A VSU professor
said he was in favor of the economic benefits,
but geotechnical issues should determine whether

the new Moody Housing on Val Del Road
(REZ-2013-09)
should be built, and those were still unclear,
at

the 13 August 2013 Lowndes County Commission Regular Session.

Dr. Michael Noll of VSU
said he was speaking because he had been referred to by previous speakers
(Jason Davenport
and
Tom Kurrie), and he was neither for nor against
REZ-2013-09.
Dr. Noll’s neither-in-favor-nor-against position seemed to puzzle
County Engineer Mike Fletcher.
Noll said he and his colleagues had looked at

the Environmental Assessment (EA)
which has been available at the public library
and concluded that they had a number of questions they’d like answered,
and he was sure the developers had similar concerns for safety of the project.

Dr. Noll
said they’d been trying to get a copy of the geotechnical analysis mentioned
on page 4-13 of the EA.


Especially he was concerned about

karst formations which may or may not
exist in the area.
He wondered why there were problems in getting that report.
He said the phone number was listed incorrectly,
but through Moody AFB he got the right number and had spoken
to Mr. Richmond who was listed on the VDT announcement of the EA.

Dr. Noll said a private entity such as Balfour Beatty was not subject
to Georgia Open Records Requests.
(However, if Lowndes County has a copy of either of these reports,
the county is subject to such requests.)

Dr. Noll said (very politely) that
the new base commander asked Dr. Noll and colleagues
to come with him to look at the site, but even Moody hadn’t been
given permission to visit the site.
Noll said he and his colleagues would like to examine the site
and that wouldn’t take very long.

Here’s some of their previous work,

on the sinkhole under Michael McCormick’s garage,
which the county still has done nothing about, as far as I know.

Commissioner Richard Raines wanted to know whether Dr. Noll
was just concerned, or was he offering his services, or both.
Dr. Noll said he was generally speaking concerned because of what
he saw in the EA, which indicated there had been some sampling,
but not enough to determine whether the foundations were sound.
“We don’t know.”

Here’s

the video:

Geotechnical conditions and maybe sinkholes –Michael Noll

Regular Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),

Video by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),

Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 13 August 2013.

-jsq