Tag Archives: food

From Seven Out in Waycross to CSX to Pecan Row Landfill in Lowndes County

CSX was involved directly in the

Seven Out contamination,
storing hazardous water that leaked:
and then that water was apparently shipped to the Pecan Row Landfill in Lowndes County.
This is in addition to the

the CSX trichloroethylene groundwater contamination dating back to 2000 and earlier.

According to a letter from Georgia Department of Natural Resources
to BCX, Inc. of 20 July 2004,

EPA Identification Number: GAR000030007,


  1. Twenty-seven tanks of wastewater were stored at the facility.
    Four portable tanks were storing the excess capacity of wastewater next door
    on property owned by CSX Transportation.
    These portable 10,000-gallon tanks were not labeled to indicate their contents;
  2. According to a BCX representative, one of the portable 10,000-gallon tanks
    had a gasket failure on the forward manhole which caused the release of an
    unknown substance onto the ground at the site owned by CSX
    Transportation;
  3. Dead vegetation was observed in a 15 feet by 30 feet area downgradient of the
    tank that caused the release;
  4. A yellowish-green substance was observed on the ground between the portable
    tank that had the release and another portable tank adjacent to it. There was
    also dead vegetation observed between these two tanks; and

And GA EPD tested the soil and found something the document doesn’t
specify, but whatever it was was enough that: Continue reading →

CSX groundwater contamination in Waycross

The MCLG for
trichloroethylene
is zero.

Around the
Seven Out and CSX contamination areas in Waycross more than 100 people
have gotten sick or died,
most since 2000, with groundwater contamination
known since 1985, according to Joan Martin McNeal,
So the CSX problem long predates

the Seven Out problem.
Here’s her map of the CSX property (in yellow) and contamination, sickness, and death:




brown stars: known contamination areas

red markers: confirmed deceased or confirmed cases of severe illness
mostly cancer (bone, lung, prostate, blood, colon, breast),
some severe neurological disorders, some heart failure,
with ages ranging from 4 to 85 years.

green markers: likely early stage cases of such problems

According to this February 2000


tricholoroethylene isopleth map,

there was already extensive contamination in the CSX railyard by 2000,
extending across an internal drainage ditch that goes into the
Waycross Canal that become Tebeau Creek, running through downtown
Waycross into the Satilla River.

According to U.S. EPA,

Trichloroethylene 79-01-6 Hazard Summary-Created in April 1992; Revised in January 2000, Continue reading →

Aquifer and well contamination miles from Waycross Seven Out Superfund Site

At the

Waycross Seven Out Superfund Site meeting,
caller Anthony Samsel said

(42 minutes and 10 seconds into the video)
of a site in Massachusetts:

I was the first person to track contamination of the ground to aquifers
that travel several miles; plastics, formaldehyde, from a plastics manufacturing plant,
and there was contamination of city wells
with a lot of cancer clusters
and a lot of sick, dead, and dying people.

He was talking about the Wells G & H Superfund Site in Woburn, MA, where,
according to EPA,



The groundwater was contaminated with industrial solvents, called
volatile organic compounds (VOCs), such as trichloroethylene (TCE)
and tetrachloroethylene (PCE). Soil on the five properties was
contaminated with VOCs, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs),
polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and pesticides. Sediments in the
Aberjona River were contaminated with PAHs and heavy metals such as
chromium, zinc, mercury and arsenic.

Thirty years later,

that one is still toxic.

In a

29 September 2011 coment
Samsel said Continue reading →

Seven Out Superfund site in Waycross –Joan McNeal for Channel 22



People are still getting sick and dying in Waycross after
Chemical company Seven Out closed and left a toxic waste site.
It’s now a Superfund site, which doesn’t mean anything has
been cleaned up.
10 out of 30 City Hall employees have cancer and 8 have already died.
Many living around the site are sick, and teachers and school children.
What will Georgia Reps. Jason Spencer and Ellis Black who attended do after that 29 August 2013 meeting?
Will action wait until more people die?
And to which landfill were those precipitated solids taken?


GA Rep. Ellis Black District 177

State representative Jason Spencer District 180
said the state health report should be finished in October,
and was quick to point to

Rep. Ellis Black District 174 as representing the specific area.
Rep. Black said they’d just heard about this and would be looking into it, and:

I’m a farmer from Clyattville….
I spent some time in the farm-supply business
and I have messed with agricultural chemicals all my life and
I’ve got a lot of experience there.
And I can tell you that I know firsthand
something about the danger and the challenges of dealing with these
really sensitive products
and how minute amount can cause problems.
And it’s something that’s Continue reading →

Hahira Third Thursday and Village Market today

Today is the first

Hahira Southern Village Market Day,


Vendors, food, and live music, 5-8PM!


June sign at the Caboose
This happens every Third Thursday in downtown Hahira.

