Category Archives: Water

Clean green jobs for community and profit

Tell me who doesn’t want clean jobs for energy independence and profit?

“Environmental sustainability… can lead to more and better jobs, poverty reduction and social inclusion,”

The above quote is Juan Somavia in an article Stephen Leahy wrote for Common Dreams 1 June 2012, For an Ailing Planet, the Cure Already Exists,

Germany’s renewable energy sector now employs more people than its vaunted automobile industry.

No wonder, when German solar power produces more than 20 nuclear plants. How many jobs? According to Welcome to Germany 13 April 2012, Renewable Energies Already Provide More Than 380,000 Jobs in Germany, which cites a report from the German government,

The boom in renewable energies continues to create new jobs in Germany. According to a recently published study commissioned by the Federal Environment Ministry, the development and production of renewable energy technologies and the supply of electricity, heat and fuel from renewable sources provided around 382,000 jobs in 2011.

This is an increase of around 4 percent compared to the previous year and more than double the 2004 figure.

“Current employment figures show that the transformation of our energy system is creating entirely new opportunities on the job market,” said German Environment Minister Norbert Röttgen.

“It is the major project for the future for German industry. This opens up technological and economic opportunities in terms of Germany’s competitiveness as an exporter and location to do business.”

Wouldn’t we like some of that here in sunny south Georgia, a thousand miles south of Germany?

Back to the Stephen Leahy article:

Globally, the renewable energy sector now employs close to five million workers, more than doubling the number of jobs from 2006-2010, according to a study released Thursday by the International Labor Organization (ILO).

The transformation to a greener economy could generate 15 to 60 million additional jobs globally over the next two decades and lift tens of millions of workers out of poverty, concluded the study, “Working towards sustainable development”.

Everyone will benefit. Everyone can benefit starting right now.

Continue reading →

Powering North Carolina with wind, sun, and water

Here's some hard evidence of FERC Chairman Jon Wellinghoff's assertion back in 2009 that baseload is outdated, we don't need any new nukes or coal, because we can get all the new power we need from sun and wind. This study from North Carolina goes further: we don't need coal or nukes at all.

John Blackburn, Ph.D. wrote a report March 2010, Matching Utility Loads with Solar and Wind Power in North Carolina: Dealing with Intermittent Electricity Sources,

Takoma Park, Maryland, and Durham, North Carolina, March 4, 2010: Solar and wind power can supply the vast majority of North Carolina's electricity needs, according to a major report released today. Combined with generation from hydroelectric and other renewable sources, such as landfill gas, only six percent of electricity would have to be purchased from outside the system or produced at conventional plants.

Hourly Power Generation and Load for a sample day in July

"Even though the wind does not blow nor the sun shine all the time, careful management, readily available storage and other renewable sources, can produce nearly all the electricity North Carolinians consume," explained Dr. John Blackburn, the study's author. Dr. Blackburn is Professor Emeritus of Economics and former Chancellor at Duke University.

"Critics of renewable power point out that solar and wind sources are intermittent," Dr. Blackburn continued. "The truth is that solar and wind are complementary in North Carolina. Wind speeds are usually higher at night than in the daytime. They also blow faster in winter than summer. Solar generation, on the other hand, takes place in the daytime. Sunlight is only half as strong in winter as in summertime. Drawing wind power from different areas — the coast, mountains, the sounds or the ocean — reduces variations in generation. Using wind and solar in tandem is even more reliable. Together, they can generate three-fourths of the state's electricity. When hydroelectric and other renewable sources are added, the gap to be filled is surprisingly small. Only six percent of North Carolina's electricity would have to come from conventional power plants or from other systems."

Six percent is a small number. That means most coal plants could be shut down, and no nukes are needed.

Continue reading →

Videos @ LCC 2012 05 07

Here are videos of the entire approximately eight minute 7 May 2012 Work Session of the Lowndes County Commission. They vote in Regular Session tonight at 5:30PM. Here’s the agenda.

See other post about “5. Appointments – Lowndes County Development Authority”.

Two weeks ago they decided to hold a public hearing about abandoning part of the Right of Way of old US 41 South, but this time it’s on the agenda as a Resolution, and it appears part of the request has been withdrawn, and some people would be left landlocked with no access to a public road, so it seems the Resolution will be to table at least part of it to an undetermined future date. Yet the County Engineer seemed to reccomend going ahead with the rest of the abandonment. Where’s the public hearing?

