Tag Archives: Brooks County

Development Authority sells land for solar arrays

Next to ERCO Worldwide, one of the few tenants in VLCIA’s “eight industrial parks”, SolAmerica is buying land for a solar farm that will take up most of the rest of the Perimeter East Business Park.

Site Layout, East of Valdosta
Site Layout submitted by SolAmerica to VLCIA in 14 November 2017 meeting.

Jason A. Smith, VDT, 15 November 2017, Solar arrays planned for land,

The Valdosta-Lowndes County Development Authority voted Tuesday to approve the sale of 27.42 acres for $137,100 to be used for solar arrays.

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Solar panels at Langboard, Brooks County, GA

What needs no testing or cooling water, no eminent domain, no fuel, and emits only clean electricity? Solar panels, like those built by SolAmerica Energy behind the Langboard plant in Brooks County, Georgia.

Google map,
Behind Langboard OSB, on Langboard Lane, off US 84 just west of the Withlacoochee River in Lowndes County, Georgia.

Drone Video of Langdale Solar Tracker in Brooks County, Georgia

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No coal ash on a dozen years of DSSWA agendas (but Brooks County Landfill)

In agendas for the governmental group which supposedly has oversight of the landfill in Lowndes County, Georgia, there is no mention at all of coal or coal ash. Thanks to Julia Shewchuck of SGRC, those agendas for the Deep South Solid Waste Authority (DSSWA) are on the LAKE website.

[April 18, 2007 Agenda] Back in 2006 the proposed Brooks County Landfill is on the the proposed April 19, 2006 agenda, and the June 21, 2006 agenda said there was a public hearing June 29, 2006. An update was on the October 18, 2016 agenda.

2007 starts with one meeting with no mention of the landfill, but the April 18, 2007 meeting has “5. Discussion of Onyx/Langdale Proposed Land Swap”. I don’t see any further mention of the Brooks County landfill after that, and apparently it never happened.

Curiously, these mentions of the Brooks County Landfill on the DSSWA agenda are all months after these VDT stories: Continue reading

Brooks County Comprehensive Plan Workshop 2017-02-07

Received 31 January 2017:

Brooks County Future Development Map From: “Ariel Godwin” <agodwin@sgrc.us>
Subject: Brooks County Comp Plan Workshop – Feb 7 @9:30am
Date: Tue, Jan 31, 2017 at 4:03 PM

Reminder:

The next workshop for the Brooks County Comprehensive Plan will be:

Thursday, February 7th, 2017
9:30 a.m
Brooks County Commission Offices
610 South Highland Street, Quitman

In this workshop we will work on the Land Use Maps and Character Areas.

We are inviting you to participate to ensure Continue reading

First Brooks County Comprehensive Plan Workshop 2016-11-17

Received 15 November 2016:

Brooks County Future Development Map From: “Ariel Godwin” <agodwin@sgrc.us>
Subject: Reminder: Brooks County Comprehensive Plan: First Workshop
Date: Tue, 15 Nov 2016 14:51:27 +0000

Reminder:

The first workshop for the Brooks County Comprehensive Plan will be:

Thursday, November 17, 2016
10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
Brooks County Commission Offices
610 South Highland Street, Quitman

We are inviting you to participate to ensure that this plan update will be developed with as much local input as possible. Please also forward this email to anybody you feel would have an interest and Continue reading

Why people don’t speak up: they owe their soul to the company store

Some of our elected officials wonder few people ever speak up around here. It’s simple: they owe their soul to the company store. If you don’t go along, you don’t get business.

As Tennessee Ernie Ford sang in that old Merle Travis song:

You load sixteen tons, what do you get
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don’t you call me ’cause I can’t go
I owe my soul to the company store

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Live Oak bus service starts Monday 2015-07-20

How come Live Oak (pop. 6,974) in Suwannee County (43,734), Florida can do what mighty Valdosta (56,481) in Lowndes County (112,916), Georgia can’t?

Amber Vann, Suwannee Democrat, 17 July 2015, Live Oak bus route starts Monday,

The Suwannee Valley Transit Authority’s Live Oak bus route will begin operating on Monday, July 20, running continuously from 7 a.m. until 7 p.m. throughout every direction of the city, Monday through Friday. The route’s unofficial stops include apartment complexes and other residential neighborhoods, public schools, grocery stores, parks, government offices, nursing homes, the library and the hospital.

The route starts at the intersection of Walker Avenue and US 90 West Continue reading

Sabal Trail is claiming customers that do not want its gas, and city and county resolutions are relevant, it seems

Sabal Trail asked the judge to throw out my letter to the court yesterday, but the judge said the contents were public record anyway.

300x400 Letter, in Sabal Trail is claiming customers that do not want its gas, and city and county resolutions are relevant, it seems, by John S. Quarterman, 24 March 2015 Six minutes before yesterday’s eminent domain hearing in Leesburg, GA was scheduled to start I submitted the letter you see below, noting that Sabal Trail was claiming customers in counties and cities that had passed resolutions and otherwise said they didn’t want Spectra’s fracked methane pipeline. Naturally Sabal Trail’s attorneys didn’t like that, and asked the judge to disregard and strike from the record “the Quarterman letter” because they said I didn’t have standing, and you can’t just submit materials a few minutes before a hearing. The judge said he would entertain that motion, but he proceeded to leaf through the attachments, noting resoutions by Lowndes County, by Valdosta, a letter from Spencer Lee (Dougherty County attorney), a resolution by Terrell County, one by Albany, and one by Colquitt County. The judge remarked that all this was public record anyway, so striking the letter wouldn’t have much effect.

And it was pretty clear, at least to me (and remember I am not an attorney), that attorneys for both sides and the judge did Continue reading

Don’t Frack Georgia –sing along

Alton Paul Burns commented yesterday on Fracking south Georgia and north Florida?

Mr Emmet Carlisle wrote a song about fracking Florida “Don’t Frack Florida”. So in support of that movement I wrote another verse:

The battle is on in Bama & Georgia too
Spectra wants to run a pipeline through,
They could care less ’bout me or you,
And they lie to FERC more than they have too,

More Solar energy, Yeah that’s the thing
To everyone this message we bring,
We don’t need Spectra’s pipeline, That’s a fact!
And we don’t have to Frack!

-apb

So this would be the chorus for that verse: Continue reading

Fracking south Georgia and north Florida?

Potential fracking in north Georgia was too close, but what about right here in south Georgia? Florida has a snowballing anti-fracking movement. Looks like Georgia needs one, too.

300x149 South Georgia and North Florida Basins Map, in Shale gas basins in South Georgia and north Florida, by USGS, 4 June 2012 Dan Chapman, AJC Online Athens, 10 March 2013, Gas drillers turn to Georgia,

Jim Kennedy, the state’s geologist, says another company is considering the shale gas fields of the Mesozoic Basin that covers 60 percent of the Coastal Plain in South Georgia.

Most of the story is about proposed fracking in north Georgia that we noted back in 2013, plus fossil fuel industry propaganda about how great they say that would be for the local economy, with very little about the immense destruction, environmental hazards, and invasions of private property that would ensue. The AJC version of that Dan Chapman story didn’t seem to have Continue reading