Tag Archives: Forestry

Leigh Touchton wonders what Brad Lofton is hiding

This message was sent to me by the author, who requested I blog it.

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Subject: My response to Brad Lofton, why doesn’t he want his correpondence in the Valdosta Daily Times? What is he hiding?
From: Leigh Touchton
To: blofton@industrialauthority.com
Date: Thu, 16 Sep 2010 20:53:56 EDT

(Please see correspondence below mine which I am responding to: Mr. Brad Lofton’s email to his “stakeholders” which he doesn’t want to put in the newspaper )

Mr. Lofton:

My title is President of the Valdosta-Lowndes branch of the NAACP, I am not the Chairperson. I have a Master’s in Science in Biology from the University of Virginia, I have taught Environmental Science classes at the college level. It is incorrect and furthermore rude for you to refer to the President of the NAACP as part of the “misinformation on the street.”

I would be happy to deconstruct your arguments on the trip to Cadillac, Michigan, and how “green” Biomass Incineration can be. I invite readers to research all the Biomass incinerators around the country that have been shut down. They are banned in Massachusetts. They have been blocked in Florida. They show up in areas of the country where wealthy industrialists control the government and environmental regulations are lax. All the major environmental organizations in this country oppose them because they burn more wood that can be sustainably harvested. In the decade that is the hottest on record, in a crucial period in human history when life literally hangs in the balance over Global Climate Change, the Lowndes County Industrial Authority has decided to implement a Biomass Incinerator which spews more carbon dioxide than a coal plant.

Continue reading →

Industrial Authority Response to Two Letters to the Editor

The appended message from a tax-supported public official to many people about official business was forwarded to me; perhaps the public would also like to see it.

The CCA press conference he mentions seems to have been covered by the VDT in this article: to be about Private prison company picks Valdosta as potential site.

The rest of the letter is about issues related to the biomass plant proposed for Lowndes County by Wiregrass Power LLC (wholly owned by Sterling Energy Assets of Atlanta) and backed by the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA), of which Brad Lofton is the Executive Director. Here’s the letter from Leigh Touchton of the NAACP to which he refers.

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From: Brad Lofton [mailto:blofton@industrialauthority.com]
Sent: Thursday, August 19, 2010 4:37 PM
To: ‘Brad Lofton’
Subject: Industrial Authority Response to Two Letters to the Editor Yesterday
Importance: High

Good afternoon everyone:

Thanks to all of you that were able to attend our CCA press conference and breakfast yesterday. We’ve had positive feedback today from around the region, and we’ve received congratulations from most of the other 15 communities competing for the project.

After reading the two letters to the editor yesterday, I felt compelled to e-mail our stakeholders to provide you an update with facts and information related to the biomass plant. We have intentionally avoided a response in the paper because we do not want to energize a forum for continued misinformation. Despite numerous town hall meetings and other meetings we’ve facilitated for two years, there is still plenty of misinformation on the street.

Continue reading →

LTE: Biomass is Environmental Racism

This is a letter to the editor that appeared in the VDT on about 17 August 2010.

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When Wiregrass Power chose the site for their Biomass plant, they put it near one of Valdosta’s most affluent black communities. There are at least six black churches:  New Life Ministries, Morning Star, Evangel Temple, Southside Church of Christ, Church of Prophecy, Church at Pine Hill. Two predominantly black elementary schools are in the area: Southeast and Moulton Branch. A large senior citizen assisted living community, Sands Horizon, is located in the affected area and serves over 60 families. Scott Park, where the Sands Horizon residents enjoy outings and the local children enjoy baseball games, is located nearby. Huge apartment complexes with several buildings, Park Chase and Brittany Woods, whose residents are primarily people of color, are located near the proposed site.
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Perspectives on Biomass Permit

This is Karen Noll’s LTE to the VDT as sent on 12 Aug 2010. It doesn’t seem to have ever turned up in the online version of the VDT, but here it is:
While certain entities see no negative environmental impact of the proposed biomass plant, the information and data that I have does not indicate that incineration of wood is efficient, environmentally sound, or safe for our citizens. Yet others see this as a win-win scenario claiming a vastly different perspective on the situation; economically, environmentally and in regard to the health of our citizens. Why is that?
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Biomass and Carbon Dioxide

Natasha Fast, Angela Manning, Allan Ricketts (Project Manager), Geraldine Fairell, Ken Klanicki, Brad Lofton (Executive Director)
Natasha Fast (SAVE), Pastor Angela Manning (New Life Ministries), Allan Ricketts (Project Manager), Geraldine Fairell, Ken Klanicki, Brad Lofton (Executive Director), picture by John S. Quarterman (LAKE)
Pictured is a group of concerned citizens meeting about the proposed biomass plant with Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA) Project Manager Allan Ricketts and Executive Director Brad Lofton. Ricketts and Lofton gave a two-hour presentation, took some action items, and have provided a schedule on which they will fulfill them. I thank them for that and look forward to the further materials.

