More good news at Valdosta’s other wastewater treatment plant, Mud Creek,
where more solar is being installed;
more about that at tonight’s meeting of the Valdosta-Lowndes County
Industrial Authority.
Mud Creek
was already upgraded in 2012 to handle expected wastewater flow.
Here’s tonight’s agenda:
Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial AuthorityContinue reading
Tuesday, October 15, 2013 5:00 p.m.
Industrial Authority Conference Room
2110 N. Patterson Street
Agenda
Spectra Energy is coming to Valdosta and Moultrie to tell us how great their proposed pipeline will be, as it cuts a 100-foot wide path from Anniston, Alabama to Orlando, Florida through south Georgia, using eminent domain to make you sell your land, for the benefit of Florida Power and Light. Maybe you’d like to ask Spectra reps Brian Fahrenthold or Andrea Grover a few questions, like can we see a map of the proposed route, with parcel numbers, and what about those fines for violating federal regulations and Spectra’s own corporate operating procedures?
Tonight (Tuesday) 15 October 2013 5:00-7:30 pm.
Tomorrow (Wednesday) 16 October 2013 5:00-7:30 pm.
I have confirmed by calling Wiregrass Tech Economic Development
that Spectra Energy will be there from 3:30 to 8:30 PM, which
Wiregrass Tech says apparently includes setup and teardown.
The Wiregrass Tech contact is Christy Cobb; she wasn’t in when I called.
Tech’s web server seems to be down right now, but Google has cached her as:
Cobb, Christy,
Director of Economic Development,
(229) 468-2218,
christy.cobb@wiregrass.edu
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Southern Company doesn’t want to pay $17 to $52 million to get an $8.33 billion federal loan guarantee. That’s 0.2% to 0.62%. Why should we guarantee SO’s bad bet for pennies down? Let’s just call it off!
Ray Henry wrote for AP yesterday, Talks continue over Ga. nuclear plant loans,
Three years after the U.S. government promised $8.3 billion in lending for a nuclear plant in Georgia, Southern Co. and its partners have not sealed a deal.
President Barack Obama’s administration recently agreed to a fourth extension of the deadline for finalizing lending agreements between Southern Co. subsidiary Georgia Power and the other owners of the nuclear plant now under construction. Congress authorized the funding in 2005 to revive a nuclear industry that at the time expected growth.
Few utilities secured even a preliminary agreement, mostly because power companies dropped plans to build nuclear plants. The Great Recession trimmed the demand for energy, and plummeting natural gas prices made it cheaper to build gas-fired plants. The slumping economy also pushed interest rates to historic lows, reducing borrowing costs and undercutting the need for subsidized lending.
All that and ten nukes have been closed or cancelled in the past year. Even France’s EDF has exited nukes in the U.S. and has already built more U.S. solar and wind power than SO’s new Plant Vogtle nukes would produce.
Southern Company now claims this federal loan guarantee isn’t necessary: Continue reading
Fossil Free Valdosta, a facebook page just launched by
members of
S.A.V.E. (Students Against Violating the Environment),
under VSU’s new solar canopy:
A student campaign calling on Valdosta State University to freeze any new investments in the fossil fuel industry immediately and divest within the next five years.
You can help divestment by signing their petition. That will help VSU stop wasting investments on fossil fuels while solar stocks skyrocket. And that will help undermine the political power of the fossil fuel industry. After all, all our investments are political, and there’s nothing neutral about investing in climate wreckage.
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Then adults fail to provide sufficient education for U.S. children to succeed in an educated world. But we can change that. Korea and Finland did, and we can, too.
Kimberly Hefling wrote for AP Tuesday, American adults score poorly on global test,
In math, reading and problem-solving using technology—all skills considered critical for global competitiveness and economic strength—American adults scored below the international average on a global test, according to results released Tuesday.
Adults in Japan, Canada, Australia, Finland and multiple other countries scored significantly higher than the United States in all three areas on the test. Beyond basic reading and math, respondents were tested on activities such as calculating mileage reimbursement due to a salesman, sorting email and comparing food expiration dates on grocery store tags.
Too bad they didn’t test picking political candidates to elect. Apparently at least a minority of U.S. adults failed that, too. I would quote from the actual test, but this is what we find at ncs.ed.gov today: Continue reading
Nukes cost too much and are too centralized; sun and wind are the power we need and can afford.
Andrew Sullivan on the Dish 8 December 2012, Ask McKibben Anything: What About Nuclear Energy?
In October, Bill spoke to Marlene Spoerri of the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs about his views on nuclear power:
I don’t foresee, especially post-Fukushima, a kind of political system in most of the world that would let it happen. Even before Fukushima, it wasn’t happening. The reason basically had to do with cost. Environmentalists helped shut down nuclear power, but really it was Wall Street that pulled the plug on it. It’s too expensive. It’s like burning $20 bills to generate electricity. It requires, if you’re going to do it, massive government subsidy. If you’re going to apply that subsidy, you’re better off doing it with other things that will generate more kilowatt hours per buck.
Now, that said, we should keep trying to figure out if there are some ways to do it that are more acceptable than the ones we’ve got now. You read about developments on the fringes, Thorium reactors and so on and so forth. But my guess is that in the timeframe we’ve got this is not going to be the place we go.
Kevin J. Kelley wrote for Seven Days 10 August 2011, Author-Activist Bill McKibben Gets “Disobedient” About Climate Change, Continue reading
Two, four, six, many:
that’s how Lowndes County counts tenants.
It’s great the county is providing space for organizations
that help the needy,
but it’s kind of curious that the county didn’t seem to know
who or how many organizations were using the Leila Ellis building,
and had no lease agreement with them.
Not to mention it took twenty questions from Commissioners to get
staff to admit that lack of contracts,
at Monday morning’s
Lowndes County Commission Work Session.
6.b. Leila Ellis Building-Available Space
Kind of like they have no contract with the alleged county attorney.
Chad McCleod at one point said two organizations are currently in the building, LAMP and Cash Prosperity. He said the County let LAMP use it, and LAMP let Cash Prosperity use it.
In response to a question from Commissioner DeMarcus Marshall, County Manager Joe Pritchard said under normal circumstances any organization would need to come to the Commission to ask for space. They currently have more applicants than space.
Commissioner Crawford Powell wanted to know if the county was going to set up guidelines for who could lease. Pritchard said they could, and they couldn’t lease to a private business.
Commissioner Richard Raines wanted to know if annual leases were the practice of this board. Pritchard, not actually answering the question asked, said “That would be my suggestion.”
JoTaryla Thomas
came up to speak for Continue reading
Six minutes on who will be
Vice Chairman and when,
a ceremonial position, as far as I know.
13 minutes on a parade of organizations that want to rent space in the
Leila Ellis.
They vote tonight at 5:30 PM.
The storm that wasn’t was the subject of Ashley Tye’s report. They tabled Nottinghill like the Planning Commission did. They vote tonight on letting Barrington subdivision sprawl into the county. Did Commissioners ever get that list of roads for striping? Do we have enough evidence yet for juvenile justice? Or will we continue to concentrate on fining people coming off of I-75? All that and a group photo. At least the Work Session yesterday morning had some actual discussion in it for a change.
Here’s the agenda with links to the videos and a few notes.
LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERSContinue reading
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2013, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2013, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor
Different day (Monday) and time (4PM), and some new developments, also adding that
natural gas pipeline to the
usual agenda of local governance: Water (sinkholes, aquifer recharge,
runoff,
drinking water, and wastewater), trash (how about that Exclusive Franchise!),
and money (no-bid contracts and plus SPLOST VII).
If you want to help, we have a little list of tasks you can do.
If you're on Facebook, please Like the LAKE facebook page. You can sign up for the meeting event there, Or just come as you are.
| What: | Monthly LAKE Meeting |
| When: |
4PM Monday
7 October 2013 |
| Where: |
Michael’s Deli
1307 N Ashley St. Valdosta, GA 31601 |
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Will the County Commission take up
Nottinghill
even though the Planning Commission tabled it?
Is
Barrington subdivision
now ready to sprawl into the county?
Did Commissioners ever get that list of roads for
striping?
Do we have enough
evidence yet for juvenile justice?
Or will we continue to concentrate on
fining people coming off of I-75?
Who was
Leila Ellis, anyway?
And who will be
Vice Chairman (hint: Joyce Evans is now)?
All that and a
group photo, continuing the tradition of County Commission
meetings as content-free photo-ops.
Here’s the agenda.
LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERSContinue reading
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2013, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2013, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor