Tag Archives: Georgia

Videos: SCADA and Generators for sewer system lift stations @ VCC 2018-12-06

The longest single item in the one January Valdosta City Council meeting was unscheduled:
the

surprise statewide Georgia Parks and Rec Volunteer Award
and

Council Andy Gibbs responding with thanks.


The
most contentious rezoning was

4.b. CU-2018-13 Scintilla Charter Academy Conditional Use Permit,
to add a Middle School to an Elementary School.

The most-discussed general topic on the agenda was water, with
Utility Director Darryl Muse speaking about

5.b. Bids for 10 emergency standby generators for Utilities,

5.c. Bids for water treatment chemicals for Utilities,
and

6.b. Purchase SCADA system for Lift Stations and Water Treatment Plants,
with frequent questions from Council members.
They did bring up the
recent major spill at the Withlacoochee Wastewater Treatment Plant.

In Citizens to Be Heard,
I

told them what Valdosta Utilities hadn’t.

Also in CTBH,
John Robinson spoke about how

small businesses need to thrive
and another speaker said

he had been attacked physically by a local business man.
Renaming Forrest Street was discussed by Continue reading →

Police and Utilities vehicles and other bids @ VCC 2019-01-24

A brief agenda for the Valdosta City Council,
mostly consisting of bids for equipment,
mostly for the Police Department,
plus some for Utilities, Engineering, Fire, and Public Works.


AGENDA

REGULAR MEETING OF THE VALDOSTA CITY COUNCIL

5:30 PM Thursday, January 24, 2019

COUNCIL CHAMBERS, CITY HALL

Continue reading →

Videos: Mystery Simpson Road paving, taxes, alcohol, emergency, roads, and law @ LCC 2019-01-22

They vote 5:30 PM this evening on what they discussed this morning.
Longest at two minutes was

5 g. Abandonment of McLeod Road,
followed by

5 i. Speed Zone Ordinance (apparently something was not right at exit 2),
and then at just under a minute:

6 a. Paving on Parker Road and Simpson Road.
Will Scruggs or Reames get the $2 million-plus contract for paving?
(Hint: Reames is the low bidder.)


Oops, sorry: the unscripted

7. Reports – County Manager
actually came in second at 1 minute and 44 seconds.

Finally, after

9. Adjournment,
there was a reminder of some mystery swearing in at 5PM.

Below are links to each LAKE video of each agenda item, followed by a LAKE video playlist.
See also Continue reading →

Mystery Simpson Road paving, taxes, alcohol, emergency, roads, and law @ LCC 2019-01-22

Due to Monday being Martin Luther King Jr. Day,
both the Work Session and the Regular Session will be on Tuesday, January 22, 2019,
at 8:30 AM and 5:30 PM.
Last time they approved paying for right of way on Simpson Road.
This time they’re approving
Paving on Parker Road and Simpson Road.
Why does Simpson Road get this exception to their decade-long custom of never paying for road right of way?
Will Scruggs or Reames get the $2 million-plus contract for paving?
(Hint: Reames is the low bidder.)


Qpublic-lowndes,


Simpson Road in Lowndes County Tax Assessor Maps.

Meanwhile, the county apparently borrowed money for paving,
and is tinkering the
Special Assessment Rate for 2019
from 6.5% to 7.5%.

Hm, the county “currently receives $32,770 annually” Continue reading →

Videos: Clyattville Precinct at Board of Elections, Lowndes County, Georgia, 2019-01-08

Most attending ever seen at the Lowndes County, Georgia, Board of Elections!
Potential closure of the Clyattville voting precinct was the issue.
That won’t happen because of the strength of the Clyattville community
in organizing and working with the union hall.


The union hall,
at
5421 Madison Highway,
is Continue reading →

Solar faster, cheaper, no cooling water, no leaks, no explosions

Way back in 2014 I calculated that half the right of way acreage of the Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline could produce just as much electricity,
cheaper, faster, taking no land, using no cooling water, risking no leaks or explosions.
Solar is even cheaper now, doubling deployed capacity every two years,
and even Duke, FPL, and Georgia Power are building solar farms everywhere.
So why do utilities persist in building more pipelines?


