Tag Archives: Brad Lofton

Col. Ricketts on Wiregrass Power, LLC

I received the appended message from Col. Ricketts, Project Manager
for the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA).
My response will follow. -jsq

From: “Allan Ricketts” <aricketts@industrialauthority.com>

To: “‘John S. Quarterman'”

Cc: “‘Michael Noll'”, “‘Susan Wehling'”, “‘Brad Lofton'” <blofton@industrialauthority.com>

Subject: Wiregrass Power, LLC

Date: Wed, 22 Dec 2010 12:48:28 -0500

Norman Bennett, Gary Minchew,

Mary Gooding, Jerry Jennett (Chair),

J. Stephen Gupton (Attorney),

Brad Lofton (Executive Director)

Hello John,

It was good to see you at the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority
Board Meeting on Tuesday evening. I encourage you to attend more often.

I’ve attached copies of several recent press releases that we discussed
during the meeting. I look forward to seeing these posted on your
information exchange for folks to read.

Please let me know if you would like a copy of Dr. Christopher Teaf’s .ppt

Continue reading →

Where’s the wood to come from and who will buy the electricity?



Here’s video of what I asked at the recent VLCIA biomass event
(6 Dec 2010) and the answers from the panel.

So there’s actually not any new study of wood sourcing
(Brad Lofton told me after the meeting that the study had been “completed”
after we met in June),
and the study that exists is not publicly available.
Someone from Sterling promised me after the meeting to redact the
private parts of the wood sourcing study and provide the rest
for public distribution. We’ll see.

Regarding my question about who will buy the electricity and
whether we’ll end up like Plant Scherer, selling electricity
to Florida while keeping the pollution here, the answer was:

Continue reading →

Brad Lofton’s Selective Memory

I see by yesterday’s VDT story about the Lowndes County Board of Education (LCBOE)
meeting that Brad Lofton, executive directory of the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA), is reported as saying:

The people … that are opposing the plant … have yet to agree
to sit down and talk with the authority directly about the plant.

He said somehing similar at the 29 Sep 2010 meeting of the
Valdosta Board of Education (VBOE).
Except then he at least admitted that I had gotten the VLCIA presentation.
Yet even then he forgot about the other people in this picture
of that 10 June 2010 meeting at the VLCIA offices:




Pictured: Natasha Fast, Angela Manning, Allan Ricketts (Project Manager), Geraldine Fairell, Ken Klanicki, Brad Lofton (Executive Director)

Even earlier, Dr. Brad Bergstrom and Seth Gunning got a presentation from
the VLCIA.

I pointed all this out

a month ago, after the VBOE incident.

Why does Brad Lofton, a public employee,
keep standing up before elected bodies and
saying something that is not true?

-jsq

Biomass: “a sub-prime carbon mortgage”



BirdLife International writes about

Bioenergy – a carbon accounting time bomb:

The first study, carried out by Joanneum Research, identifies a major
flaw in the way carbon savings from forest-derived biomass are calculated
in EU law as well as under UNFCCC and Kyoto Protocol mechanisms. It
concludes that harvesting trees for energy creates a ‘carbon debt’:
the carbon contained in the trees is emitted upfront while trees grow
back over many years. The true climate impact of so-called woody biomass
in the short to medium term can, as a result, be worse than the fossil
fuels it is designed to replace.

“The EU is taking out a sub-prime carbon mortgage that it may never be
able to pay back. Biomass policy needs to be fixed before this regulatory
failure leads to an ecological crisis that no bail out will ever fix”,
commented Ariel Brunner, Head of EU Policy at BirdLife International.

Hm, this seems to contradict VLCIA’s assertion that
the document they gave me proves their proposed wood
incinerator would be carbon neutral.
That document openly admits that biomass produces more CO2 than
coal, and calls for national or regional studies, which didn’t exist.
Nonetheless,

when I pointed that out (again) to VLCIA Executive Director
Brad Lofton,
he asserted that

“Carbon is absolutely not an issue with our plant.”
Hm, well, now there is a study, and it shows that burning woody
biomass is not carbon neutral.

And this excess production of CO2 isn’t limited to

burning whole trees.
Looking at the actual

study:

When residues are left on the forest floor, they gradually decompose. A
great deal of the carbon contained in their biomass is released over time
into the atmosphere and a small fraction of the carbon is transformed
into humus and soil carbon. When the residues are burnt as bioenergy,
the carbon that would have been oxidized over a longer time and carbon
that would have been stored in the soil is released immediately to the
atmosphere. This produces a short term decrease of the dead wood and
litter pools that is later translated into a decrease of soil carbon.

So it doesn’t really matter that VLCIA asserts that their proposed
plant will never burn whole trees.
The tops and limbs they want to burn produce the same problem.

The study also includes comparisons with CO2 saved by
biomass offsetting coal burning.
The catch for the proposed biomass incinerator in Lowndes County
is that it’s not offsetting anything: it’s in addition to the
coal burned at Plant Scherer.
We could offset some coal through efficiency and conservation,
plus solar power.
None of those things produce any emissions.

Michael Bryant: “the appalling silence”

Pastor Michael Bryant expands on
his previous letter.

-jsq

Dear Pastors and fellow laborers in the Gospel of our Lord and Savior,

I was born and raised here in Lowndes County. Today I am as disturbed as I
was in 1973 when I, along with 42 other students, four ministers and their
wives, were jailed for protesting unfair treatment of students in the
Lowndes County School System. We were arrested while standing in the
parking lot awaiting to enter the building for a meeting called by
the Lowndes County Board of Education at their office on St. Augustine
Road. The meeting was supposed to be a good faith gesture designed to
mediate an amicable solution to the picketing which had been in process for
nearly six months. After being arrested, we were moved from Big 12 in a
prison truck in the dead of night. We were to be housed in the Cook County
jail and none of our parents knew where we were. When we exited the truck,
both sides of the walk way upon which we had to walk were lined with
numerous State Troopers and other Law Enforcement officers sporting riot
gear and shotguns. On the following day they refused to feed us breakfast.
We began to complain and the judge came upstairs dressed in his robe. He
said “I want you to stop making noise, and if you don’t, I can make you
stop.”

When we complained again, the cell in which we were jailed was sprayed
down with tear gas. We had one toilet and one sink in which to clear our
eyes. These are facts that went unreported by the papers. In fact they
said we were rabble rousers. The late Ralph Harrington signed all our
bonds, and we went through a lengthy trial, represented by the late Mr. C.
B. King, Sr., of Albany, GA. At the close of the trial all charges were
dismissed and expunged from our records.

As a student then, I witnessed the appalling silence of men and women of
God who preached the hell out of people on Sundays, collected their checks,
and went home untouched by the happenings in the community. This was much
like the appalling silence of ministers who sat on the sidelines while Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr., placed his life on the line for “the least of
these.”

Some years ago, Rev. Floyd Rose, two of my sisters and several other

Continue reading →

Phyllis Stallworth: “I am gravely concerned and disappointed”

I received this on 7 Oct for posting.

-jsq

Valdosta is an innovative city with expanding opportunities for
our growing community. Valdosta has recently celebrated 150 years of
progress. As a citizen, I have spent most of my adult life experiencing
this progress. I’ve seen economic developments through recruitment,
retention and expansions that benefit our city, with tremendous support
from our communities. I’ve seen job opportunities that improve the
livelihood of our citizens, through the recruitment of national companies
who have established their businesses in our great city.

Our school systems are innovative, and they serve as models for
other school systems in our state, with great parental involvement and
encouragement toward improvements. Our University and College systems are
some of the best in the state, with phenomenal enrollment and retention
of traditional and non-traditional students in our city and abroad.

Our religious establishments are growing from leaps and bounds with more
and more people becoming citizens of our great city, who are leaving
larger unsafe, polluted, and unproductive cities, for a safer, less
polluted and productive small town lifestyle, such as our wonderful
city provides.

The development of small businesses, through our downtown projects, have
been a great success story for our city. The innovative improvements
make our city one of the most visited in our state. We pride ourselves
as a Titletown community, through continuous progress over 150 years.

When I contemplate our shared 150 years of progress, I find it disturbing
that our Industrial Authority would make such a bad decision as to bring
a Biomass incinerator into our community. As an advocate for the welfare
of children, women, and families I am gravely concerned and disappointed
that such a project has been endorsed by leaders who were elected to
carry out the wishes of the community for the betterment of all citizens.

Continue reading →

Excuse me? Nobody but me had gotten a biomass presentation from VLCIA?

An open letter to Brad Lofton and Allan Ricketts,

Watching

a video of your speeches to the Valdosta Board of Education (VBOE),
I was astonished to see Brad Lofton say nobody in the room but me
had sat down and gotten a presentation from VLCIA!

