Tag Archives: Economy

Particulate matter is a killer. –Lisa Jackson, EPA, 17 March 2011

Listening to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson about EPA’s proposed new mercury rules, for me, the live feed on facebook did not work, but the one on whitehouse.gov did. A few quotes:
Particulate matter is a killer. We know it results in hundreds of thousands of deaths.

That matches some local concerns in Lowndes County.

How much of a killer? Continue reading →

Vernon, California: they only cared about jobs

What can happen to a town that really doesn’t care about anything but jobs.

Adam Nagourney writes in the NY Times 1 March 2011: Plan Would Erase All-Business Town

VERNON, Calif. — Vernon is a bleak, 5.2-square-mile sprawl of warehouses, factories, toxic chemical plants and meat processors that looks like the backdrop for “Eraserhead,” the David Lynch movie set in an industrial wasteland. It has a population of 95 — and 1,800 businesses, drawn by low taxes, lax regulations and cheap municipal power.

It also has a history of corruption and public malfeasance going back nearly 50 years.

The rest of the story is mostly about how it’s gotten so bad Continue reading →

The business of carbon trading in Georgia

Rich McKay wrote for the ajc, Carbon limits a boon for traders: Proposed emissions standards may galvanize business in Georgia.
The carbon-emitting companies pay the farmers to not cut down the trees or to plant new trees. The idea is that the trees, which gobble up carbon, will store up the carbon from the atmosphere and offset what the smokestacks spew.
Blake Sullivan, of the Macon-based Carbon Tree Bank, has 26,000 acres of forest in the state under contract for carbon banking.

“Georgia has an abundance of forests right here, and trees are like the lungs of the Earth,” he said. “They inhale carbon and exhale oxygen. We can be part of the solution right here in our own backyard.”

Why is this suddenly a business? Continue reading →

Uncontrolled growth and water problems

Daniel Mayer, November 2006
Maybe growth, growth, growth alone isn’t any better than jobs, jobs jobs alone, and water remains one of the main issues. Kay Harris wrote in the VDT 17 Feb 2011 that Aging infrastructure, growth, and other issues contribute to city’s sewer woes:
Valdosta Utilities Director Henry … Hicks addressed the sewage spills, saying they are caused by excess rain which overloads the Withlacoochee River Water Pollution Control Plant. He said growth along the river and throughout the regional watershed area has contributed to the amount of excess water running into the river.

“When you have all this growth and you create more impervious surface area (through paving and development), more and more water is running into the Withlacoochee. On average, the plant handles six million gallons a day and is equipped to accommodate twice that, but in recent rain events, we’ve gotten upwards of 15 million gallons extra in stormwater runoff and the system can’t handle that,” Hicks said.

Some of the comments on the VDT page are also interesting. Guest remarked: Continue reading →

The mentality that exploits and destroys the natural environment –Wendell Berry

And now a word from Wendell Berry:
The mentality that exploits and destroys the natural environment is the same that abuses racial and economic minorities…. The mentality that destroys a watershed and then panics at the threat of flood is the same mentality that gives institutionalized insult to black people and then panics at the prospect of race riots.
Source: “Think Little” in A Continuous Harmony: Essays Cultural and Agricultural, by Wendell Berry, 1972. Forty years later, that mentality is still a problem.

-jsq

Homerville Genealogical Library as Local Industry

Homegrown local industry not far east of here! Dean Poling wrote in the VDT yesterday, Merged libraries create largest genealogical center in East:
Two regional libraries officially merge this weekend, creating what should be the most comprehensive genealogy facility in the Eastern United States.

On Sunday, the Elmer’s Genealogical Library of Madison, Fla., merges with the Huxford Genealogy Library in Homerville to become the Huxford-Spear Genealogical Library.

The new library will be located in Homerville. Elmer Spear has closed his Madison, Fla., facility and moved his library’s 26,326 books, which covered 85 percent of a mile in shelving, to the newly named Huxford-Spear Genealogical Library.

Spear’s volumes join the Huxford collection.

I’m a Huxford Library member, and my 990 page family history book is in there, so I’m all for this.