Net generation, United State, all sectors, monthly, Chart

Net generation, United States, all sectors, monthly, U.S. EIA.

Every electric utility can read that chart from the U.S. Energy Information Agency,
which shows wind (the middle orange line) and solar (the green line coming up from the bottom) adding up to almost all of “other renewables” (the top blue line),
with nothing else growing like that.
All the pipelines rammed through regulatorially captured agencies
don’t come close Continue reading →

LNG export through Georgia and Florida presented to PHMSA 2018-05-16

PHMSA doesn’t have a public map
of the Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline,
but it does have a map of U.S. LNG Facilities, including
many in Georgia and Florida. The source slides include many assertions about safety of LNG trucks and trains, but why should we take any risk for fossil fuel export profit to a few company executives and investors we solar power has no risk of leaks or explosions?

[Detail: U.S. Southeast LNG Facilities]

Detail: U.S. Southeast LNG Facilities

I’ve pulled out this detail of the U.S. Southeast,
in which you can clearly see Pivotal LNG’s Alabama, Tennessee, and three Georgia plants marked with green circles as “Peakshavers with Liquefaction”,
as well as Elba Island LNG at Savannah marked with a big red box.
In Florida, Eagle (Maxville?) LNG at Jacksonville and Hialeah LNG at Miami
are marked with stars as “Emerging LNG facilities”.

Here’s the bigger map: Continue reading →

Videos: County paying for road right of way @ LCC 2019-01-08

They added two items to the agenda they didn’t even mention
in the previous morning’s Work Session:

purchase of some real estate on Davidson Road near Moody Air Force Base,
and

“just compensation” for right of way on Simpson Road.


Wait a minute!
For ten years we’ve been told the county no longer buys rights of way:
if you want your road paved, you have to donate the right of way.
So why this exception?
And why sneak it in like this?

Will

Kamisha Martin
get paid for right of way if the county paves Black Road?
Will

Rev. Berlinda Hart Love
get paid for right of way if the county paves
Williams School Road?
They were the two citizens who were heard.

Not on the agenda were Continue reading →

Videos: Retreat! Appointment to Development Authority, Abandon Reed Road, Ed Hay Lease, Forestry Speaks @ LCC 2019-01-07

Longest Monday morning was

Chief Ranger Stephen Spradley’s Georgia Forestry report,
a copy of which, scanned by Gretchen, is

on the LAKE website.


Second longest was

Chairman Bill Slaughter’s comments,
in which he listed four upcoming events: Continue reading →

Ex-military infiltrators of pipeline opposition

Be sure that if you are at all successful in opposing a pipeline you
will get infiltrators, whether FBI or private security. Be prepared
to deal with it, whether by checking backgrounds, or comparing
lists, or by some other methods.

One of the most effective methods
appears to be exposing what the pipeline company and their hired
hands are up to, as The Intercept_ did about infiltrators at
Standing Rock, using leaks from private security
firm TigerSwan, which was hired by pipeline company Energy Transfer Partners (ETP)
to “protect” its Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL).

THE INFILTRATOR: How an Undercover Oil Industry Mercenary Tricked Pipeline Opponents Into Believing He Was One of Them, Alleen Brown, The Intercept_, 30 December 2018,


An infiltrator

Joel McCollough, far right, at a climate march launch event in Chicago hosted by Food and Water Watch in April 2017. Photo: Courtesy of Gloria Araya, in
The Intercept_.

What he’s certain of is that the glimmer of opportunity he saw at
the beginning of the pipeline fight was extinguished when The
Intercept published more than 100 TigerSwan situation reports leaked
by a former operative, revealing the security firm’s extensive
surveillance efforts, coordination with law enforcement, and
comparisons of water protectors to jihadi fighters. …

He remembers thinking at one time, “If they watch their p’s
and q’s, they will be the standard. They’ll be the company that
everybody’s gonna use.” The former contractor laughed.
“That didn’t happen.”

DAPL is a petroleum products pipeline, but we heard some of the same Continue reading →