Where is the Alapaha Water Treatment Plant that has had 20 violations in the past 10 years, for which the Lowndes County Commission had Lovell Engineering write a letter to GA EPD and then approved a no-bid contract to the same firm? April Huntley supplied this pictorial answer. -jsq
Take Highway 84 east from Valdosta GA:
After passing through Naylor GA look for this neighborhood on your right (Lake Alapaha Hidden Cove):
Continue readingAt the Waycross Seven Out Superfund Site meeting, caller Anthony Samsel said (42 minutes and 10 seconds into the video) of a site in Massachusetts:
I was the first person to track contamination of the ground to aquifers that travel several miles; plastics, formaldehyde, from a plastics manufacturing plant, and there was contamination of city wells with a lot of cancer clusters and a lot of sick, dead, and dying people.
He was talking about the Wells G & H Superfund Site in Woburn, MA, where, according to EPA,
The groundwater was contaminated with industrial solvents, called volatile organic compounds (VOCs), such as trichloroethylene (TCE) and tetrachloroethylene (PCE). Soil on the five properties was contaminated with VOCs, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and pesticides. Sediments in the Aberjona River were contaminated with PAHs and heavy metals such as chromium, zinc, mercury and arsenic.
Thirty years later, that one is still toxic.
In a 29 September 2011 coment Samsel said Continue reading
The
Moody Family Housing just rezoned is in a recharge zone for
our drinking water supply, the Floridan Aquifer.
What will keep runoff from this subdivision from feeding through
the wetlands and sinkhole into the aquifer?
Should we depend on county engineering, which never put in
the traffic calming measures
required for nearby Nelson Hill, or other county staff,
who gave waivers for other required items there, or just didn’t
require them to be implemented?
What assurances can we get from our county government that Moody Family
Housing won’t pollute our drinking water?
The above map is a detail from
Lowndes County’s own
Water Resource Protection Districts
Ordinance (WRPDO) overlay Map.
Here’s an even more detailed view courtesy
VALOR GIS (turn on Streams and Waterbodies, NWI Wetlands, Muncipal Boundaries, and Groundwater Rechard Areas): Continue reading
People are still getting sick and dying in Waycross after
Chemical company Seven Out closed and left a toxic waste site.
It’s now a Superfund site, which doesn’t mean anything has
been cleaned up.
10 out of 30 City Hall employees have cancer and 8 have already died.
Many living around the site are sick, and teachers and school children.
What will Georgia Reps. Jason Spencer and Ellis Black who attended do after that 29 August 2013 meeting?
Will action wait until more people die?
And to which landfill were those precipitated solids taken?
State representative Jason Spencer District 180
said the state health report should be finished in October,
and was quick to point to
Rep. Ellis Black District 174 as representing the specific area.
Rep. Black said they’d just heard about this and would be looking into it, and:
I’m a farmer from Clyattville…. I spent some time in the farm-supply business and I have messed with agricultural chemicals all my life and I’ve got a lot of experience there. And I can tell you that I know firsthand something about the danger and the challenges of dealing with these really sensitive products and how minute amount can cause problems. And it’s something that’s Continue reading
In a recharge zone for
our drinking water supply, the Floridan Aquifer,
is the Pecan Row Landfill
with its
PCBs and
coal ash.
That proposed
landfill pipeline requiring cutting through the vegetative buffer
along an unnamed tributary to Spring Branch?
Also at least partly in the recharge zone. Continue reading
I wonder who else is sick of sewage?
AP, today, Sick Of Spewing Sewage, Georgia Neighbors File Lawsuit,
The Georgia Environmental Protection Division responded to a Rochelle resident’s complaint of waste spewing across portions of a 10-block area in March. The agency concluded there had been a major spill of more than 10,000 gallons of raw sewage. A March 29 letter from state regulators says Rochelle city officials were aware of “frequent spill events” in the past but had made “minimal to no progress” in fixing the problems.
The complaint and the lawsuit both started with 67-year-old John Jackson, a retired Rochelle city maintenance worker who reached out to state regulators and the nonprofit environmental law firm Earthjustice. The firm filed suit on behalf of him and seven co-plaintiffs.
Well, of course our local
county seat
and county
here are working on fixing their sewage problems…. Continue reading
Apparently
ADS’s landfill gas project
wants to take in methane from the closed old landfill, as well,
according to a public notice today that proposes
a pipeline from the old
Evergreen Landfill
to the
Pecan Row Landfill that has the natural gas turbine.
