Category Archives: Agriculture

Agricultural poverty resources meeting

Received yesterday from Jerome Tucker about the USDA StrikeForce Initiative: “Unfortunately, 90 percent of America’s persistent poverty counties are in rural America. USDA’s StrikeForce aims to increase investment in rural communities for technical assistance and other resources in priority, poverty-stricken communities.” -jsq

StrikeForce Georgia Informational Meeting

Informational Meeting
Thursday, May 23, 2013
9:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
(Individual media interview time will be from 1:00-2:00PM)
Hosted By: Fort Valley State University
Agricultural Technology Conference Center,
Camp John Hope Road, Fort Valley, GA 31030

This free meeting is open to the general public, partners and members of the press to get a better understanding of this expanding USDA initiative and to learn where it's heading in Georgia!

Pre-Registration is requested by May 20, 2013 by emailing Continue reading →

Valdosta Farm Days begins today

9 AM to 1PM today at the historic Lowndes County Courthouse, 100 West Central Avenue, it’s Valdosta Farm Days, and every first and third Saturday from May through October.

Downtown Valdosta Farm Days

Come downtown to find the delicious taste of farm fresh food picked just for you, at Downtown Valdosta Farm Days! The market showcases locally sourced produce, food items, and arts and crafts from surrounding areas.

Come for the freshness and stay for the fun at Downtown Valdosta Farm Days!

We Accept EBT, CREDIT, and DEBIT!

DVFD on Facebook.

Gretchen with rosemary and Yellow Dog:

Continue reading →

Videos: trucks and row crops, and Earth Day again @ LCC 2013-04-22

Seven minutes, with some discussion about trucks and irrigation of row crops on a liquid waste application site. There was no special presentation, not about the Westside Archives, nor about anything else. They did mention this morning’s Earth Day event again, and added a little bit of detail.

Here’s the agenda with a few notes, and links into the video.

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
Continue reading →

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
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

South Ga. officials expecting sinkholes after rain while NYTimes plays down the risk

Sinkholes aren’t just for Florida anymore: Albany’s got them. Are sinkholes risky? You may think so if one is under your house. And here above the Floridan Aquifer you probably won’t know that until your foundations starts cracking. Maybe we should do something to prevent the problem, and to help people who are affected by it. Perhaps the Lowndes County government till pay attention when somebody’s house falls into a sinkhole.

Jim Wallace wrote for WALB 9 March 2013, Expect more sinkholes,

Some sinkholes have opened up in South Georgia since the recent heavy rains.

And engineers and public works experts say they expect more sinkholes to develop in the coming weeks. It’s just nature at work, but it can really cause some problems.

Really? Does “nature at work” include sinkholes predictably forming after massive water pumping to sprinkle strawberries during a cold snap?

The WALB story pooh-poohs the possibility of anything like that Sefner sinkhole showing up in south Georgia, and then details two Albany sinkholes:

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Suwannee County sinkholes —WCTV

Sinkholes in Seffner, Fort Myers, Tallahassee, and now even closer. Follow the Withlacoochee River south to the Suwannee River, and two counties south of us in Suwannee County, Florida, they’ve got dozens of sinkholes, one of them massive, with another one this month, including apparently a cavern under some yards. This is in the same Floridan Aquifer that underlies Lowndes County, where we had a road drop into a sinkhole three years ago and sinkholes were discovered under a man’s garage and yard last year.

Greg Gullberg 4 March 2013, The Science Behind Sinkholes,

Mikell Cook says he and his neighbors have learned more about Geology than they ever cared to since last summer when Tropical Storm Debby swept through much of Florida leaving Live Oak and surrounding areas peppered with sinkholes.

He and his neighbors live in the town of McAlpin, where

Continue reading →

Tallahassee sinkhole

Even closer than Tampa Bay or Fort Myers, Tallahassee has sinkhole problems in our same Floridan Aquifer just across the state line. Will the Lowndes County Commission do anything about our sinkhole problems before people start losing their insurance and get sucked into holes in the ground?

Andy Alcock wrote for WCTV Wednesday, Tallahassee Woman Faces Sinkhole Problem,

Imagine living in a home you can’t insure, no one wants to buy and it may not be safe.

A Tallahassee woman is currently facing that problem.

At first glance, her home in Tallahassee’s Mission Manor neighborhood on the city’s northwest side doesn’t look much different from any of the other homes in the neighborhood.

Then about two years ago, homeowner Vickie Gordon found a problem.

“I started noticing that the doors were getting stuck in the bathroom, couldn’t open them,” said Gordon.

Then the issues became more noticeable.

Cracks started showing up all over the house.

After Gordon contacted her insurance company, investigators found sinkhole activity at her home.

I wish this part was a joke:

Continue reading →

Videos: Two rezonings and a lease @ LCC 2013-03-11

A surprising number of questions were asked by Commissioners at yesterday morning’s Work Session, yet still nobody asked about the well near one of the proposed rezonings. We had a microphone failure during the first few items; sound picks up as the Commissioners start asking questions on 5.b. REZ-2013-04. Because of the sound glitch you can’t tell that for sure from the videos that nobody discussed SPLOST, but Gretchen was there from call to order to adjournment, and she didn’t hear anything about SPLOST. Maybe they’ll say something about it tonight at their 5:30 PM Regular Session, at which they vote on these rezonings and contract.

Here’s the agenda with links to the videos and some notes.

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, MARCH 11, 2013, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, MARCH 12, 2013, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor
Continue reading →

Circular wastewater firing squad continues

The VDT's Sunday front page was covered with wastewater stories, continuing the circular firing squad of the local powers that be. Meanwhile in Dublin, GA, they're breaking ground for solar panels at the local high school, using a bond financing model that we could use here, if local leaders would look up.

In addition to some detail about the city's FEMA application and following up on flooded yards, the VDT followed up on its EPD and EPA scrutiny story with one saying City received help from EPD to keep EPA away. It's good the VDT is covering these issues, but it's still leaving out important parts of the local water story.

Apparently firing back at Thursday's Valdosta City Council session, perhaps especially Robert Yost's very pointed criticisms of the VDT, the VDT concluded its rather rich Sunday editoral:

City leaders, please, no more of the blame game. The citizens of this community are imploring you to just accept responsibility and fix it.

Yet the VDT has spent the last week blaming the city, and has accepted no responsibility for its own role, or that of its editor, Kay Harris, in the recent loss of the SPLOST referendum that would have further funded wastewater work in Valdosta.

Now, I agree with the VDT that Continue reading →