Honorable Georgia Governor Nathan Deal: Please Ban The Sabal Trail Fracked Gas Pipeline

Please sign this petition asking Georgia Governor Nathan Deal to disallow or ban the Sabal trail Pipeline based on the following information and facts.

• Sabal Trail would take people's private property under threat of eminent domain for private profit and is already suing Georgians to try to do so
• Sabal Trail would destroy invaluable agricultural areas, hunting lands, fish habitat, wildlife, wetlands, and forest
• The pipeline would not benefit Georgia citizens: all of the natural gas will be used in Florida or exported for profit
• The pipeline is not needed: energy demand is decreasing and energy efficiency and renewable energy can meet any additional demand
• Natural gas pipelines are not safe: explosions and fires repeatedly have caused extensive property damage, personal injury, and death including millions of dollars of damage by Spectra Energy, one of Sabal Trail's owners
• Sabal Trail's preferred route unjustifiably runs through the most populated area of southwest Georgia and the poorest region in the state
• Sabal Trail's preferred route runs through miles of unstable karst limestone terrain and sinkhole-prone areas resulting in a high danger of pipeline collapse, explosion, fire, and contamination of drinking water supplies from our Floridan Aquifer
• Sabal Trail would drill under our Chattahoochee, Flint, Ochlockonee, and Withlacoochee Rivers, and is #9 on the Georgia Water Coalition Dirty Dozen 2014 list of the worst offenses to Georgia's waters
• Sabal Trail's preferred compressor station would pollute Dougherty County's and Georgia's air

Sabal Trail wants a 36-inch pipeline on a 100-foot right of way to be owned by Spectra Energy, NextEra, and Duke Energy gouged 500 miles from Alabama, through Georgia and Florida to power plants owned by FPL (NextEra) and Duke Energy, who are all invested in the natural gas fracking and exporting business. There are export terminals already permitted and waiting in Florida to export LNG to other countries.

By Sabal Trail's own figures, twice as much solar power could be produced on the amount of acreage of their pipeline right of way, and solar power is faster to install, cheaper, cleaner, and takes nobody's land. But FPL is invested with parent company NextEra in fracking in Oklahoma and Spectra in shale fracking in Pennsylvania, so of course they are claiming to need their own fracked gas.

Why disrupt and endanger the lives, land, Floridian Aquifer, rivers springs, wetlands and pristine environment of these three states for the profits of a few utility companies? Why step backwards on the path to clean, renewable energy sources by allowing this pipeline and related compressor stations which will leak toxins into the air and groundwater as well as cause possible 'frac outs' leaking drilling fluids into the aquifer as they bore this pipeline under rivers in karst areas determined by USGS?

This pipeline would feed an FPL power plant in Florida for no benefit to citizens of Alabama, Florida or Georgia, while tearing a 100 foot wide right of way through all three states. There’s no excuse for another natural gas pipeline when solar power is cheaper and brings jobs and energy. This can be seen in the great state of Georgia (and others) which have implemented solar energy policies signed by Governors like Governor Deal.

Governor Deal please consider these facts concerning the Sabal Trail pipeline and its parent companies:

• This pipeline will carry an excess of fracked LNG that exceeds the needs claimed by Duke Energy and FPL and thus will be exported to other countries. This will cause the price of domestic natural gas to rise while ruining and endangering the lives, land, water supply and economic welfare of millions of citizens of these three states.
  
• The threat to lives, the Floridian Aquifer (the pipeline will cross the water re-charge area in Georgia for the Floridian Aquifer and be bored in karst areas under rivers), public inconvenience, strain on local emergency systems in the event of leaks, spills, accidents is not worth the risk for the small number of temporary jobs that will be provided and will only ultimately profit a handful of energy companies and encourage more proven dangerous LNG fracking and exports to other countries.
  
• Spectra Energy has had twenty one incidents since 2006 for $8,564,246 in property damage, according to PHMSA, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline & Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. One of which was a 2010 San Bruno, Calif., blast.
  The explosion in the San Francisco suburb created a 72-foot-wide crater, destroyed 38 homes and killed eight people. That pipeline was built in 1956 and, according to the National Transportation Safety Board, the deadly explosion was caused by inadequate maintenance and quality control.
  
• Spectra Energy has a long Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) record of spills of toxins such as PCBs and dioxins, a Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) rap sheet of dozens of incidents of corrosion and leaks, and a three-decade National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) record of explosions with massive property damage and even death.
  
• According to Spectra Energy's own SEC Form 10-K filings, Spectra Energy does not carry adequate
  insurance to cover damages, loss of life, or loss of property. With the most violations on record with the EPA for toxic spills, a record 30 years of explosions on record with the NTSB, and dozens of incidences of corrosion and leaks on record with the PHMSA this
  company does not have adequate insurance! This places the burden of disaster response on, local emergency services who are not trained to handle the magnitude of such incidents as explosions, leaks, etc. as well as the cost of disaster recovery on the tax payers. This situation will only become more problematic as more gas lines are installed and they are being proposed now in Florida.
  
• Economically for the people of Georgia, Alabama and Florida all land, homes and businesses anywhere near the pipeline will see property values drop.
  This will impact the owners of these properties and our overall tax revenue. Citizens and businesses will eventually see higher natural gas prices (as export prices rise so shall domestic prices) and higher property taxes.
  
• Many citizens, counties, cities, organizations, environmental groups in Georgia and Florida have passed resolutions against this pipeline and its related polluting, dangerous compressor stations, including the one proposed in Dougherty County next to Albany. Resolutions have been passed by Terrell County, Dougherty County, Colquitt County, Brooks County, Lowndes County, Albany, Moultrie, Valdosta, representing more than 2/3 of the Georgia population along the proposed pipeline path, plus Hamilton County, Florida.
• Allowing the Sabal Trail pipeline to proceed would encourage fracking in Georgia. A shale gas basin underlies most of south Georgia with another under northwest Georgia, and industry publications say they want to frack Georgia.

Governor Deal, please heed the call of the citizens of Georgia and others across the nation to ban the unnecessary, invasive and dangerous Sabal Trail Pipeline in Georgia as you have done with the Palmetto Pipeline. Again there is no public need or necessity in Georgia or Florida and Alabama for the Sabal Trail pipeline only unnecessary burden upon the citizens and taxpayers.

Thank You Sir,




For more information and other ways you can help: SpectraBusters.org