Received today: PDF, with transcription appended below. -jsq
Continue readingMarch 15, 2013
Joe Pritchard
County Manager
Lowndes County
327 N. Ashley St.
Valdosta, GA 31601
Dear Mr. Pritchard:
It is with great regret that I find the need to step down from the Lowndes County
and South Georgia Regional Library Board of Trustees. I fear that I am no longer
capable of holding this position in light of the county’s recent actions.
As you are aware,
Wanting to go to the Industrial Authority meeting tonight? Oops, you missed it: they held it 11 days ago. Did you want to speak there? Nope, no Citizens to be Heard on that agenda, and not much else, either.
To find that agenda on VLCIA’s website: Home → About Us → Industrial Authority → Meeting Schedule,
There will be a Special Called Meeting of the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority on Friday, March 8, 2013, 11:00 am at the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority Offices. This Special Called Meeting will also serve as the Regular March 2013 Meeting.
Agenda (PDF) There will be no meeting on Tuesday, March 19, 2013.
I don’t know when they put that on their website, but they announced the same thing on their facebook page on March 4th. Much of the usual agenda boilerplate is replaced by an executive session, and the agenda doesn’t even say for what. I seem to recall the Industrial Authority’s attorney on several occasions reminding the Chair that before going into executive session it was necessary to say for what purpose. As the Association of County Commissioners of Georgia (ACCG) puts it:
Continue readingWhat is the procedure for going into and holding an “executive session” or “closing a meeting”?
David (tiny five-person activist group NIRS with no lawyer)
defeated Goliath (the world’s biggest nuclear reactor manufacturer, Areva, and operator, EDF).
Previously
a committee terminated the licensing process
but the proposed operator wanted NRC review for the Calvert Cliffs 3
nuclear reactor.
For the first time ever, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission denied
a nuclear license, closing the book on Calvert Cliffs 3 for good,
and probably taking down
with it half a dozen or more other proposed reactors.
ENENEWS posted a roundup 12 March 2013, NIRS: Victory! License denied for U.S. nuclear reactor — First time in history NRC has upheld denial
Who is this proposed nuclear operator? The NIRS press release explains:
Continue readingI've been nagging Valdosta for years about putting some of their cable TV station content on the web. Turns out they are already doing some of that, which is a step towards acting like a modern metropolitan area. Received Wednesday via Tim Carroll; I added the links and the [clarification].
From: Sementha Mathews
Sent: Wednesday, March 13, 2013 11:48 AM
To: Tim Carroll
Subject: RE: "The rest of the story"Councilman Carroll,
Thank you for the recent phone call. As a result, I will research the Austin, Tx media practices to see if they can be implemented in any way here at Metro 17. We used to include a council wrap segment in each show, and I'll ask Shemeeka [Johnson, Valdosta Channel 17 Media Coordinator] why we took that out. But we can easily add that back in.
City of Austin posts Continue reading
Some interesting questions have come up in
Gabe Fisher's continuing correspondence with the City of Valdosta
about
sewage in his back yard
and
under his house,
while
City Council Tim Carroll continues to respond,
both copying a long list of people.
From: Gabe Fisher
Date: Mon, 4 Mar 2013 14:23:12 -0500All, I appreciate the update on where the city stands on moving the sewer all together—I just wish we had been kept informed of the plans over the last 4 years. Living with the *real* threat of flooding is stressful enough, add in the guaranteed associated sewage spill is more than I can handle.
I also appreciate the city workers spreading lime and working on the sewer line behind my house today. But I have questions—What about the sewage in my yard and under my house? Is this my responsibility?
Thanks, Gabe
Tim Carroll responded with a couple of suggestions:
Continue reading
Groundbreaking for solar power to save Dublin High 40%,
thus reducing teacher furloughs,
financed by municipal bonds,
made possible by cooperation among a wide range of
government officials, private companies, and individuals:
that was the groundbreaking story in Dublin, Laurens County, yesterday,
videod by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE.
