State puts planned natural gas pipelines to S. Florida on hold

[Scuba_Jenny]

The pipeline is planned to go across coral reefs
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/lo...0mar10,0,3800296.story?coll=sfla-news-florida

Gov. Jeb Bush and the Cabinet expressed concern Tuesday about the construction of natural gas pipelines from the Bahamas to South Florida and voted to delay consideration until they get more answers about their environmental and economic impact.

 

[DennisS]

Call me cynical, I have a feeling the pipeline people forgot to make a few contributions, as soon as that matter is taken care of they will get approval.

 

[adder70]

Hey, at least they voiced the "objections" before construction was begun. Some governments wait until construciton is begun before screwing the company. Then you have to pay up or abandon a near complete project.

Maybe Florida will get to be like Chicago, where companies interested in new construction are "advised" to enlist "expediters" to help them through the specific code issues in Chicago. (Translation: They know who to bribe and how much is required per square foot in each area.) They also know how much union labor must be enlisted for a project ahead of time to ensure that the project is judged to be in compliance with codes. Everybody knows a building built with union labor will be of a higher quality than non union labor, right?

 

[FredT]

This also means that somebody in the state doesn't understand the reef structures off the FL east coast. There are several breaks in the reef lines that can be used to route the line. They may not be convenient, but with a bit of preplanning and an afternoon studying the Lidar charts no reefs need to be crossed. Of course this will increase the cost of installing the line a bit as a detour of a mile or more from the shortest route may be necessary. Perhaps the environmental groups will be willing to pony up the cost difference?

OOps I forgot. The enviro activists complaining have the same budget as the historical society, Nada. :54:
FT

 

[DennisS]

They've been having meetings for the last year or so and there is an environmental impact statement out that is about phone book size for a small city. I'm looking at it now and its about 2 inches thick. Everybody from NOAA, Federal Energy Management, Dept of Interior and a bunch of other agencies have all signed off. The final environmental impact statement covers everything from manatees, economic impact of the workers, to traffic congestion. Reefs, turtles, fish and sediment are all addressed. That was all for the Ocean Express pipeline that is going under the reef and coming ashore in Dania. It was a done deal until Tallahasee decided there was an "environmental delay". I would have liked to see an environmental halt but I'll bet that doesn't happen.

 

[DennisS]

Surprise! Surprise!

Looks like there's been a change in the pipeline. There's an ammendment request for changes approved in today Sun Sentinel (sept 30) page 6b. Ocean Express had proposed horizontally drilling under the reef to run their 26 inch pipeline. This was approved. They assured everyone it was proven technology and would not cause any damage to the reef.

It seems they want an ammendment to the approval.

They now want to build a tunnel 13' 7" in diameter and 14,000 feet long for their pipeline. My only question is why do the need a 2 1/2 mile tunnel almost 14 ft in diameter for a 26 inch pipeline. Why wasn't this raised during the approval process.

Any bets on whether it gets approved

"Ocean express requested that the commission issue a decision on its ammendment no later than November 30, 2004"

I wonder what the hurry is

 

[fgray1]

I use to work for a natural gas company
You guys would be amazed where gas lines are burried.
Most are high pressure lines. The technology is sound. The gas itself is no worse than the methane that get expelled naturaly.

 

[nativenarcosis]

I still work in the natgas industry. Domestic production cannot keep up with demand so of course this is the reason for extraordinary projects on the books such as this. The naysayers always scream with these new projects, yet forget about how warm their homes stay in winter and cool in summer. Unless more projects such as this are implemented you had better hang onto your wallet when bills roll around.

 

[archman]

The technology is sound. The gas itself is no worse than the methane that get expelled naturaly.

Yeah, gas is good. If the pipeline breaks (incredibly rare occurrence), you don't get icky oil bubbling up. Just a ton of bubbles that dissipate in the atmosphere. It's about as "green" as any hydrocarbon fuels get. The public tends to freak out unnecessarily about this technology, which is ultra-advanced and as fgray says, pretty dang sound.

The only "real" environmental dangers are errors made during pipeline construction. With NOAA and MMS hounding their backs, the developers should be even more careful than they normally are (which is superb already). You'll get little complaint from me!

 

[simbrooks]

This is the problem about calling petroleum gasoline, the short form gas can mean either oil or natural gas. There are even more breaks in the reef (some man-made with ships running aground and other naturally made - buried by hurricanes maybe?) than shown on the charts i am sure. Horizontal drilling, very tried and tested. As for the 14ft dia horizontal tunnel" to house a 26" dia pipe, the only thing i wonder is if they want to access the pipeline with divers, they need room to work. Of a 7ft radius, just over a foot is take up by pipeline, not sure how much room they need to work - ask pipedope i guess, but i am sure that is some of it, not to mention that the tunnel would be measured OD not ID and you need some thickness of that tunnel to withstand hydrostatic and reef weight pressure around it. If its done in concrete i can see that also being a good 6"-10" thick depending on concrete grade and reinforcement (those are guesses by a geotech eng on some decent sized tunnelling jobs i have seen). BTW i am also an environmentalist, but the job i have kind of beats that idealism out of you, so i just try to make the most ecologically sound option my best one to promote to the clients/my managers, this would seem like the case - horizontal drilling with access would prevent them from digging up the reef if there was a problem, laying pipeline on the reef is IMO a worse option - but is more cost effective for the people in charge of handing out the money, its a hard call for them to make it seems!