Two rezonings had no comments. The third, just north of Hahira, got opposition at the Planning Commission; see the other post on that.

A developer wants, according to County Planner Jason Davenport, a letter from the Commission so it can more readily get tax credits from the federal government. He didn’t say what the tax credits would be for. For a concrete front yard? Or for solar on the roof? It will be interesting to see how the anti-grant Commissioners vote on this one, when it’s a developer who benefits.

It sounds like the county wants to award a contract to Continue reading →

Valdosta confused about water uses

Is there an outdoor water restriction in Valdosta, or isn’t there? The city and the newspaper seem confused about that. Also remember much of Lowndes County gets its water indirectly from Valdosta through the county’s utility system. And that with groundwater levels at all-time lows, we need to be conserving all the time anyway, and thinking about how much and what kind of growth we want.

The City of Valdosta front page says:

In the Spotlight

The City of Valdosta has issued an outdoor water restriction suspending all outdoor water uses for 72-hours, or until further notice. Click here for more.

Yet if you click there, you get this error page:

Error The page you have requested does not exist. Please click here to go back to the home page.

Similarly, there was a VDT article on that subject, but that link also goes nowhere now.

Stephen Abel wrote for WALB yesterday, Temporary water restrictions in effect for Valdosta,

Folks in Valdosta need to think twice about washing their cars, or doing anything else that uses much water, this weekend.

“The city of Valdosta is urging all citizens to immediately cease outdoor irrigation use and all other nonessential uses of water. Now and throughout the weekend,” said Public Information Officer Sementha Mathews.

Severe vibrations in the water pumps is what put them out of commission. “The city’s water treatment plant experienced some mechanical issues this week with two of its raw water well pumps which caused the low levels in water,” said Mathews.

So, did the city fix its pumps? Or is it just confused about what to do?

WCTV posted this update, and seemed to indicate the water restrictions were still in place:

The City of Valdosta sincerely thanks the citizens who responded quickly to its request today to cease all outdoor irrigation and non-essential use of water. Currently, there are no water quality issues in the system, and the water provided by the city is safe for all purposes.

People should be conserving all the time anyway. These suggestions from the city are pretty good for a start:

Continue reading →

Coal ash at Plant Scherer considered harmful for your health

Penny-wise, pound foolish, that's coal and coal ash, we're all discovering.

S. Heather Duncan wrote for the Macon Telegraph 14 April 2012, Plant Scherer ash pond worries neighbors as Georgia Power buys, levels homes,

The home among the trees was supposed to be Mark Goolsby's inheritance. His 78-year-old mother now lives in the large, white, wood farmhouse that his family built before the Civil War.

But Goolsby says he'll never live there now.

That's because across the street and through those trees is one of the largest coal ash ponds in the country. It belongs to Plant Scherer, a coal-fired plant that came to the neighborhood considerably later than the Goolsby family. In the mid-1970s, Goolsby said, “when (Georgia Power) bought 350 acres from my dad, they told him we'd never know they were there.”

Those acres are now part of an unlined pond where Georgia Power deposits about 1,000 pounds of toxic coal ash a day. Neither federal nor Georgia rules require groundwater monitoring around the pond. The federal Toxic Release Inventory shows that in 2010 alone, the pond received ash containing thousands of pounds of heavy metals and radioactive compounds including arsenic, vanadium, and chromium.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that up to 1 in 50 residents nationally who live near ash ponds could get cancer from the arsenic leaking into wells. The EPA also predicts that unlined ash ponds can increase other health risks, such as damage to the liver, kidneys and central nervous system, from contaminants such as lead.

A massive 2008 spill from a Tennessee coal ash pond led to greater scrutiny of the dams that hold these ponds in place, and the EPA promised new rules for storing coal ash. The process led to broader awareness of a more long-term health threat: groundwater contamination from the ponds.

So what's Georgia Power's solution?

Monroe County property records show Georgia Power has spent about $1.1 million buying property near Plant Scherer between 2008 and the end of 2010. But the true number may be higher.

They're going to have to keep doing that until they buy up a lot more property, I predict.

Wouldn't it be cheaper for the future bottom line of Georgia Power and its parent the Southern Company to invest in solar and wind power?