Dublin City Schools are willing to try something new, and that’s why
they were groundbreaking,
said Chuck Ledbetter, Superintendent, yesterday.
He
recognized members present of the Dublin City Council, the
Laurens County Commission, the Dublin-Laurens Development Authority,
and state representative Matt Hatchett, and
Public Service Commissioner Bubba McDonald.
Ledbetter’s theme,
Everybody worked together to make this happen.
was echoed over and over by many other speakers. What they worked for was economic help for Dublin City Schools through solar power, financed by municipal bonds.
The Mayor of Dublin, Phil Best added to the list Continue reading
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
Fracking, coming to north Georgia soon.
Dan Chapman wrote for the AJC Sunday, Gas drillers turn to Georgia
DALTON, Ga. — Trillions of cubic feet of natural gas believed to lie below the hills of northwest Georgia have remained virtually untouched and unwanted — until now.
Shale gas drilling is slowing across the country, but a handful of companies are poking around this corner of the state looking for the next natural gas “play.” If they succeed, Georgia could join the ranks of states reaping jobs, revenue and fears of environmental damage from energy production, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has learned….
In Alabama, the Conasauga shale field contains 625 trillion cubic feet of gas, according to Bill Thomas, a geologist who taught at the University of Kentucky and Georgia State. A similar amount could be underground in Northwest Georgia, he added.
Wish I didn’t have to say I told you so:
Fracking: coming soon to a state near you? 26 Dec 2012.
No fracking. No nuclear. No biomass. Let’s get on with solar and wind.
-jsq
Dublin gets the jump on the rest of Georgia again:
Dublin High School will get a megawatt of solar electricity
through a lease agreement with a private company
using local government bonds to get around Georgia’s special financing problem.
Kenny Burgamy reported for for 13wmaz.com Thursday, Solar Plant To Be Located at Dublin High,
Dublin High School of Dublin City Schools will soon implement 1 megawatt of solar energy.
The 4,000 panel solar power plant will be the largest in Central Georgia and is expected to save the school 40 percent in energy costs.
Dublin City Schools Superintendent Chuck Ledbetter told 13WMAZ, “The facility will be built and owned by private business and the school system will lease the solar power plant, saving us money in energy costs.”
The original plan was developed more than 15-months ago by German based MAGE SOLAR, which has a plant located in Laurens County.
The story has been carried by GPB by Athens Banner-Herald via AP.
This installation is similar to but slightly different from Continue reading
Tomorrow is the second anniversary of the earthquake and tsunami
that heavily damaged four of the six nuclear reactors at
Fukushima Dai-ichi in Japan on 11 March 2011, also known as 3/11.
The broken reactors at Fukushima continue to leak radioactive substances into
groundwater, the sea, and the air, where it is carried across oceans
to the U.S. and elsewhere.
And it could still get much worse:
if the No. 4 reactor pool, still suspended in the air, collapses and causes
the disintegration of spent fuel rods from all the other reactors there,
Tokyo, 200 miles away, will have to be evacuated.
Fukushima’s GE reactors are the same GE Mark I design as Southern Company’s
Plant Hatch 1 and 2 only 100 miles from here at Baxley, GA,
and about 200 miles from Atlanta and Charleston.
Hatch
is leaking radioactive tritium into our groundwater again.
Five more reactors
within 500 miles of here
are also GE Mark I.
Among the 311 or so facebook pages and websites about Fukushima
or against nuclear power is this concise one,
Unplug Nuclear Power,
which offers a simple action anyone can take tomorrow:
On 3/11, we will mark Fukushima day by using as little utility supplied electricity as possible. This direct Action is designed to punish the utility companies for continuing to push for nuclear power even after the Fukushima disaster has proven that it is just too dangerous. On that day, we will punish them in the only way that they understand, by denying them our money. There will be four levels of participation, go to the website, www.unplugnuclearpower.com for a more complete description. Also, be sure to join the Event. Finally, if you are in a group our organization that can endorse this Action, please let us know.
As Jeremy Rifkin so concisely spelled out, nuclear power is over Continue reading