Tag Archives: Agriculture

Return to agriculture, historic preservation, and personal services @ GLPC 2015-03-30

While Vallotton Farms wants to revert to Estate Agricultural, 300x238 Parcel 0108 173, in Vallotton Farms, by John S. Quarterman, 30 March 2015 Vickers and Edward Jennings LLC want denser zoning. It’s not clear what the Valdosta historic preservation case or the Lake Park personal services case are about, since the county still doesn’t publish board packets. Note that Vallotton Farms (both the part outlined in red that appears to be the subject of the rezoning and the bigger part west of Bemiss Road) is on Cherry Creek, upstream from the dam, and upstream from Cherry Creek Sink on the Withlacoochee River, which leaks into our drinking water in the Floridan Aquifer. Better agriculture upstream from that than other possibilities.

Here’s the agenda. Continue reading

Green corridors are good for people, business, plants, and animals

Some of this is happening locally: Valdosta is planting trees along Hill Avenue, Lowndes County is building Naylor Park with a boat ramp that will be part of the Alapaha River Water Trail and VLPRA has long been thinking about a blueway on the Withlacoochee River, where it already has a string of parks and ramps. Valdosta has the Azalea City Trail across several parks and VSU. Imagine if that Trail extended a little farther on each end, connecting the Withlacoochee River and the Alapaha River: a greenway between two blueways. Imagine if Lowndes County planted trees in that concrete median in Bemiss Road. Imagine a bus running down that parkway….

Janice Astbury, the nature of cities, 29 March 2015, Green Transport Routes Are Social-Cultural-Ecological Corridors,

…natural corridors do not appear on the standard online GPS systems that people increasingly use to plan their routes. In other cases, the path is suddenly interrupted by infrastructure hostile to pedestrians and cyclists. It is clear that green and active transport routes are an afterthought, an add-on, rather than a core part of the city’s transport strategy.

Local government should invest in developing and maintaining the natural connective tissue of the city. In the same way that significant investment is made in arterial roads because they are believed to serve everyone and to connect up vital places, so inviting connective green infrastructure should be supported. The canals, footpaths, and cycleways that provide routes for active transport should appear prominently on maps and signage. Whole systems should be indicated when possible, even when portions of them are currently inaccessible, in order to enhance system understanding, and to encourage thinking about connecting up fragmented corridors.

Few people complain when a county or city spends millions of dollars on Continue reading

Solar panels or plants must be on new commercial roofs in France

No different than requiring proportions of parking spaces: here’s one way to push the solar deployment curve up faster and hasten the year that most of the world’s power comes from the sun.

Agence France-Press 19 March 2015, France decrees new rooftops must be covered in plants or solar panels,

Rooftops on new buildings built in commercial zones in France must either be partially covered in plants or solar panels, under a law approved on Thursday.

Green roofs have an isolating effect, helping reduce the amount of energy needed to heat a building in winter and cool it in summer. The argument for divesting from fossil fuels is becoming overwhelming Read more

They also retain rainwater, thus helping reduce problems with runoff, while favouring biodiversity and giving birds a place to nest in the urban jungle, ecologists say.

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Valdosta Wastewater presentation to Greenlaw, Save Our Suwannee, SRWMD, Hamilton Co., and WWALS 2015-03-17

Due to requests from Greenlaw in Atlanta and Save Our Suwannee in Florida, WWALS Watershed Coalition asked the City of Valdosta for a presentation on their wastewater situation. Valdosta presented less than two weeks later, and brought their entire hierarchy related to this issue, from the mayor on down. Plus Lowndes County, which isn’t even responsible for Valdosta’s wastewater, was represented by their Chairman and a Commissioner. Not all questions could be answered that quickly, but many were.

The slides are on the LAKE website and the videos are on the LAKE YouTube channel; see below. See also Valdosta’s Sanitary Sewer System Improvements web page.

At the meeting, clockwise from Tim Carroll (introducing), were: Continue reading

Renewables outcompete oil –National Bank of Abu Dhabi

A Middle East bank says:

300x309 Ambitious scenario, in Financing the Future of Energy, by National Bank of Abu Dhabi, March 2015 Renewables accounted for 57 per cent of global power investment in new generation in the period 2000-2013.

