Category Archives: Water

Greyfield Villas

Previously discussing the Glen Laurel subdivision on Old Pine Road near Bemiss, several of the people speaking against at the County Commission meeting mentioned the Greyfield subdivision. That’s Greyfield Villas; see the entrance sign in the picture on the right. It’s in Lowndes County but not in Valdosta; somebody correct me if I’m wrong abo ut that. In that picture it’s hard to read the sign in the background on the north side of North Oak Street Extension. Here’s a closeup:

For Rent. Just inside we see a dumpster with For Rent signs on the houses on either side: Continue reading →

Wellhead Protection Overlay, TXT-2010-01 2010 ULDC

This is about exclusion zones around wells, and maybe about restrictions on putting new wells next to pollution sources such as cotton fields.

At their 8 June 2010 regular meeting, the Lowndes County Board of Commissioners, at the recommendation of County Planner Jason Davenport, tabled revisions to the Uniform Land Development Code (ULDC) about wellhead protection. Such protections are a new requirment by the Georgia EPD, and it’s taking a while to figure out what is appropriate for the ten wells operated by the county and the 140 private community wells, many of which have trust indentures with the county that require the county to take them over if their current operators do not supply enough water, or of good enough quality.

Picture by John S.Quarterman, video by Gretchen K. Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange, 8 June 2010.

-jsq

Green Exercise for Mental Health

Quantifying something we can all feel:

ScienceDaily (May 1, 2010) — How much “green exercise” produces the greatest improvement in mood and sense of personal well-being? A new study in the American Chemical Society’s semi-monthly journal Environmental Science & Technology has a surprising answer.
The answer is likely to please people in a society with much to do but little time to do it: Just five minutes of exercise in a park, working in a backyard garden, on a nature trail, or other green space will benefit mental health.

All natural environments were beneficial including parks in urban settings. Green areas with water added something extra. A blue and green environment seems even better for health, Pretty noted.

Here’s a link to a news blurb in the journal:

Pretty says that his goal with this study is not to provide just another recommendation for individuals but to provide data that can be used in policy discussions. Those data “could translate into what the landscape guidelines are for schools or for public housing,” says Nancy Wells, associate professor of community ecology at Cornell University.

Here is a link to the actual article.

Bioengineered Eucalyptus to Replace Pine Trees?

As Steve’s Forestry Blog noted last summer:

ArborGen made a request to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to plant 260,000 flowering genetically engineered (GE) eucalyptus trees over 330 acres in seven states. USDA’s Animal Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) is processing this request. Several plantations already exist in Florida and Alabama.

The tree is Eucalyptus grandis x urophylla. The plant is a cold-hardy eucalyptus that ArborGen is developing for future commercial purposes, mainly pulp for paper.

Paul Voosen writes in Scientific American that

Even given government incentives and a price on carbon, however, ArborGen must satisfy concerns from regulators and environmental groups that its engineered trees will not, especially when gifted with the ability to resist cold, spread untrammeled through forests.

It’s easy to see pollen from such trees blowing onto neighboring land and new trees growing. And, given the tactics of a certain other GM plant producer, it’s easy to see the patent owner sueing the adjacent landowner for patent theft, even though the patented plant trespassed. This is the level of assurance that that won’t happen:

“When you talk about trees, storms happen, wind blows,” he said. “The containment is not absolute. There is the chance of some spread. Is it likely to become an invasive weed? Seems unlikely to me.”

Not very reassuring. Meanwhile, the test stations continue to spread: Continue reading →

Deforestation Floods Wiped Out the Ancient Nazca of Peru

News in Discover Magazine from ancient Peru:

The new study, published in the journal Latin American Antiquity, found that the pollen in the older layers of soil came almost entirely from huarango trees. But by A.D. 400, pollen from corn and cotton plants had replaced the tree pollen, suggesting that the Nazca people had chopped down the forests to make room for agricultural fields. About AD 500, a major El Niño built up in the Pacific, deluging the nearby Andes with rain. Walls of water and mud washed down the valley and over the denuded landscape, sweeping away food crops, buildings and artifacts. Beresford-Jones compared it with the 1997-98 El Niño, which left the city of Ica 6 feet underwater [Los Angeles Times]. The floods of A.D. 500 were many times worse, the researchers say.

Does this sound at all like the Georgia floods of 2009?

Biggest polluters in Lowndes County

The New York Times provides an interactive map of water polluters. According to that map, derived from Environmental Protection Agency (E.P.A.) data mostly from 2004 through 2007, the biggest offenders in Lowndes County by number of violations are:

62 Moody Air Force Base
42 Arizona Chemical Company
37 Georgia Sheriffs’ Boys Ranch

These are all way ahead of Hahira’s notorious sewer system (supposed to be fixed now) and Valdosta’s Mud Creek WPCP (supposed to be being fixed now), both with 11 violations. Moody is not surprising, due to sheer size, although disappointing. The one that surprises me is the Boys Ranch.

Of course, number of violations is just one measure, but it is an interesting one.

Where and why flooding happens

Michael E. Kanell and Ty Tagami, writing in the AJC about More than 16,000 flood-related claims filed in Atlanta area, quote Robert Klein, professor of risk and insurance at Georgia State University:

Moreover, the maps that set out those high-risk areas are “woefully inadequate,” he said.
Maps should be recalibrated to account for continued development and sprawl, he said: destruction of trees, paving of roads and parking lots, addition of new homes to older areas and landscaping all change the way water drains — or doesn’t drain.

And maybe somebody should do something about that continued development and sprawl.

New Stories of Lowndes County

Here’s the Lowndes County Commission (most of it), posing about the new StormReady County designation:

We love the Valdosta Daily Times (VDT), WCTV, and WALB, but if they published anything about that, we missed it. They have space constraints, and we don’t. Local governments do a lot of good things (and other things) that don’t get reported in the traditional press. This is where LAKE comes in. Continue reading →

On the LAKE front

Citizen dialog for transparent process by the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange