Tag Archives: Health Care

Local hospital opens 1950s-style diesel power plant

And still not a single solar panel at South Georgia Medical Center. Yes, I know that won’t work for emergency power during the night, but it would do fine for peak load during the afternoon. Plus, did anybody see a request for bids for that new power plant?

Valdosta Electric always parked across the street from SGMC; google streetview Eames Yates posted SGMC PR for WCTV Friday 19 July 2013 verbatim including the title, plus a smoking smokestack image, State-Of-The-Art Power Plant Opens At SGMC, while WALB posted a slightly shortened version, S. GA Medical boasts brand new power plant. Here’s the SGMC PR; I’ve added a few links: Continue reading →

Landfill PCB violation

What hazardous waste was accepted at Veolia’s Pecan Row Landfill that got a $27,500 fine from GA EPD this January? Veolia is ADS now, the same company to which Lowndes County granted an exclusive franchise for waste pickup. We already knew that landfill accepts coal ash from TVA. What else is in there, seeping into our drinking water aquifer, and with runoff going into the Withlacoochee River?

According to GA EPD,

Under authority of the Comprehensive Solid Waste Management Act :
Facility: Veolia ES Pecan Row Landfill/Valdosta; order issued to Veolia ES Pecan Row Landfill, LLC
Location: Lowndes County
Order Number: EPD-SW-2564
Date of Issue: January 30,2013
Cause of Order: Violations of Rules for Solid Waste Management/regulated hazardous waste acceptance; failure to properly conduct inspections
Requirement(s) of Order: Implement plan to prevent acceptance of regulated quantities of HW and PCB wastes at facility; ensure all employees handling waste recognize/identify labeled HW and PCB wastes at facility
Settlement Amount: $27500.00

According to U.S. EPA, Polychlorinated Biphenyl (PCB): Continue reading →

Ellen Golden for DFCS @ LCC 2013-07-22

“I was not aware DFAC has a board of directors,” said Ellen S. Golden, local attorney, sole candidate for Ellen S. Golden raising her hand the local Division of Family and Children Services (DFCS) board, at the Monday 22 July 2013 Lowndes County Commission Work Session; they vote tonight. Nor was I. Maybe the county should tell us who they are. Anyway, Ellen Golden is willing to serve, and we have video of what she said, plus a little detail about her relevant experience.

County Manager Joe Pritchard 6. Appointment – Department of Family & Children’s Services Board

County Manager Joe Pritchard said Commissioners had before them a letter from Virginia Boswell recommending a replacement for the expiring position of Mr. [Loud Click!] Farrell(?). He said the recomendee is Ellen Golden.

He didn’t say, but Continue reading →

China ends a nuclear treatment plant after demonstrations

“In order to respect the popular will, the government of” the city of Heshan refused to proceed with a $9 billion uranium processing plant. That happened after this, yesterday:

The cancellation, unusually fast, demonstrates the increasingly important attention given by the authorities to environmental concerns that are often expressed at the local level. Several projects of petrochemical plants and metal processing have recently been postponed or relocated.

Yes, I know the plant may just be relocated somewhere else. But with enough such demonstrations it won’t be built. How about some of this respect for the popular will about, for example, the natural gas pipeline through Georgia from Alabama to Florida, or the new nukes at Plant Vogtle?

Le Monde, today, Continue reading →

Valdosta budget with goals and accomplishments for each department

It’s too bad nobody came to Valdosta’s two public budget hearings, because the city prepared 183 slides with details for each department, including goals and accomplishments. On the LAKE website is that presentation sent on request by City Clerk Teresa Bolden, and converted to HTML by LAKE. Plus the actual budget. No open records requests were required. Oh, and Valdosta runs garbage collection on a balanced budget without any exclusive franchises.

Valdosta News PR 20 June 2013, City Delivers a Balanced Budget: No property tax increase proposed for citizens,

The Valdosta City Council approved the fiscal year 2014 budget for the City of Valdosta at the June 20 City Council meeting, after having the opportunity to hear the proposed budget at the hearings on June 11 and 12. City staff presented the council with a balanced budget, as required by the City Charter, possibly one of the most challenging and difficult budgets prepared in years.

City leaders decreased the overall city budget from $86.2 million to $77.3 million, a result of Continue reading →

Sterlizing female inmates without approval: California prisons

As recently as 2010. Has anybody checked Georgia prisons recently?

Corey G. Johnson wrote for Center for Investigative Reporting 7 July 2013, Female inmates sterilized in California prisons without approval,

Doctors under contract with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation sterilized nearly 150 female inmates from 2006 to 2010 without required state approvals, The Center for Investigative Reporting has found.

At least 148 women received tubal ligations in violation of prison rules during those five years — and there are perhaps 100 more dating back to the late 1990s, according to state documents and interviews.

From 1997 to 2010, the state paid doctors $147,460 to perform the procedure, according to a database of contracted medical services for state prisoners.

The women were signed up for the surgery while they were pregnant and housed at either the California Institution for Women in Corona or Valley State Prison for Women in Chowchilla, which is now a men’s prison.

How did this happen?