Lying in the center of the table in the picture is this document:

Biomass carbon neutrality in the context of forest-based fuels and products
by Reid Miner, NCASI, Al Lucier, NCASI
The copy on the table is dated April 7, 2010; the online version is dated May 2010. It’s a powerpoint presentation that makes many good points, among them that coal doesn’t grow back, while trees do. So in theory it would be possible, by organizing harvesting of biomass over a region to make burning biomass for electricity carbon neutral.

The document comes right out and says:

At point of combustion, CO2 emissions per unit of energy produced are generally higher for biomass fuels than for fossil fuels.
Continue reading →

Effects of proposed biomass plants in Massachusetts

Very interesting projection of Massachusetts Forest Impacts if Proposed Biomass Incinerators Are Allowed by Chris Matera, P.E., and Ellen Moyer, Ph.D, P.E., with GIS analysis and programming by Gordon Green:

The animations add the demand for wood for 5 proposed biomass incinerators in Massachusetts to the current wood demand, which is mainly for lumber and cord wood. The animations demonstrate the land area in western and central Massachusetts that would be required to be logged to satisfy the total demand for these 5 plants which would add only about 1 percent to Massachusetts’ electrical generating capacity (see calculations below).

Quite a price for such a small percentage of electricity generation. Solar, wind, and wave could generate far more electricity, even in far northern Massachusetts.

And the animation above is a conservative projection. Follow the link for

…the extreme case where all forested land in central and western Massachusetts would be made available for biomass cutting – including rare species habitat, scenic landscapes, public “protected” land, and other protected open space. In this case, all forested land in central and western Massachusetts would be logged in only 16 years.

In Georgia, that would include places like Reed Bingham State Park.

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South Losing Trees

Doyle Rice writes in USA Today about U.S. losing trees faster than other heavily forested nations:
Out of seven of the most heavily forested nations on Earth, the United States experienced a greater percentage of forest loss from 2000 to 2005 than did any of the other countries, a study said Monday.
But what part of the U.S.?
The one part of the contiguous USA that experienced the most forest loss was the Southeast, a large chunk of which lost more than 10% of its forest cover from 2000 to 2005, the year for which the most recent data were available.
Compared to what? Continue reading →

Biomass Air Quality Hearing Set

This appears to be the date and location for the Georgia EPD air quality hearing for the Wiregrass Biomass plant proposed for Valdosta:
6:30 PM, 27 April 2010
Multipurpose Room
Valdosta City Hall Annex
300 North Lee Street
Valdosta, Georgia
We’ve been waiting on this date for a while. EPD is going to send a press release to the VDT a few weeks in advance and post it on its own website, www.georgiaair.org. Assuming, of course, that the date and place don’t change again.

Why should you care? This plant proposes to burn sewage sludge, which can release numerous hazardous chemicals into the air. Here is Seth’s letter to the editor of the VDT of 21 Feb 2010: Continue reading →

Economic benefits of protecting natural ecosystems

A longleaf pine on Quarterman Road. Protecting forests is not just the right thing to do, it’s good business, says Mike De Souza, Canwest News Service, November 14, 2009, about a recent UN report:
Protecting natural ecosystems and biodiversity is worth trillions of dollars in annual economic benefits around the planet, says a new report released on Friday by the United Nations.
The actual report is TEEB for Policy Makers Report released 13 Nov 2009. The article continues, quoting one of the lead authors of the report:
“The technology of planting trees or replanting forests is thankfully free, and it has no side-effects,” said Sukhdev, who also leads the UN Environment Program’s Green Economy Initiative. “It’s powerful, it’s effective and it’s time tested. We just have to get people’s mindsets changed to start using these natural technologies that are available.”
Or just don’t cut down trees when paving roads.