If you come in from I-75 or Valdosta, you’ll see these signs:

Continue reading →

Even George Will is calling for drug legalization

We can’t afford this anymore:

A $200 transaction can cost society $100,000 for a three-year sentence.

It’s time to legalize, regulate, and tax drugs,
taking tax money away from private prisons and police militarization,
and freeing it up for education, health care, and rehabilitation.

George F. Will wrote 11 April 2012,

Should the U.S. legalize hard drugs?

Amelioration of today’s drug problem requires Americans to


understand the significance of the 80-20 ratio. Twenty percent of
American drinkers consume 80 percent of the alcohol sold here. The
same 80-20 split obtains among users of illicit drugs.

About 3 million people — less than 1 percent of America’s
population — consume 80 percent of illegal hard drugs.
Drug-trafficking organizations can be most efficiently injured by
changing the behavior of the 20 percent of heavy users, and we are
learning how to do so. Reducing consumption by the 80 percent of
casual users will not substantially reduce the northward flow of
drugs or the southward flow of money.

Will-like, he ignores the real reasons we’re locking up so many people
(corporate greed), but he does get at the consequences:

Continue reading →

4 down and counting: Kraft and Intuit exit ALEC

After
Pepsi and Coke,
now
Kraft (processed food products) said

“Our membership in ALEC expires this spring and for a number of reasons,
including limited resources, we have made the decision not to renew.”

and

Intuit (Turbo Tax and Quicken)
also decided to let its ALEC membership lapse.



Reasons such as petitions by numerous organizations asking companies
to ditch ALEC?
We seem to have a case of the cheese fleeing the rat ship….
(Sometimes I wish I could draw.)

Here’s another

petition for corporations to ditch ALEC.
Let’s not forget

ColorofChange’s petition about voter suppression.

And how about ALEC board member UPS, based in Atlanta?

-jsq

Blazer Gardens recognized by VDT for promoting healthy food

Healthy food got recognition on the front page of the VDT today.


In today’s capitalistic food market, several people have felt
compelled to begin “living organically.” This philosophy
has been brought to Valdosta and centralized by a group at Valdosta
State University.

Bobbi Hancock, a VSU student, founded Blazer Gardens@VSU in August
2010. The group currently has 14 active members.

“There was reports of a food pantry being implemented on
campus and that was implemented because there was students going to
the dining hall asking for food,” said Hancock. “I just
thought, if we could teach students how to grow food, it would
eliminate a lot of the issues we have with campus hunger.”

Blazer Gardens started as nothing but seeds in the yard of Kathryn
Grant, an organization member.

“This was an opportunity for me to understand and for me to
appreciate how my food is grown,” said Grant.

From their professor:

Dr. Miryam Espinosa-Dulanto, Blazer Gardens faculty advisor and VSU
professor of modern classical languages, said she feels compelled to
get involved with this organization.

“I think we are what we eat, so I want to be clean and organic
and safe,” said Espinosa-Dulanto.

Maybe they can help us all not eat poisons and even stop Monsanto
and ConAgra from poisoning our food supply.
It’s good health and it’s good business.

-jsq

Baltimore’s place-based model

Growth isn’t everything, and vacant lots can be leveraged to deal with
food disparity and obesity, Baltimore is demonstrating.

Vanessa Barrington wrote for Grist 21 November 2011,

Baltimore’s can-do approach to food justice



…43 percent of the
residents in the city’s predominantly black neighborhoods had little
access to healthy foods, compared to 4 percent in predominantly white
neighborhoods. Meanwhile, more than two-thirds of the city’s adults and
almost 40 percent of high school students are overweight or obese.

That’s the problem.

There are solutions:

Speaking on a panel at the recent Community Food Security Coalition
Conference in Oakland, Calif., Abby Cocke, of Baltimore’s Office of
Sustainability, and Laura Fox, of the city health department’s Virtual
Supermarket Program, outlined two approaches to address the city’s food
deserts. Both were presenting programs that have launched since Grist
last reported on Baltimore’s efforts to address food justice. And both
programs come under the auspices of The Baltimore Food Policy Initiative,
a rare intergovernmental collaboration between the city’s Department of
Planning, Office of Sustainability, and Health Department. They also
show how an active, involved city government and a willingness to try
new ideas can change the urban food landscape for the better.

According to Cocke, Baltimore’s Planning Department has a new mindset. She
calls it a “place-based” model. “In the past,” she says, “growth was seen
as the only way to improve the city, but we’re starting to look at ways
to make our neighborhoods stronger, healthier, and more vibrant places
at the low density that they’re at now.”

The article outlines the specific solutions,
such as:

Continue reading →

100 Black Men BBQ, Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 6 August 2011

Roy Copeland and Willie Head have announced the winners,
but the food, music, and community continue untii 6PM today.





100 Black Men BBQ

Pictures by John S. Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange

Lowndes County Courthouse, Valdosta, Georgia, 6 August 2011.

Plenty more pictures in the

flickr set.

Videos to come.

-jsq