Continue reading →

Three Brooks County football players dead in morning accident

Jon Nelson wrote about an hour ago for GPB, DEVELOPING: Three Brooks County Players Die In Car Accident,

Three Brooks County (GA) High School football players died following a morning wreck near the town of Quitman in southwest Georgia. The teenagers were reportedly on their way to football practice at the high school when the accident occurred. Local police are saying that the wreck happened on the road to school around 9:30AM.

His post has the names of the students, all pronounced dead at the scene of the accident, and of a fourth student who was according to WCTV, airlifted by helicopter to Shands Hospital in Gainesville, Florida.

-jsq

Corbett or George Road renamed to Caney Branch Road @ LCC 2013-06-25

The road previously known as Corbett or George, part of which may or may not have been closed at some previous data, was renamed to Caney Branch Road after a creek that flows into the Alapahoochee River, at the 25 June Regular Session of the Lowndes County Commission.

6.1. Public Hearing Renaming George Road (CR #105)

George Road

This time County Engineer Mike Fletcher said the residents Part to be renamed wanted to rename George Road to be Caney Branch Road after Caney Branch, “a small creek that runs through this area, localized”. because

EMS, 911, and postal services have an issue with locating the correct houses because there are two George Roads in Lowndes County.

He referred to the previous morning, when Commissioner Crawford Powell wanted to know Continue reading →

Why are you gambling on nuclear instead of solar? –Gloria Tatum @ SO 2013-05-22

Why is SO gambling our health and dollars on Plant Vogtle when Georgia Power could be getting on with solar power? SO CEO Tom Fanning avoided the first part of Gloria Tatum’s question by simply denying it, and danced around the second part by saying the rate hike for Plant Vogtle’s cost overruns would only be 6 to 8 percent, not 12 percent. Do you want to pay 6 or 8 percent more for a radioactive white elephant when you could be getting power from the sun for less?

The floor person at the 22 May 2013 Southern Company Stockholder Meeting introduced Gloria Tatum with 164 shares, representing Nuclear Watch South, and the SO CEO insisted

TF: Call me Tom. Gee whiz.

Gloria Tatum GT: Tom. Hi,Tom. It’s great to be here on this beautiful day.

TF: Thank you. Yes ma’am.

GT: And I know Southern Company’s done many wonderful things, but I want to point out a few things to you today.

First, you know, after the Fukushima meltdown, TEPCO’s $50 billion nuclear complex became a worthless liability. The deadly radiation still circles the planet, polluting the earth and increasing cancer. Other countries have abandoned their nuclear and they’re looking to renewable, but Southern Company’s affiliate, Georgia Power, continues construction on two new nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle. Now Shell Bluff is a community down the stream from Plant Vogtle and it has experienced a 25 percent increase in cancer since Vogtle 1 and 2 have been built.

Another problem with Vogtle Continue reading →

Dr. Jesse Lyle Parrott (1918-2013)

The last several times I saw him he reminded me that his illness was terminal, but it still comes as a shock. I was one of the many babies he delivered. -jsq

Picture from the VDT; obituary via McLane Funeral Services, Jesse Lyle Parrott

the VDT; Born in Salley, SC on Dec. 23, 1918
Departed on Jun. 21, 2013 and resided in Hahira, GA.
Visitation: No Visitation
Service: Private
Cemetery: Private
Jesse Lyle Parrott, M. D.

Dr. Jesse Lyle Parrott, 94, husband of Nancy Wainer Parrott for 58 years, died peacefully at home in Hahira on Friday, June 21, 2013. He was born in Salley, SC on December 23, 1918 to the late Lily Price and Glen Peake Parrott during the historic influenza epidemic. At the age of 12 he accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior, was baptized and joined the Methodist Church. He attended high school in Collins, Ga during the Great Depression. He worked as a gas station attendant, a “drugstore cowboy” and in the CCC until he entered South Georgia College in Douglas, GA. Eventually he received his Bachelor of Science pre-med degree from the University of Georgia where he was also proctor of the football dormitory. Entering Medical School at the Medical College of Georgia under the Navy program he was commissioned as an intern at the naval Hospital at New Orleans and Pearl Harbor. Following completion of training, Dr. Parrott was assigned to a flotilla of landing craft as the singular medical officer. Duty was principally in the Marshall-Gilbert Islands. In 1945, Dr. Parrott moved to Hahira, GA to join the practice of his brother in law, Dr. Raymond Smith at Smith Hospital. He worked 16-18 hour days in General Practice for 40 years during which he delivered over 5,000 babies, performed thousands of surgical procedures and treated many thousands of patients. The exception to his devotion to patients was his afternoon off every Thursday during which he fished with his father in law, the late David Samuel Wainer or his best friend, H. M. Barfield and then took his bride and family out to dinner. Dr. Parrott abruptly retired from private practice due to macular degeneration. He served another 15 years as the Chief Medical Director of the South District Detoxification Facility at Smith Hospital. Dr. Parrott was President of the South Georgia Medical Society, served as mayor of Hahira from 1957-1958 and again from 1987-1993. He was a long term member of Hahira United Methodist Church serving in many roles as well as Sunday School teacher for the Adult Class. He was also a member of the Valdosta Rotary Club.

Picture by Church Street Coffee

Along with his beloved wife, Continue reading →