Category Archives: Economy

Brad Lofton’s Selective Memory

I see by yesterday’s VDT story about the Lowndes County Board of Education (LCBOE) meeting that Brad Lofton, executive directory of the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA), is reported as saying:
The people … that are opposing the plant … have yet to agree to sit down and talk with the authority directly about the plant.
He said somehing similar at the 29 Sep 2010 meeting of the Valdosta Board of Education (VBOE). Except then he at least admitted that I had gotten the VLCIA presentation. Yet even then he forgot about the other people in this picture of that 10 June 2010 meeting at the VLCIA offices:


Pictured: Natasha Fast, Angela Manning, Allan Ricketts (Project Manager), Geraldine Fairell, Ken Klanicki, Brad Lofton (Executive Director)

Even earlier, Dr. Brad Bergstrom and Seth Gunning got a presentation from the VLCIA.

I pointed all this out a month ago, after the VBOE incident.

Why does Brad Lofton, a public employee, keep standing up before elected bodies and saying something that is not true?

-jsq

Video of Dr. Sammons’ talk at VSU

Here is a video of most of Dr. William Sammons’ presentation at the SAVE Biomass Forum at VSU. His slides from that talk are available on the LAKE web pages, so you can follow along.

Instead of dirty biomass we could have clean efficiency and conservation (retrofitting produces twice as many jobs as biomass) and solar power, which is booming nationwide, burns no trees, and emits no pollutants.

You can also contact your local elected or appointed officials.

-jsq

Due Diligence on Biomass Combustion, by Dr. William Sammons

Monday a week ago Dr. William Sammons, a pediatrician who has studied biomass plants nationwide, called them “a medical atrocity.” His slides from that talk are now available on the LAKE web pages.

For example, he demonstrated that burning wood is dirtier than burning coal:

This slide shows data taken from biomass plant permits. Also notice Continue reading →

VDT Elevates Biomass and Renewable Energy as Political Issues

The Valdosta Daily Times (VDT) has apparently decided biomass and real clean energy instead are political issues. As part of the VDT’s sudden turn against the VLCIA and its biomass plant, which was provoked by citizen and student activism, the VDT started a week of articles with the headline “Proposed plant said to be ‘medical atrocity'”, about Dr. William Sammons’ Monday talk about health problems of biomass and how solar is better.

The VDT then featured biomass in its reporting on the AAUW Candidate Forum: Continue reading →

VDT turns against VLCIA and its biomass plant

The newspaper of record in Valdosta and Lowndes County has reversed course on biomass. Top of the front page in a landmark issue: Wednesday, October 27, 2010:
Biomass plant fuels questions

by Johnna Pinholster
The Valdosta Daily Times

VALDOSTA — As the state and nation look to renewable energy solutions, locally, a proposed green energy plant is causing controversy and raising questions that remain unanswered.

The Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority and Wiregrass Power, LLC are in the beginning phases of developing property for a future biomass electric generating plant.

…

Issues with lack of information

Continue reading →

“Proposed plant said to be ‘medical atrocity'”

Johnna Pinholster writes in the the Valdosta Daily Times (paper 25 Oct, online 27 Oct 2010) about the the SAVE Biomass Forum at VSU:
A medical atrocity.

That is the phrase Dr. William Sammons used to described biomass energy plants at Monday night’s biomass forum at Valdosta State University’s Student Union theater.

Dr. Sammons answered many of the unanswered concerns about the biomass incinerator, and, unlike the lack of peer-reviewed evidence from the plant proponents: Continue reading →

AAUW Candidate Forum Today, 7PM

Meet the candidates tonight:
AAUW Candidate Forum
7:00 p.m. – Rainwater Conference Center – The Valdosta chapter of the American Asso. of University Women will host the forum. It is open to the public. For more information, Dr. Martha Leake 229-333-5756
That’s the James H. Rainwater Conference Center, 1 Meeting Place, Valdosta, GA.

It’s for all candidates: Democrats, Libertarians, Republicans, and non-partisan; for statewide, congressional, and local. Attendees will have the opportunity to submit written questions to be posed to the candidates for their response.

Just before that, the Valdosta–Lowndes County Chamber of Commerce will host a Meet the Candidates Reception, for Chamber members and their guests, 5–7 P.M. Here is a list of the candidates who have confirmed (PDF). Continue reading →

Bigger Hall: SAVE Biomass Forum at VSU

Due to popular demand, the SAVE Biomass Forum has moved to a larger hall, the Student Union Theater. That’s on the east side of North Oak Street, across from Baytree Road.

It’s still Monday, 25 October 2010 from 7 to 9 PM, organized by Students Against Violating the Environment (SAVE) at Valdosta State University (VSU). The featured speaker is Dr. William Sammons, a pediatrician who has spoken nationally on the subject. Forum flyer PDF is available. See SAVE’s facebook event page for any updates. Continue reading →

WSJ on Economic Problems of Biomass Plants

Jim Carlton points out in the Wall Street Journal some of the problems of biomass plants.
With all the plants and trees in the world, biomass energy would appear to have boundless potential.
Or as Georgia politicians are fond of saying, “Georgia is the Saudi Arabia of forest energy.”
Yet in the U.S., biomass power—generated mainly by burning wood and other plant debris—has run into roadblocks that have stymied its growth.

Here at the Northern Nevada Correctional Center, officials in 2007 built a $7.7 million biomass plant to meet all the power needs of the medium-security prison. But last month, two years after the plant opened, prison officials closed it, citing excessive costs.

“This was a project that was well intentioned, but not well implemented,” says Jeff Mohlenkamp, deputy director of support services for the Nevada Department of Corrections.

Even with a captive market (pun intended), biomass was not economically feasible.

Maybe it was an isolated case? Continue reading →

Michael Bryant: “the appalling silence”

Pastor Michael Bryant expands on his previous letter.

-jsq

Dear Pastors and fellow laborers in the Gospel of our Lord and Savior,

I was born and raised here in Lowndes County. Today I am as disturbed as I was in 1973 when I, along with 42 other students, four ministers and their wives, were jailed for protesting unfair treatment of students in the Lowndes County School System. We were arrested while standing in the parking lot awaiting to enter the building for a meeting called by the Lowndes County Board of Education at their office on St. Augustine Road. The meeting was supposed to be a good faith gesture designed to mediate an amicable solution to the picketing which had been in process for nearly six months. After being arrested, we were moved from Big 12 in a prison truck in the dead of night. We were to be housed in the Cook County jail and none of our parents knew where we were. When we exited the truck, both sides of the walk way upon which we had to walk were lined with numerous State Troopers and other Law Enforcement officers sporting riot gear and shotguns. On the following day they refused to feed us breakfast. We began to complain and the judge came upstairs dressed in his robe. He said “I want you to stop making noise, and if you don’t, I can make you stop.”

When we complained again, the cell in which we were jailed was sprayed down with tear gas. We had one toilet and one sink in which to clear our eyes. These are facts that went unreported by the papers. In fact they said we were rabble rousers. The late Ralph Harrington signed all our bonds, and we went through a lengthy trial, represented by the late Mr. C. B. King, Sr., of Albany, GA. At the close of the trial all charges were dismissed and expunged from our records.

As a student then, I witnessed the appalling silence of men and women of God who preached the hell out of people on Sundays, collected their checks, and went home untouched by the happenings in the community. This was much like the appalling silence of ministers who sat on the sidelines while Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., placed his life on the line for “the least of these.”

Some years ago, Rev. Floyd Rose, two of my sisters and several other

Continue reading →