6-8PM Thursday 17 July 2014
Memorial Stadium, 715 Dewey St., Waycross, GA 31501
The Environmental Protection Agency, GA Environmental Protection Division, and Georgia Department of Public Health will be present to discuss sample collection and results from the Seven Out Tank site in downtown Waycross.
EPD will also be available to address issues and answer questions regarding CSX.
From Satilla Riverkeeper’s facebook event. Here’s a map: Continue reading
Emily Davenport, Valdosta Stormwater Manager, sent a letter 2 June 2014
to attendees of the 6 May 2014 Army Corps of Engineers presentations,
with paper materials attached, and a note that they are also online at
Stormwater Division, Regional Flooding. [Not there anymore, but see updated first bullet item below. 2018-01-28 -jsq]
This one is just the presentation by the Corps.
See also: Continue reading
They vote tonight on their
opaque selection of auditing services
and to buy
an unnamed firewall replacement
among other things for unknown amounts not revealed in yesterday morning’s Work Session.
Maybe somebody should bring that up at the not-yet-scheduled
county Budget Hearings.
They will also vote on
their Luke Bryan musical neighbor balancing act
and on
reappointing Lonnie Denton for a sixth five-year term to the
Lowndes
Division of Family and Children Services (he will speak tonight)
and reappointing Willie Houseal and Gretchen Quarterman each
to a third three-year term to the
ZBOA (they spoke yesterday morning as you can see in these videos).
Also Public Hearings for
well and septic
and
a special events change to the ULDC.
The
Hahira annexation
recommended against by the Planning Commission
is still waiting for signatures from the applicants under
For Consideration,
along with a request from Finance to declare items surplus and several purchase requests
from Finance and IT.
Here’s the agenda, with links to the videos and a few notes. See also the videos of the 27 May 2014 Planning Commission meeting.
LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERSContinue reading
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, JUNE 9, 2014, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, JUNE 10, 2014, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street — 2nd Floor
He also called to be sure LAKE got this, and the Public Hearings Tuesday and Wednesday at 5:30 PM are in the City of Valdosta’s online calendar, plus there’s a much briefer story in the VDT today, and see the millage table from last year’s budget hearings. -jsq
From: Tim Carroll <tcarroll@valdostacity.com>
Date: Wed, 4 Jun 2014 14:33:35 +0000
Subject: FY 2015 BudgetHey everyone,
It is that time of year when your city government prepares its’ budget for the upcoming fiscal year. As we have experienced over the past four years, this year’s budget presents many challenges. Revenues continue to decline while expenses keep going up. Fuel alone for the city now runs around $1.7M per year and the power bill to run the city for a year is now at $3.4M. Like you have seen in your homes and businesses, these and other costs continue to rise. Major revenue sources such as the LOST tax (our largest revenue source for the General Fund) continue to decline. And the list goes on. The city has now tapped over the past several years all the reserve funds in or der to balance the budget. Those reserve funds are now gone.
I say all this to illuminate the difficult choices that are present in this year’s proposed budget. While Continue reading
An appointment to the
Lowndes
Division of Family and Children Services
and two to
ZBOA.
Public hearings for
well and septic
and
a special events change to the ULDC.
The
Hahira annexation
recommended against by the Planning Commission
is under
For Consideration,
along with a request to declare items surplus and several purchase requests.
Here’s the agenda.
LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERSContinue reading
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, JUNE 9, 2014, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, JUNE 10, 2014, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street — 2nd Floor
Solar Roadways has raised $1,884,633 in six weeks from Earth Day to now
on a goal of $1,000,000 in indiegogo
(which was already
a record for most contributors with 36,000 people at $1.5 million).
Yes, to all those who have asked me, I think it could work.
Add solar roadways to rooftop solar and solar farms and wind,
and
the EPA’s new CO2 rule (which doesn’t even do much about coal for years
and does nothing about about “natural” gas)
will seem like a quaint baby step in a few years after this happens: Continue reading
The same Energy Policy Act of 2005 that
subsidized dirty oil and fracked methane including LNG exports
also funded
that oxymoron “clean” coal such as Southern Company’s Plant Ratcliffe
in Mississippi,
ethanol production lining the pockets of Monsanto, and
the $8.3 billion loan guarantee
to Georgia Power for the new nukes at Plant Vogtle.
2005 was a very long time ago in solar PV years:
prices are halved, and installed solar power production is up more
than ten times and growing exponentially like compound interest.
We need to stop throwing money at dirty, water-sucking,
centralized baseload 20th century non-solutions and get on with
clean 21st century distributed solar and wind power
for jobs, for energy independence, and for clean air and water,
not to mention less climate change.
-jsq
Anticipating water and wastewater needs,
coordinating with Florida and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers,
comparing water usage to available resources in the face of droughts,
floods, and climate change,
Georgia’s regional water management council for this area
considered all this and more when it met
in Valdosta to finalize a document:
Regional Assessment of Implementation Status.
Here are videos of the whole meeting.
Video. Attendees included:
All thermal power generation requires water for cooling, with nukes so vulnerable no private insurer will cover them anyway and failing frequently in recent heat waves. “Natural” gas is no better than coal or oil for water use; maybe worse because all those pipelines vulnerable to backhoes or corrosion or attack. Even hydro is vulnerable to lack of rainfall. Carbon sequestration doesn’t get good marks, while conservation and efficiency get rave reviews from a study of insurance perspectives on power generation. What’s the one power source this article about insurance risks does not say is fragile in the face of climate change? Hint: look up.
Limiting Liability in the Greenhouse: Insurance Risk-Management Strategies in the Context of Global Climate Change, by Christina Ross, Evan Mills, and Sean B. Hecht, Stanford Environmental Law Journal and the Stanford Journal of International Law, Symposium: on Climate Change Risk, Vol. 26A/43A:251, 2007.
Supply-side energy choices that may be made to reduce the carbon-intensity of energy services have their own distinctive liability characteristics. For example, switching to lower-carbon electricity generation technology based on thermal power plant technology (e.g., by substituting natural gas for coal) results in systems that are still heavily dependent on water resources for cooling. The Electric Power Research Institute has documented considerable risks to traditionally cooled power generation systems as a result of climate change-induced droughts.242 Similarly, “zero-emissions” hydroelectric generating systems are also sensitive to rainfall patterns.
242 Denis Albrecht, Electric Power Research Institute, Presentation: Climate Impact on Water Availability for Electricity Generation (April 11, 2006) (presentation slides associated with the Electric Power Research Institute).
Centralization considered harmful
Continue reading
Comment on facebook 10 May 2014 and he told me the same by telephone.
It is clear a full watershed wide study must be completed before any decisions can be made.
As established in this first study—The City of Valdosta is the recipient-not the origin- of the flood waters. While it confirms what we already knew, my job is to try and keep the ball rolling forward. Engage congressional leaders, secure funding and find long term, sustainable solutions that benefit all communities within the watershed basin. A levee by itself is not the answer.
–Tim Carroll
This was a comment on Continue reading