Brad Bergstrom has already reminded you that

Bergstrom and Seth Gunning sat down with VLCIA months ago.
I hope you weren’t failing to count Dr. Bergstrom
because he wasn’t physically in the same room at the time
you made that astonishing assertion.

And what about these people?


More

here.

Sitting directly in front of Lofton in those pictures of that June 10th
meeting in the VLCIA offices is Pastor Angela Manning.

I see later in the same video Allan Ricketts contradicts
Brad Lofton by referring to that very meeting that I organized on June 10th.
Yet one of Ricketts or Lofton (I can’t see which)
at the very end of the video claims VLCIA answered every one
of Pastor Manning’s concerns.



As I already pointed out directly to Brad Lofton before
the VBOE meeting, listening to the VLCIA persuaded Pastor Manning to
oppose the biomass plant, organizing

a town hall
at which numerous people spoke about the biomass plant, mostly against.
In case there is any doubt as to Pastor Manning’s position on the
biomass plant, she has since

spelled it out in a letter directly to Brad Lofton:

“I stand with the NAACP, the SCLC, the American Lung Association, and any other group fighting against the bio mass plant.”

In my

above message to Lofton, (sent, once again before
the VBOE meeting) I listed four unanswered concerns from the

June 10 meeting at VLCIA.
He responded by ignoring half of them
and inadequately answering two of them.
When I pointed this out to him,
he failed to answer any of them and asked for
assistance in recruiting jobs.
When I

offered such assistance
his

whole response was:

“We’re moving forward with permits in hand. Have a nice day.”

All the messages cited in the preceding paragraph were exchanged
before the VBOE meeting.
Yet Lofton and Ricketts stood up before the VBOE and asserted
all concerns had been answered.
Is that how someone acts who is seriously trying to answer concerns
of the community?

I do not appreciate Brad Lofton and Allan Ricketts using my name
to support the misinformation they conveyed in their
speeches to the Valdosta Board of Education.

When I first heard about this proposed biomass plant,
I thought it was green energy.
Attempts to obtain objective information about plant emissions
and fuel sources for all the similar nearby plants, together with
repeated presentations such as this from Brad Lofton and
Allan Ricketts, have persuaded me and others to oppose the
proposed biomass incinerator.

-jsq

John S. Quarterman

Videos of pro and con biomass speakers at VBOE

Karen Noll took these videos at the

29 September 2010
meeting of the Valdosta Board of Education (VBOE).
Much more about that meeting here.

-jsq
Dr. Gretchen Bielmyer speaking against the biomass plant.


Dr. Brad Bergstrom speaking against the biomass plant.

Brad Lofton and Allan Ricketts
speaking for the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA) and the biomass plant.

Michael Noll: “enough is enough”

Here is a followup to
the VDT story in the previous post.

-jsq

Dear Lowndes County Commissioners.

My sincere thanks for letting me present my concerns at yesterday’s
meeting. It is very much appreciated.

Please understand that what I presented is based on facts. I have
worked for ten years at VSU as an educator, and my students and
colleagues know me as a straightforward person. I may ruffle some
feathers at times, but I clearly was brought up in a no-nonsense
household.

If Mr. Lofton would not continue to ignore our concerns (as he again
did at the BOE meeting), to misrepresent organizations such as the
Sierra Club (an organization I happen to support), or to keep
bringing up names of those who endorse the biomass plant (yet
conveniently overlooks a conflict of interest), I  probably would
have never brought this up. However, during these past couple weeks,
and particularly with his behavior at the BOE meeting, Mr. Lofton
has added insult to injury, and enough is enough.

To substantiate the comments I made yesterday,

Continue reading →

Pastor Michael Bryant: the benefits to be realized

Leigh Touchton sent me this today.

-jsq

John,

This letter is from Pastor Michael Bryant, Webb-Miller Community Church,
Hahira. He would like to publish on the LAKE blog. Dr. Manning’s response
to Brad Lofton is also for publication.

Thank you,

Leigh



Given the complexity of the issue facing us as a community with regard to
the Biomass Project, it is incumbent upon all parties involved to recognize
that while the populations ill-affected will primarily be our children and
elderly, the most vulnerable among us, the real issue is the fact that only
25 job are going to be produced. Likewise, if the facts bear out as
proclaimed by both or either of the parties involved, and I believe if an
error is made, it should be on the side of safety, the benefits to be
realized are not nearly as great as the alternative approach provided by a
solar energy plant.

Continue reading →