd maybe Georgians should start their own timeline for submitting\r\nobjections to FERC and to the Georgia Public Service Commission,\r\nwhich after all\r\n\r\ndoes regulate natural gas in Georgia<\/a>;\r\nremember\r\n\r\nthat leaking AGL pipeline station in Atlanta<\/a>?\r\n

\r\n

\r\nFour Dougherty County citizens — Dinorah Hall, B.J. Fletcher,\r\nMatt Layer and Robbie Barkley — expressed concerns ranging\r\nfrom environmental issues, safety procedures, local job creation,\r\nwildlife habitat and the location of a large compresser used to\r\nforce the natural gas along the pipeline.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n“We usually have a compressor station every 100 miles or\r\nso,” Fahrenthold said. “And, yes, according to our\r\nlatest model, there would be a compressor in this area. But we would\r\nmake every effort to locate the compressor in a rural area, as far\r\naway from residential areas as possible.”\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nHow does bulldozing through rural areas help wildlife, rivers, or\r\nthe Floridan Aquifer we all drink out of?\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nSolar panels don’t leak, don’t require nearly as much space,\r\nand generate energy we can use right here in Georgia and the southeast.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n -jsq\r\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"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 […]","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[324,16,2,6124,6687,55],"tags":[8763,6965,6959,8706,6962,1912,209,8701,6964,8699,6960,8702,12,7,562,6961,6076,6966,6,8727,4150],"class_list":["post-5722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-animals","category-environment","category-government","category-natural-gas-2","category-pipeline-2","category-water","tag-animals","tag-brian-fahrenthold","tag-dougherty-county-commission","tag-environment","tag-ewell-lyle","tag-flint-river","tag-floridan-aquifer","tag-georgia","tag-gloria-gaines","tag-government","tag-jeff-sinyard","tag-lake","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-natural-gas","tag-nimby","tag-pipeline","tag-spectra-energy","tag-valdosta","tag-water","tag-wildlife"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-1ui","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5722"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5722\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5726,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5722\/revisions\/5726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}