Maps and video about
that pipeline public hearing in Dougherty County.
Spectra does have per-county maps and has finally doled them out.
What did Lee County do to make the pipeline avoid it entirely?
And what about Georgians even getting to use that natural gas?
One of the
promised public hearings
appeared within a week,
and the pipeline company made all sorts of promises and emphasized
how busy and important it is.
The pipeline rep caused opposition from a second county commissioner,
and inadvertently revealed some possible means of opposition.
Brian Fahrenthold, the state and local government affairs director
for Houston-based Spectra Energy, assured commissioners and
landowners impacted by the pipeline that his company will
“meet or exceed all safety standards” required by
federal officials during construction of the $3 billion project that
will, when completed, send 1 billion cubic feet of natural gas per
day into Florida from central Alabama.
“We’re in the early rows of activity right now, and this is a
marathon,” Fahrenthold said. “We operate close to 19,000
miles of pipeline in the United States, and we have an outstanding
safety record. Almost 15 percent of the natural gas used in the
United States flows through our system.”
Fahrenthold answered questions from commissioners and from members
of the public during a lengthy public hearing, assuring those
gathered at the downtown Government Center Spectra is open to any
pipeline route alterations that are viable.
“We keep hearing that there is an alternate route being
proposed by some (landowners) in the community, but we haven’t seen
it,” Fahrenthold said. “If there is such a route
proposal, we’re open to it.”
Well, that’s cute: he says
landowners should band together and do the pipeline company’s
work for it.
How about we start by demanding to see Spectra’s current route maps?
Not quite most of the money for roads, streets, and bridges
(none of them named to the public), plus everything from animals to public safety,
in the county’s SPLOST VII list.
But don’t be alarmed: it contains no new library and no new auditorium,
and the Chairman referred to it as a “back to basics” list.
It also contains nothing about Internet access; more on that in a separate post.
You can be told about this list tomorrow night or at a forthcoming joint county-cities
public telling: no town hall meetings have yet been scheduled.
These videos and slides are from
this morning’s Lowndes County Commission Work Session.
5.
Special Presentation & Consideration — Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax VII
There was something new in what Joe Pritchard said:
Commissioners each had an opportunity for independent review and evaluation.
That’s better than the county tradition of the staff write down the list
and Commissioners rubber-stamp it.
However, where are
those town hall meetings Commissioner Joyce Evans promised?
She reminded me afterwards that she had said “hopefully”.
Mayor Gayle told me afterwards the problem was they were too close
to the deadline for turning in the lists for the election.
He indicated that was because the county was late.
Remember Valdosta already presented its list
9 July 2013.
Rumor has it the delay was in some Commissioners insisting on actually
having input.
That’s a good thing, but if the county planned ahead, there still
would have been time for the rest of us to provide input before
the lists were finalized.
The slides presented say they’re also available on the county’s website,
but I don’t see them there, so I’m posting stills from the LAKE video here.
Inspection and rat carcasses found cooling system stop: Unit 2 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant
(23 minutes 15:22 April last update) 01 minutes 13:22 April Mainichi Shimbun in 2013
From state = Fukuichi live camera of Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant of 50 at around 2:00 pm
The 22nd, TEPCO announced that it had stopped the cooling system of
the spent fuel pool of Unit 2 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
Since the corpse of two dogs rat is found inside the transformer in
the outdoors, I will check the equipment.
According to the Nuclear Regulatory Agency and Tokyo Electric Power,
15 at around 10:00 am the same day, workers found a dead rat in the
two animals terminal near the pool cooling transformer inside.
Remove the mouse, stop the power for inspection of equipment 35 at
around 11:00 the same. expected start is 3 to 4 hours later.
Water temperature of the pool of power stop time is 13.9 degrees.
There is enough time to rise up to 65 degree of operational safety,
TEPCO has “no problem. Administrative stopped just in case for
inspection” he said. [Torii true flat]
Last month, a 29-hour power supply halt affecting nine facilities,
including four spent fuel pool cooling systems, was caused by a rat
touching exposed wires in a temporary switchboard, triggering a
circuit breaker.
In early April, the No.3 unit’s spent fuel pool cooling system
stopped, after workers appeared to have had inadvertently caused a
power outage when they were trying to install a net to keep small
animals from crawling into the reactor building. (Reporting by Risa
Maeda; Editing by Chris Gallagher)
Apparently that net didn’t work.
Should we trust our safety to nuclear plants that can be shut down by rats?
