Tag Archives: Economy

GM Ag corporations thank Jack Kingston for Monsanto rider

A long list of agricultural corporations wrote a letter thanking Jack Kingson (R GA-01) for working to get the Monsanto rider into the 2013 Ag. bill:

Again, we commend Subcommittee Chairman Kingston’s efforts and urge the support of Section 733 in the Fiscal Year 2013 Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration and Related Agencies Appropriations Act.

This letter is on Monsanto’s own website. It contains not one word about public health or quality of food or preservation of farmers who do not choose to poison people the Monsanto way. The glyphosate mentioned in the letter is the principal ingredient in Roundup, and

research shows it causes DNA damage even when vastly diluted. Monsanto’s glyphosate-resistant crops are genetically modified to include a gene which produces a poison that other research indicates is toxic to humans. These poisons are what the Monsanto rider makes harder to get out of fields.

June 12, 2012
The Honorable Harold Rogers
Chairman
House Committee on Appropriations
United States House of Representatives
H‐307 U.S. Capitol
Washington, D.C. 20515 The Honorable Norm Dicks
Ranking Member
House Committee on Appropriations
United States House of Representatives
1016 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515

Dear Chairman Rogers and Ranking Member Dicks:

Our organizations strongly support Section 733 of the Fiscal Year 2013 Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration and Related Agencies Appropriations Act. The provision will give growers assurance that crops developed through biotechnology that have already been approved by the Department of Agriculture (USDA) can be planted and harvested under temporary stewardship conditions in the event of litigation against the agency’s decision. We commend Subcommittee Chairman Kingston for including Section 733 in the subcommittee bill and urge your support for this necessary provision when the Appropriations Committee considers this bill later this month. The provision addresses Continue reading →

Remerton Mill demolition –WCTV

Maybe Nina King’s elegy on the sad demolition of Remerton’s Strickland Mill will spur enough people to get involved in the community so next time a monument is threatened with demolition we can find the resources to save it, and we can bring things the community needs now, like fast affordable Internet access for all.

Greg Gullberg reported for WCTV 11PM News last night, Demolition Of Remerton Mill Has Begun, in which Nina King said:

“Well, it breaks my heart, and it’s so sad. And I don’t understand why anybody would want a historic old building torn down like this.”

Continue reading →

How much will trash collection rates go up in Lowndes County? @ LCC 2012-10-09

Speaking of Veolia winning its high bid for garbage collection, here’s a clue to how much more its rates may go up.

Remember ~~ADS~~ Veolia was bought hardly a month later by ADS, owned by Highstar Capital of New York City? Look at ADS’s bid for Proposal D: $18.39.

That’s $220.68 a year. Which is even higher than Wakulla County, Florida’s $196 a year, which Gretchen warned us all about more than a year ago. And more than double the $100 a year for the former county waste collection sites.

Want to guess how much ADS’s monthly rates will rise? Maybe Continue reading →

Kemper Coal greatest transfer of wealth from customers to a monopoly –Brandon Presley, MS PSC

Too ambitious, technology untried, like Katrina and the BP oil spill: that’s Southern Company’s Kemper Coal plant, according to a Mississippi Public Service Commissioner.

Geoff Pender wrote for ClarionLedger.com yesterday, PSC member slams Miss. Power,

“This is the greatest transfer of wealth from customers to a monopoly in the history of the state of Mississippi,” [Brandon] Presley said. “Where are all these so-called conservatives on that?”

Maybe Mississippi, like Georgia, Continue reading →

Budget meetings? LOST meeting? Nothing on Lowndes County Commission calendar

Update 7:45 PM 4 June 2013: 8:30 AM Wednesday 5 June 2013.
Rumor has it that the Lowndes County Commission has already had one budget meeting and is going to have a meeting tomorrow about the GA Supreme Court LOST decision. Yet there’s nothing on the Commission’s public calendar and under Special Events their website says

There are no events at this time

How is meeting where the people don’t know doing people’s business?

-jsq

No Iowa nuke: MidAmerican will refund tax money!

Cancelling a nuke is what’s really in the best interests of utility customers: Southern Company and Georgia Power take note. MidAmerican Energy just added another to the long list of nukes permanently closed or not to be built. Time to add Plant Vogtle to that list.

In the DesMoinesRegister.com yesterday, MidAmerican decides against Iowa nuclear plant: MidAmerican Energy says design plan isn’t approved; environmentalists celebrate

MidAmerican Energy has scrapped plans for Iowa’s second nuclear plant and will refund $8.8 million ratepayers paid for a now-finished feasibility study, utility officials said Monday.

