{"id":7074,"date":"2013-12-10T10:00:20","date_gmt":"2013-12-10T15:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/?p=7074"},"modified":"2013-12-10T10:09:06","modified_gmt":"2013-12-10T15:09:06","slug":"all-4-commissioner-questions-about-the-pipeline-vdt-lcc-2013-12-09","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2013\/12\/all-4-commissioner-questions-about-the-pipeline-vdt-lcc-2013-12-09.html","title":{"rendered":"All 4 Commissioner questions about the pipeline –VDT @ LCC 2013-12-09"},"content":{"rendered":"

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nThe VDT let local citizens speak, unlike the Lowndes County Commission.\r\nPerhaps the VDT, like many local citizens, does not think transparency\r\nmeans what the County Commission thinks it means.\r\n

\r\n\r\nMatthew Woody wrote across the top of the front page of the Valdosta Daily Times\r\ntoday,\r\n\r\nSabal Trail presents at County Commission work session<\/a>,\r\n

\r\nProtesters stood outside of the Lowndes County Judicial and Administrative Complex at 8:30 a.m. in opposition to the Sabal Trail natural gas pipeline project as representatives from the company made a presentation at the Commission Work Session.\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nThat’s Matthew Woody across the street taking that picture,\r\nand\r\n\r\nhere are more pictures of the protesters<\/a>.\r\n

\r\n

\r\n“We strive everyday for zero incidences,” Fahrenthold\r\nsaid “All of our meetings, company wide, starts with a safety\r\nupdate.”\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nReally?\r\nSo why afterwards did both Brian Fahrenthold and Andra Grover\r\n\r\nclaim to be unfamiliar with fines by PHMSA and EPA against Spectra\r\nabout safety violations<\/a>?\r\n

\r\n

\r\nDuring a work session meeting, the community does not get a chance\r\nto speak, so commissioners requested that residents send them\r\nquestions so that the company could address resident’s concerns by\r\nway of the commissioners.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nCommissioner John Page asked Fahrenthold, “How will this\r\npipeline\r\n\r\ncross the Withlacoochee River<\/a>?” Fahrenthold deferred\r\nthe question to John Zimmer, Senior Project Manager for TRC\r\nEngineering Services. Zimmer explained the logistical process of\r\nboring a hole 50-100 ft. underneath the riverbed, then dragging the\r\npipe through the hole.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n“The pipe is well beneath the riverbed. We don’t just lay the\r\npipe in the river,” Zimmer said.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nNo, Spectra proposes to stick the pipe down into the porous karst\r\nlimestone beneath the river; the same limestone that contains\r\nour Floridan aquifer, our drinking water source.\r\nThe Withlacoochee River already\r\n\r\nseeps underground into the aquifer north of Valdosta<\/a>\r\nand we have numerous sinkholes around the county, including\r\n\r\none that ate Snake Nation Road and the county spent more than $600,000\r\nrouting around<\/a>.\r\nDon’t we have enough problems already with sinkholes and subsidence?\r\n

\r\n

\r\nCommissioner Demarcus Marshall, concerned about surveyor’s safety,\r\nwanted clarification regarding an incident when surveyors went too\r\nfar onto a resident’s property line.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n“We live an an area that when people say no, they mean\r\nno,” Marshall said.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nRoger Dice is a Right of Way consultant for Sabal Trail, and\r\naddressed the incident Marshall referred to, saying some surveyors\r\nwere in a field, and due to a miscalculation, they went about 120\r\nft. onto private property.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nFahrenthold interjected and said, “We respect property rights,\r\nand I made a lot of phone calls because of that incident, and I hope\r\nwe reconciled it.”\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nCatch that?\r\nHe didn’t say they did reconcile it, merely that “I hope we reconciled it”.\r\nKind of like Andrea Grover told me a month ago (in front of VDT reporter\r\nMatthew Woody) that after\r\n\r\nshe talked to residents in Pennsylvania<\/a>\r\nabout a compressor leak there everybody was happy.\r\nSome people in Pennsylvania and elsewhere beg to differ.\r\n

\r\n

\r\nCommissioner Richard Raines asked if Sabal Trail has the right to\r\nuse eminent domain on a state or a federal level.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nFahrenthold answered that under the Natural Gas Act, passed by\r\nCongress, Sabal Trail has the right to use eminent domain, but he\r\nassured the commission that it is only used as a last resort.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nSo what is Spectra already for some time now having a high-powered\r\nAtlanta lawyer\r\n\r\nsend landowners letters threatening eminent domain<\/a>?\r\n

\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nAfter the presentation, area residents Timothy Bland and Philip\r\nSingletary said they were not impressed. Singletary described the\r\npresentation and the question and answer portion as “a dog and\r\npony show.”\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n“I was outraged because some of the questions we submitted to\r\nthe commissioners were not even asked,” Singletary said.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nAlthough failing to ease some resident’s concerns, this presentation\r\nproved fruitful for Chairman Bill Slaughter.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n“I felt like it was a good work session, and I felt like Sabal\r\nTrail’s representative, Mr. Fahrenthold, made a good presentation.\r\nThe Commissioners had the opportunity to ask some questions, and\r\nexpress some concerns,” Slaughter said. “I wanted to\r\nmake sure that Lowndes County citizens are being treated with\r\nrespect, and I appreciate Sabal Trail’s transparency.”\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nThe VDT does not seem impressed with Slaughter’s or Spectra’s idea of transparency.\r\n

\r\nBefore the special presentation, the Lowndes County Commission breezed through their work session with few concerns.\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nThe VDT has the full names of the applicants for the VLMPO\r\nCitizens Advisory Committee because the Commission does at least\r\nlet the newspaper of record see that much.\r\n

\r\nYou can see it all for yourself in\r\n\r\nthe LAKE videos<\/a>.\r\n

\r\n -jsq\r\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The VDT let local citizens speak, unlike the Lowndes County Commission. Perhaps the VDT, like many local citizens, does not think transparency means what the County Commission thinks it means. Matthew Woody wrote across the top of the front page of the Valdosta Daily Times today, Sabal Trail presents at County Commission work session, Protesters […]","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":[87,70,2,88,6124,2778,6687,73,6114,3,133,2305],"tags":[7149,8733,8728,8701,8699,10,7309,8702,91,1241,12,7,8734,562,8859,6076,8731,208,8700,6,8742,8852,90],"class_list":["post-7074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alcohol","category-ethics","category-government","category-lowndes-county-commission","category-natural-gas-2","category-nottinghill","category-pipeline-2","category-safety","category-sinkhole-2","category-transparency","category-vdt","category-vlmpo","tag-9-december-2013","tag-alcohol","tag-ethics","tag-georgia","tag-government","tag-gretchen-quarterman","tag-john-zimmer","tag-lake","tag-lcc","tag-legal","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-lowndes-county-commission","tag-natural-gas","tag-nottinghill","tag-pipeline","tag-safety","tag-sinkhole","tag-transparency","tag-valdosta","tag-vdt","tag-vlmpo","tag-work-session"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-1Q6","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7074","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=7074"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7074\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7082,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7074\/revisions\/7082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}