And that’s even with all the legal and financial roadblocks thrown up by entrenched fossil fuel companies and electric utilities. The report recommends aligning policy and finance:

To deliver a sustainable energy system for the long term, the financial community and policymakers need to work collaboratively: stimulating and de-risking investment, and developing innovative structures which can support the financing of future energy.

With that collaboration, the Middle East and North Africa could see this kind of energy deployment scenario: Continue reading

Videos: Day 2 of Budget Hearings @ LCC Budget 2015-03-04

Maybe Georgia should fund mental health facilities instead of local jails having to act as mental hospitals. On a positive note, Agriculture is an $81M industry in Lowndes County. Law, taxes, and education, in the second day which was only in the morning, of the three days of “Budget Hearings” which aren’t really hearings because nobody from the public can speak and they don’t have a budget to hear yet. See yesterday for the agenda. Here are links to videos of each item with some notes by Gretchen, followed by a video playlist. And one more day to go today. Continue reading

South Georgia Growing Local at Pine Grove Middle School this Saturday

Update 2015-01-20: Actually that’s Wednesday 21 January 2015 for Gretchen on the Chris Beckham radio show, 105.9 FM, still at 8AM.

Gretchen Quarterman will be on the radio 7:30 AM this morning on the Scott James show 92.1 FM and 8:00 AM tomorrow January 21st on the Chris Beckham show 105.9 FM, talking about South Georgia Growing Local 2015, a full day of five parallel tracks of talks about soil, planting, fruits, vegetables, oils, permaculture, hydroponics, bees, bugs, invasive plants, citrus, chickens, goats, hams, cooking, water, and solar power, all here below the gnat line in our loamy soil and above our Floridan Aquifer. The conference is 9AM to 5PM Saturday January 24th 2015 at Pine Grove Middle School, on River Road north of Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia. See you there!

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Sabal Trail newspaper assertions contradicted by Spectra corporate documents and FERC filings –John S. Quarterman to FERC

“I ask you and FERC to stop Sabal Trail from telling newspapers things that Spectra Energy’s own corporate documents refute, and to start paying attention to multiple requests by county commissions and other affected parties.”

Back in December, Spectra’s Andrea Grover and Brian Fahrenthold were “not familiar” with Spectra’s lengthy safety rap sheet (see above picture). Yesterday’s VDT had Sabal Trail: Eminent domain accusation ‘hard to believe’ by Joe Adgie. Meanwhile, the Moultrie Observer has picked up the VDT story. Maybe some newspapers will also publish better information than what trained pipeline PR people seem not to remember or believe, despite copious evidence of the actual facts.

Filed with FERC 19 November 2014 accession Number: 20141119-5232. The attachments are in the PDF, and they’re all in the links in the HTML version below. -jsq Continue reading

Agriculture or residential: Whitewater compromise @ LCC 2014-11-11

7.b. Public Hearing REZ-2014-18 White, Whitewater Rd

The county staff and Commission listened at length to opponents and proponents of a rezoning back to agriculture with no conditions, and came up with a compromise, in the 11 November 2014 Lowndes County Commission Regular Session. It’s curious to me that people are more concerned about a few cows of very minimal effect, rather than about a yard-wide pipeline that could adversely affect the whole county.

7.b. Public Hearing REZ-2014-18 White, Whitewater Rd

Video. Here’s the board packet item, thanks to County Planner Jason Davenport in response to an open records request. In response to a question from Commissioner Demarcus Marshall he said he though the Planning Commission 6 to 0 recommendation for denial would have been different if Continue reading

Videos: Church, brokerage, signage, substation, agriculture @ GLPC 2014-10-27

Last seen at ZBOA 2013-03-05 about a sign, Macedonia First Baptist Church now wants to expand in a residential neighborhood. One applicant wants to rezone from R-10 to Estate Agriculture. All that and more two weeks ago at the Planning Commission.

Greater Lowndes Planning Commission (GLPC)

Lowndes County City of Valdosta City of Dasher City of Hahira City of Lake Park

REGULAR MONTHLY MEETING

AGENDA

Lowndes County South Health District Administrative Office
325 West Savannah Avenue
Monday, October 27, 2014* 5:30 P.M. * Public Hearing

Continue reading