Nevermind
the
$27,500 fine for PCBs or
that
coal ash in the landfill that nobody on the Lowndes County Commission
or Valdosta City Council or Deep South Solid Waste Authority (SWA) can be bothered to check on.
Nevermind the
unaccounted for tipping fees
or
host fees.
I wonder if cutting through that vegetative buffer will let the coal ash and PCBs reach the Withlacoochee River more easily?
The yellow path indicated for the pipeline is just a guess.
In the VDT today, PUBLIC ADVISORY NOTICE,
The proposed project located west of Valdosta, in Lowndes County, GA along Wetherington Lane near the Pecan Row Landfill facility (2995 Wetherington Lane, Valdosta, GA, 31601) involves buffer encroachments necessary to install a 30-inch gas pipeline. This pipeline will Continue reading
Unanimous approval for
a third no-bid contract this month for Lovell Engineering, this time for
for a sports complex in Hahira,
but surprisingly
the
opaque pest control bids
were tabled indefinitely.
Also unanimously approved were
three new fine-processing positions for the Clerk of Court,
the
Little River stream gauge,
The special presentation was for
the retirement of Gene Roberts from Public Works.
No mention of the previous morning’s presentations by
Judge John Kent Edwards Jr.
asking for a new State Court Judge
or
about fines moving from Sheriff to State Court.
Dr. Michael Noll said
Moody AFB once again couldn’t get access
to the site for the Moody Family Housing the Commission already approved,
despite the sinkhole on the adjoining land.
Here’s the agenda, with links to the videos and a few notes. See also videos of the previous morning’s Work Session.
LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERSContinue reading
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, AUGUST 26, 2013, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, AUGUST 27, 2013, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor
The
request for a new State Court Judge
by Judge John Kent Edwards Jr. took 27 and a half minutes,
plus his
eight minute explanation of fines moving from Sheriff to State Court.
More people might have showed up to hear if anybody had known about
these items.
Commissioners asked a surprising number of questions about them
and about
the
Little River stream gauge
and the
opaque pest control bids.
Of course, then people might have seen
the proposed third no-bid contract to the same firm this month.
They vote tonight.
Here’s the agenda, with links to the videos and a few notes:
LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, AUGUST 26, 2013, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, AUGUST 27, 2013, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor
- Call to Order
- Invocation
- Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag
- Special Presentation
See separate post.
- Minutes for Approval
As is his custom, Chairman Bill Slaughter directed Commissioners to tell the Clerk of any changes, so we don’t know what they are. Then he introduced the special presentation out of agenda order.
- Work Session — August 12, 2013
- Regular Session — August 13, 2013
- For Consideration
- Environmental Engineering Services for GDOT Land Deed for Parks and Recreation
Invisible Engineer proposed a third no-bid contract for same firm proposed this month; see separate post.
- USGS Funding Agreement for Hwy 122 Stream Gauge
This time Emergency Director Ashley Tye said it’s on the Little River, why it’s there, how it’s maintained, etc. See separate post.
- Budget Adjustment — Personnel Costs
Judge John Kent Edwards Jr. explained that many of the people going through his court or paying fines in Lowndes County don’t live here; they come off of I-75, and now the fine-collecting needs to move from the Sheriff’s office to the Clerk of Court; see separate post.
- Bid-Pest Control Service
Pest control for an unannounced amount with no bond from one of two unannounced bids. See separate post.
- Reports-County Manager
County Manager Joe Pritchard requested an Executive Session for pending litigation and they adjourned into that.
- Citizens Wishing to be Heard Please State Name And Address
Here’s a video playlist:
Work Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC)
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 26 August 2013.
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE).
-jsq
Could you have guessed what this was about from the agenda item?
Why do we the taxpayers of this $130,000 or $173,000 have to guess?
They vote tonight about what was proposed
at the
26 August 2013 Work Session of the Lowndes County Commission.
6.c. Budget Adjustment — Personnel Costs
Judge John Kent Edwards Jr. explained that many of the people going through his court or paying fines in Lowndes County don’t live here; they come off of I-75. The Sheriff’s office, in attempting to comply with state law, decided it didn’t want to continuing handling fines. There’s a piece of new legislation proposing to have the Clerk of Court process and retain all the relevant information; Judge Edwards thinks it will pass next year. This requires shifting funding from the Sheriff’s office to the Courts. But it will simplify processing (and presumably costs) by not having it go through both Sheriff and State Court. Meanwhile, Judge Edwards is not aware of any other county that still does this processing through the Sheriff’s department.
Here’s Part 1 of 2: Continue reading