The
tritium-leaking
reactors at Plant Hatch at Baxley
are the same design as at Fukushima.
Former U.S. NRC Chairman Jaczko says
we should phase them all out while
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.
We know a better way:
solar and wind power.
Let’s get on with that.
Two applicants in a row said they didn’t know until recently
that their properties had restrictions on them,
and even staff seemed confused about at least one of them.
Maybe there’s something wrong with how the county makes that information
available to purchasers of property?
Almost nobody attended the
Greater Lowndes Planning Commission meeting of 25 February 2013,
as you can see from
these videos.
Here’s
the agenda.
And here’s a summary of the cases.
Knights Academy Road, Valdosta
Request to rezone 10 acres from
R-21 (Medium Density Residential)
to
R-A (Residential Agriculture)
They want two pet thoroughbred horses on the property.
Nobody spoke against.
Applicant spoke for, saying the property was purchased
by his mother, who is currently in Iraq, and they had
been under the impression it was already zoned agricultural.
When they discovered it wasn’t, they applied to change it.
Tabled! The applicant requested and the Commission unanimously voted
to table
the proposed closing of Old State Road to Hotchkiss Crossing
on the Alapaha River
until their next meeting, which is in two weeks, Tuesday 26 February 2013.
A waste company executive suddenly rescheduled so he could come back
and apologize to the public.
All this and 3 rezonings and 3 contracts at the Lowndes County Commission
Regular Session Tuesday 12 February 2013, plus people haven’t forgotten
about animal shelter issues.
LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2013, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2013, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street — 2nd Floor
The County Commission continues to do the peoples’ business in secret.
The solid waste exclusive franchise agreement was tabled for a month,
due to some mysterious new information,
and two citizens pleaded with the Commission to reconsider the whole thing.
The developer who got to speak at Monday’s Work Session
asked for his development to be tabled for a month, and the Commission did so.
After the meeting, three people from Moody AFB trooped into a side
room with the Chairman.
Also, if it’s a privilege to serve and an honor to be appointed,
why does the Lowndes County Commission not tell us who they are appointing?
In the
Work Session
they muttered some proposed names unintelligbly,
and in the Regular Session they didn’t say anything about who some of the
new appointees are, and none of the appointees spoke.
As near as I could tell, only one bothered to show up: VLCIA
reappointee Mary Gooding.
Update 2012-11-20: Jody Hall reminds me he was there as an appointee. He says he was ready to speak, but nobody asked him to.
Video playlist
Regular Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 13 November 2012.
Here’s
the agenda again,
this time with links to the videos plus a few notes.
The Lowndes County Commission invited a developer to speak
about his proposed rezoning at a Work Session
without inviting any opposition to speak.
Plus another rezoning, a proposed solid waste ordinance with exclusive franchise
agreement, and proposed appointments to five boards and authorities.
And at the end an animal event report.
Video playlist
Work Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 12 November 2012.
Here’s
the agenda again,
this time with links to the videos plus a few notes.
Animal Health Fair flyer seen on the door of the
Lowndes County Commission Chambers yesterday evening at their 5:30 PM
Regular Session.
Lowndes County Animal Health Fair flyer
Pictures by John S. Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 23 October 2012.
On November 3rd the animal shelter along with the Humane Society
will have the first animal health fair here in Lowndes County. It’s
hoped that this is going to be an annual event, held the first
Saturday of November. And the purpose is to mirror the benefits you
see for people health fairs.
Here’s a single video of this morning’s entire Lowndes County Commission
Work Session.
The railroad item was neither of the ones
on which I was speculating.
The animal shelter wants a 24 hour “cooling-off period” with a submitted
animal kept at home before “evaluation” by the shelter.
The Tax Commissioner wants to refund some taxes they apparently accidentally
overcharged.
The Fire Chief has bids for equipment for the new fire truck.
And there’s going to be an animal health fair.
They vote tomorrow evening at 5PM.
Here’s
the video,
followed by
the agenda,
with links to the relevant parts of the video,
and a few notes.
Video of 6 minute meeting
Work Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Video by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 22 October 2012.
Thanks to Dexter Sharper for use of his video camera.
Maps and video about
that pipeline public hearing in Dougherty County.
Spectra does have per-county maps and has finally doled them out.
What did Lee County do to make the pipeline avoid it entirely?
And what about Georgians even getting to use that natural gas?
“Why not go ahead and put a tap in, or whatever you call it so we could utilize that gas instead of just being a transit through our area,” Lyle said.