-jsq

East coast wind energy basket

Claudia Collier went to a Bureau of Ocean Energy Management public meeting yesterday at the Coastal Georgia Center in Savannah, and said:

“I suggest you designate the East Coast as the wind energy basket.”
According to Orlando Montoya with GBP yesterday, Offshore Oil Proposal Fuels Debate, she added:
“We have at least five areas out there on the shallow shelf that have designated as very promising for wind. And I just believe that once the East Coast is opened up to oil and gas, they will just take over and wind will go by the wayside.”

Oil exploration, like nuclear, is a distraction from getting on with renewable wind, wave, and solar energy independence. Let’s do the study for energy reliability in Georgia including using the large offshore wind opportunity. Remember the BP Gulf oil spill! What do you get with a wind spill? Um, wind?

The first Claudia Collier quote is by Mary Landers in SavannahNow today, Off-shore Savannah drilling talk draws support, questions. Mary Landers concluded:

The comment period on the document remains open until May 30. A decision on allowing exploration is expected by the end of the year.
Continue reading →

Videos @ LCC 2012 04 10

Your county commission might have a problem with transparency when no item in a voting session takes more than a few seconds longer than the invocation and pledge. Or perhaps a public hearing in which the public is not invited to speak.

Another five minute meeting, like the previous morning’s four (Chairman’s count) or five (VDT’s count) minute work session. They did not spend even one minute on any item of the agenda.

We did get to learn that the cryptic

7.a. Seminole Circle Property

is owned by the county which wants to sell it off. Commissioner Richard Raines even read from Georgia Code the reason why the county could do that without putting it up for bids. If you did have any objection, or maybe you wanted to buy it, you’re too late, because a few seconds after we learned what it was, they sold it off. That was the longest item, at 1 minute and 20 seconds.

They didn’t mention that the subject property is apparently a splinter of a much larger 538.31 acre parcel, 0172 119, which is presumably the “land application site” they referred to. According to the 8 December 2009 minutes they use it as a hay field. After land application of what? Continue reading →

Videos @ ZBOA 2012 03 06

The Valdosta-Lowndes County Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBOA) had a somewhat unusual case to start out its March meeting, of someone wanting to revert to a previous zoning after the County Commission had approved a rezoning. The owner wants to do a development, but doesn’t have the resources in this economy, so wants to go back to agricultural zoning to make a little money while waiting. It was complicated, with issues of wetlands, costs, advice by county staff, and small business employment. Watch and see!


View Larger Map
They also had a sign request from Denny’s, with input from the neighboring Mobil station and others.

Both of these cases were numbered 2012-01 (one from the county and one from the city). How can they be numbered 01? If I understand correctly, these were the first cases ZBOA has received this year, and this was the first ZBOA meeting this year. That could be an indication of the state of the local economy.

ZBOA mostly considers Continue reading →

Videos @ LCC 2012 03 27

Here are videos of the entire 27 March 2012 Regular Session of the Lowndes County Commission (LCC). The audio feed is coming directly from the Commission’s own audio system. We don’t know why County Manager Joe Pritchard is frequently barely audible, nor why the microphone at the audience podium sometimes seems hardly to be working, nor why Commissioners ask people in the audience to speak when there is no microphone pointing at the audience.

Some of these videos have already been blogged:

Here’s a playlist:


Videos
Regular Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 27 March 2012.
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE).

-jsq

The costs of coal on your neighbors’ health

We can’t afford the costs of coal on our health.

John Sepulvado wrote for CNN Radio 1 April 2012, A power plant, cancer and a small town’s fears,

The two of them invested their life savings building their home. It’s a large ranch house on several acres, and the plan was the two of them would leave it for their sons and grandchildren. They gave up that dream after Maddox’s mother developed a rare form of ear cancer and died after living at the home for three years.

“I’m not going to bring my grandchildren up in this,” Maddox says. “Anybody who does would be a fool, I think.”

The problem, Maddox explains, is now he and his neighbors are getting sick. For Maddox, the first signs of trouble would come in the middle of the night, when he would wake up with nose bleeds mixed with clear mucus. Then his muscles started twitching, and then he got kidney disease, and then sclerosis of the liver.

Where does he live? Down the road from Plant Scherer in Juliette, Georgia: the nation’s dirtiest coal plant.

Georgia Power’s solution? Buy houses like his, cap the well, and raze the house.

Better solution? Get off of health-destroying moribund coal and get on with clean distributed wind and solar, for the profit (even to Georgia Power), for energy independence, for resilience, and yes, for our health.

-jsq