Looks to me like an example of a local attraction started by local people that can turn into a local industry. Hey, look, the VDT thinks so, too, in their editorial of the same day: Continue reading →

Ben Copeland on water and growth in south Georgia

Ben Copeland asked the big question: “How much growth do we want?” He related it to regional water in the aquifer, rivers, growth, and planning, speaking at the Lake Park Chamber of Commerce annual dinner, 28 January 2011.

Copeland is Past Chairman of the Board, Wiregrass Technical College. He serves on the regional water planning council. He said those councils were started due to worries about Atlanta not having a reliable water supply. He said the councils were planning for water and wastewater to 2050. The local regional council is the Suwannee-Satilla regional water council. He described the extent of the water planning region (see map). He expects finalization of the water plan by May. He talked about the Floridian aquifer, and how he’s worried not so much about Atlanta taking our water as about Orlando, Jacksonville, and Tallahassee. “Because they all have their straws in that same aquifer.”

Finally, Ben Copeland asked the big question: “How much growth do we want?”

“Do we want to be Jacksonville? Do we want to be Tallahassee? Do we want to be a large metropolitan region?

Folks are going to move to south Georgia, I can tell you that, because of all the resources that we have. I’m a great believer in the free enterprise system. How much do we try to limit that?

Continue reading →

Using sludge to build better communities –Matt Flumerfelt

This LTE appeared in the VDT 18 Jan 2011. -jsq
I was recently reading “Masterpieces of Eloquence,” which includes a speech delivered by the fourth Earl of Chesterfield to the House of Lords in Feb., 1743. “The bill now under our consideration appears to me to deserve a much closer regard than seems to have been paid to it in the other House, through which it was hurried with the utmost precipitation, and where it passed almost without the formality of a debate. Nor can I think that earnestness with which some lords seem inclined to press it forward here consistent with the importance of the consequences which may with great reason be expected from it.” He goes on to say, “surely it never before was conceived, by any man entrusted with the administration of public affairs, to raise taxes by the destruction of the people.”

I find this quote applies exactly, mutatis mutandis, to the present situation. The effects of these toxic chemicals are far more devastating to my mind than the effects of gin. The science panel assembled by Michael is more credible than the assurances of the industrial authority expert. In fact, the emissions from the plant are so close to the permit threshold that they could easily exceed that threshhold on occasion. Would the IA expert then continue to hold the position that there is “No health hazard to the public?” I don’t think anyone who favors the proposal is aware of the enormity that could result if the plant goes into operation. They have left the public health out of their equation. They have just enough science, they think, to push the deal through over the objections of an easily deceived public.

Matt Flumerfelt
Valdosta

Democracy in action v. unelected officials –Matthew Richard

This LTE appeared in the VDT 18 Jan 2011. -jsq
The recent biomass meeting was a great example of democracy in action. Concerned citizens gave up an evening to educate themselves and it was heartening to see many in the audience participate. I’m no political scientist, but this must be what the founders of the constitution had in mind in conceiving that document.

The evening was not without controversy. Several speakers spoke passionately, even vehemently, prompting someone to question the tone of some on the anti-biomass side. One wonders how closely he follows events in the area?

Valdostans are frustrated at the blatantly anti-democratic tactics employed by local government that result in our getting things rammed down our throats. Biomass is just the latest example.

Continue reading →

“it wouldn’t matter” –John Fretti, Mayor of Valdosta

News Talk 105.9 FM posted this: Exclusive Audio: Mayor Fretti on Biomass
“Kay Harris is absolutely wrong, writing emotionally again.”
He’s apparently referring to the VDT editorial I interpreted here.

He goes on to say it wouldn’t matter if the city refused to supply water to the biomass plant. Yet another variant on the popular local favorite: “there’s nothing you can do.”

Technically, no doubt he’s right: they could just sink a well instead. Politically, it would make a world of difference if the plant’s host city said it wouldn’t supply water. Not to mention I suspect the county would have to approve such a well.

At the least, the City of Valdosta could do what Gadsden County, Florida did: Continue reading →