From the Gainsville Sun
The $3.2 billion, 516-mile, 3-foot-wide pipeline will carry up to 1 billion cubic feet of natural gas a day through a dozen Florida counties, including Alachua, Gilchrist, Suwannee, Levy and Marion, to a connector pipeline in Osceola County.
Dozens of people from Florida and Georgia opposed to the proposed Sabal Trail natural gas pipeline that will pass through several states converged in Gainesville Saturday to discuss strategies to try to kill the project.
Topics at the Grassroots Summit to Stop Sabal Trail included landowners’ rights, natural gas storage facilities and rail projects in Florida, the hazards associated with the hydraulic fracturing — or fracking — method of extracting natural gas, and the pipeline’s potential environmental impact.
Johanna Degraffenreid of Gulf Restoration Network said Sabal Trail is raising concern as communities and landowners along its route learn more about the project.
“Our No. 1 concern is people’s drinking water. Regardless of whether or not you are immediately on the routes, if the project is allowed, it could have dangerous impacts for over 60 percent of Florida’s drinking water,” Degraffenreid said, referring to the Floridan Aquifer. “There are also significant climate impacts from fracked gas infrastructure. Methane or fracked gas is over 25 times more powerful than (carbon dioxide) and we cannot continue to rely on dangerous fossil fuels if we are going to save our communities from climate change.”
About 70 people attended the summit at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in northwest Gainesville.
Federal regulators have approved the pipeline, which will cut through conservation areas, under rivers and near springs in North Central Florida. Several regional groups opposed to the pipeline had information tables at the summit.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission — or FERC — has issued a certificate of public convenience and necessity for the $3.2 billion, 516-mile, 3-foot-wide pipeline that will carry up to 1 billion cubic feet of natural gas a day from Alabama through south Georgia and a dozen Florida counties, including Alachua, Gilchrist, Suwannee, Levy and Marion, to a connector pipeline in Osceola County.
The pipeline will supply natural gas for a Florida Power & Light electric generation and a Duke Energy plant in Citrus County.
The pipeline is a joint venture between FPL parent company NextEra, Duke and Spectra Energy, the Houston-based company that will build and operate it.
In late October the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency expressed “very significant concerns” over the way FERC was moving closer to approving the project. The EPA raised issues with FERC appearing to favor a route that was moving toward approval because it was, with few changes, the same route included in a 2013 contract between Spectra Energy and FPL.
“The proposed pipeline is expected to have potentially significant environmental issues related to drinking water supplies (the Floridan aquifer), sensitive geologic formations (karst), wetlands, conservation areas, environmental justice (EJ) communities, and air quality and greenhouse gas emissions,” the EPA’s letter said.
The EPA also questioned the assertion that hundreds of acres of wetlands impacted by construction would, over time, return to their natural state.
But in December, the EPA reversed course and dropped those concerns.
At Saturday’s summit, the presentations went beyond just the Sabal Trail pipeline to how it links with other pipelines through which fracked gas is transported around the country.
Among the speakers were representatives of organizations that battled fracking and pipeline projects in other states. Degraffenreid said the summit was held in Gainesville because of its central location.
Michelle Suarez and Tasnim Melloui of the group Organize Now in Orlando spoke on how minorities often bear the brunt of environmental ills through the placement of facilities such as pipelines and landfills in poorer areas.
“How can we be inclusive to stop the pipeline? We need to work together on this,” Melloui said.
