Author Archives: John S. Quarterman

A contract, an alcohol license, two bids, and a special presentation @ LCC 2013-04-22

The special presentation is about the Westside Archives. The agenda doesn’t say what that is, but Valdosta City Council and former Mayor Sonny Vickers supports it, as you can see in this video by George Boston Rhynes.

According to the VDT 15 February 2010, Vickers

received the Westside Archives Achievement Award for more than two decades of service as a city councilman to the citizens of Valdosta. Westside Archives and the Kill-Me-Quick Community sponsored this award.

At the same time, three other people got Westside Archives awards, including

Lowndes County Commissioner Joyce Evans was granted the Citizenship Award for her services to the county and its citizens.

Here’s the agenda.

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, APRIL 22, 2013, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, APRIL 23, 2013, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor
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Sinkhole on US 82 near Tifton August 2012

Water disasters of droughts and floods and sinkholes already affect us more here in south Georgia than the kinds of disasters TV news likes. In north Florida, next to a church in Albany, under a garage in Lowndes County, and next to the Shoney’s in Tifton, sinkholes are spreading: can we go beyond reacting to them and work on preventing them?

Next to a story yesterday about disaster preparedness, the Tifton Gazette posted this picture and caption:

Tift County experienced massive flooding in early August 2012. The heavy rains made the then-sinkhole located on Hwy. 82 into a massive waterfall. Tift County EMA has to be prepared for such events in our community. Photo credit: Latasha Everson/The Tifton Gazette

Here’s a 2011 YouTube video of the sinkhole that says the sinkhole had been next to the Shoney’s five years already then, two years ago. Stephanie Springer wrote for WALB 9 and 13 August 2012, Tifton sinkhole continues to grow,

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A grid with a million solar rooftops

Bill McKibben wrote for Rolling Stone 11 April 2013, The Fossil Fuel Resistance,

A grid with a million solar rooftops feels more like the Internet than ConEd; it’s a farmers market in electrons, with the local control that it implies.

Distributed solar power is exactly what electric utilities fear. There’s a reason why Southern Company CEO Thomas A. Fanning consistently ranks “renewables” as his second-to-last power source; the only thing worse for big baseload utilities is his last one: efficiency, which could remove all demand for additional electrical supply in Georgia.

How big of an opportunity for the rest of us is this threat to the cozy business model of big baseload utilities? Continue reading →

Transparency could have prevented TX fertlizer plant explosion

Has anybody checked on the various agricultural chemical plants around here? Lack of transparency can kill.

Joshua Schneyer, Ryan McNeill and Janet Roberts wrote for Reuters today, Texas fertilizer company didn’t heed disclosure rules before blast,

The fertilizer plant that exploded on Wednesday, obliterating part of a small Texas town and killing at least 14 people, had last year been storing 1,350 times the amount of ammonium nitrate that would normally trigger safety oversight by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Yet a person familiar with DHS operations said the company that owns the plant, West Fertilizer, did not tell the agency about the potentially explosive fertilizer as it is required to do, leaving one of the principal regulators of ammonium nitrate—which can also be used in bomb making—unaware of any danger there.

Fertilizer plants and depots must report to the DHS when they hold 400 lb (180 kg) or more of the substance. Filings this year with the Texas Department of State Health Services, which weren’t shared with DHS, show the plant had 270 tons of it on hand last year.

There’s more in the article.

-jsq

Nuke and gas rate hike scam in Toronto, too

It’s not just Georgia Power that raised rates to pay for nuclear and natural gas plants and then complained about solar. Ontario has the same scam.

John Spears wrote for the Toronto Star yesterday, Mad about your hydro bill? Blame nuclear and gas plants: Payments to nuclear and gas-fired generators are the main ingredients in the largest component on Ontario hydro bills Continue reading →

Videos of the landfill gas energy meeting 2013-04-15

Since LAKE was the only coverage of the Pecan Row Landfill Gas Energy meeting 15 April 2013 at Colquitt EMC in Valdosta, these videos let you see the interesting cast of speakers and other attendees.

Our host, Danny Nichols, Colquitt EMC General Manager, expressed concerns about feel-good vs. economically viable energy projects and said he thought the landfill gas project was both, emphasizing “like a switch it comes on”, in other words, baseload. (Colquitt EMC is not big on smart grid.)

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Two former national nuclear regulatory chiefs: stop nukes

Last month former U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chair Jaczko said all 104 operating U.S. nuclear power reactors are unsafe. This month former Indian Atomic Energy Regulatory Board Chair Gopalakrishnan says the reactors currently building in India, already three years behind schedule and now found to incorporate numerous defects and deficiencies amid gross lack of transparency, must be stopped. When will the NRC stop the restart of the flawed and non-transparent San Onofre 2? When will the NRC or GA PSC or the GA legislature or even Southern Company coming to its senses stop the 19-month-late $1-billion-overbudget flawed-concrete Plant Vogtle 3 and 4 before they waste any more of our resources that could be going to solar and wind jobs and energy?

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35 jobs for 51 coal plants of CO2: Keystone XL Pipeline

What pollutes almost as much as one and a half coal plants per permanent job? The proposed Keystone XL Pipeline. Does that sound like a good deal to you?

Talia Buford and Darren Goode wrote for Politico 1 March 2013, State Dept. Keystone report plays down climate fears, Continue reading →

BP: the beaches are open for everyone to enjoy!

BP must be getting desperate about people catching onto what they did to the Gulf. A BP video ad has been replaying itself every few minutes beside various news stories since yesterday, claiming two years after the oil disaster (“spill” doesn’t describe it) “the beaches are open for everyone to enjoy!” BP’s website says “We are helping economic and environmental restoration efforts in the Gulf Coast as part of our ongoing commitment to the region following the Deepwater Horizon accident in 2010”. Neither the ad nor the website says BP actually cleaned up the oil. Because they didn’t. It’s still there, as is the even more toxic “dispersant” Corexit BP dumped on top of the oil to make it sink. Both are busily poisoning dolphins, fish, birds, and humans.

Antonia Juhasz wrote for The Nation 7 May 2012, Investigation: Two Years After the BP Spill, A Hidden Health Crisis Festers,

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Moody AFB exercises this month

Heard choppers lately? You’re about to hear more: it’s spring Moody Air Force Base exercises!

PR carried by the Chamber of Commerce 16 April 2013, JOINT ARMY AND AIR FORCE EXERCISE, April 21-26,

MOODY AIR FORCE BASE, Ga. — A joint military exercise will be conducted from April 21 to April 26 on military training areas at Moody Air Force Base, Ga., and in the vicinity of the surrounding communities.

The 3rd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, based at Fort Benning, Ga. is conducting the exercise along with units from the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment from Fort Campbell, Ky., 820th Base Defense Group at Moody AFB, and Air Force Special Operations Command from Hurlburt Field, Fla.

Soldiers and Airmen will use

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