The utility has decided against building any major power plant. That’s because there is no approved design for the modular nuclear plant it envisioned, and there are too many questions about limits on carbon emissions from a natural gas plant, the company said.

“We opted for what was in the best interest of our customers,” MidAmerican vice president for regulatory affairs Dean Crist told The Des Moines Register.

The decision ends, Continue reading →

County picked the highest bid from Veolia for trash pickup @ LCC 2012-10-09

The facts don’t match County Chairman Bill Slaughter’s assertion (according to the VDT Thursday):

That decision was made in a good-faith effort to find the lowest possible rate for garbage service for the citizens of Lowndes County, he said Tuesday.

Commissioner Richard Raines moved and the Commission voted to approve 9 October 2012 Proposal D and awarded it to the lowest bidder for that specific proposal, which was Veolia. But that wasn’t the lowest-priced proposal, according to the sheet of choices they were using in that meeting:

Continue reading →

Kemper Coal cost overruns at Southern Company Stockholder Meeting @ SO 2013-05-22

SO CEO Tom Fanning used Julia O’Neal’s question about cost overruns to tout the alleged benefits of Kemper Coal, which include selling CO₂ to oil companies to pump into the ground to produce more oil. He didn’t mention that oil is then burned to produce more CO₂. And that Mississippi lignite coal he said would otherwise stay in the ground? Yes it and its CO₂ would stay there if SO would get on with solar instead of coal.

Before her question, he had not said much about that project, mostly this about Major Projects, at 29 minutes and 28 seconds in SO’s own video of the 22 May 2013 Southern Company Stockholder meeting. You’ll have to skip there manually, because of the SO’s video format. SO prohibited “unauthorized” videoing, so we don’t have the usual LAKE video on YouTube.

I always call out Vogtle and Kemper County. Both projects are going to serve our customers for decades to come. We’ve had some challenges with Kemper. We’ll probably talk about those later. But when I think about the value that these projects will bring, I think our customers, and the economy of the southeast, will be benefited for decades. And we’re very excited about the progress we’re making on both of those.

It’s curious he mentioned SO’s flagship coal and nuclear projects without saying coal or nuclear. And if by “progress” he means Continue reading →

County told VDT curbside pickup would be non-exclusive @ LCC 2012-03-31

Former Chairman Ashley Paulk may say he didn’t tell Cory Scarborough of Deep South Sanitation that any contract by the county for curbside pickup would be non-exclusive (VDT 30 May 2013), but David Rodock reported for the VDT from Ashley Paulk’s guest house at a Lowndes County Commission retreat chaired by Ashley Paulk that:

Commissioners decided that getting out of the “trash business” was best and that a non-exclusive agreement with current curbside pickup companies (which about 12,000 citizens already employ) would provide service without putting any people out of business.

The VDT reported ( Commission tackles key issues: Waste management, tax lighting districts and SPLOST discussed at retreat by David Rodock, 31 March 2012) Commissioners “decided”. Yet there is no vote recorded, in contravention to Georgia open meetings law and a recent Georgia Supreme Court decision.

How is this doing “the people’s business”? Maybe if they took a vote and recorded it properly we’d all know what they said.

-jsq

State law requires public hearing before trash decision

Counter to state law, Lowndes County did not hold public hearings within 45 days before the decision to close the waste collection centers.

GEORGIA COMPREHENSIVE SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT ACT OF 1990 AS AMENDED THROUGH 2004: An Abstract from OFFICIAL CODE OF GEORGIA ANNOTATED Volume 10 Title 12 Article 2 Part 1 Conservation and Natural Resources:

§ 12-8-24.2. Public hearing prior to entering contract regarding landfill
The governing authority of any county or municipal corporation and the directors or managers of any local authority or special district shall hold a public hearing before entering into a contract for the sale, lease, or management of a landfill or solid waste disposal facility owned by such county, municipal corporation, local authority, or special district. The party responsible for holding such a public hearing shall cause notice of the hearing to be posted at the site of the landfill or facility and to run in a newspaper of general circulation serving the county, municipal corporation, local authority, or special district not less than 30 nor more than 45 days prior to the date of the hearing.

Can anyone argue that “or solid waste disposal facility owned by such county” does not include Lowndes County’s former solid waste collection centers? Continue reading →

On the LAKE front

Citizen dialog for transparent process by the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange