Tag Archives: History

Proposed abandonment of a portion of County Road 16/Old State Rd. —Brett Huntley @ LCC 2013-02-25

Received today; he sent it to all the Commissioners. -jsq

To the commission on the proposed idea of road abandonment on County
Rd. #16:



On the morning of 2/25/13 after the county commission’s morning work
session, my wife and I spoke with Joyce Evans and Bill Slaughter on
some of our concerns and new found technical information about road
abandonment, Georgia state waterways, and what the county and state
are expected to protect.

During our conversation we were told that for unexplained legal
reasons the county would have to give the road back to the land
owner. At this time my thoughts and questions come back to: Why if
for legal reasons do we have to give the land back or away, and why
are we even having to have a public hearing on this matter, if the
public has no say?

Also during this conversation Bill mentioned

Continue reading →

Water trails for economic benefit —Bret Wagenhorst

This letter demonstrates many public uses of the Alapaha River at
Hotchkiss Crossing by everyone from Boy Scouts to doctors,
and indicates economic benefits of water trails. -jsq



February 4, 2013

Lowndes County Board of Commissioners

327 North Ashley Street – 3rd Floor

Valdosta, GA 31601

RE: Hotchkiss landing closure

Dear Commissioners:

I have lived in the
South Georgia region for the past 16 years. I am also a practicing
physician and have a love of the out of doors, especially canoeing,
camping and hiking. I also serve on the board of

WWALS Watershed Coalition,
a local river advocacy group trying to promote awareness
and preservation of our local rivers. It has recently come to my
attention that you are considering the potential closure of the
Hotchkiss landing site along the Alapaha River near Naylor. I would
like to put in a word in favor of keeping the landing site open.

I have canoed dozens of
different sections of the Alapaha River from north of Tifton all the
way to Statenville, as well as portions that join with the Suwanee
River in Florida. Without a doubt, one of the most fun and scenic
sections to paddle is from the put-in near Burnt Church outside of
Lakeland down to the Hotchkiss landing. I have taken various groups

Continue reading →

County can’t “lawfully vacate a public street or highway for the benefit of a private individual” —Georgia Supreme Court

While I don’t know if the proposed closing of the end of Old State Road
leading to Hotchkiss Landing at the Alapaha River is even on the agenda
for this morning’s Work Session (Clarification: Monday 25 Feb 2013; they vote 5:30 PM Tuesday 26 Feb 2013), because

the county’s website is down and I can’t retrieve an agenda,
in case it is, it may be of interest to know that the Georgia Supreme
Court appears to have explicitly forbidden what the county is proposing to do.

Georgia Supreme Court,

GRIFFITH v. C & E BUILDERS,
231 Ga. 255 (1973),
200 S.E.2d 874:

Held:

1. “When a grantor sells lots of land, and in his deeds describes
them as bounded by streets, not expressly mentioned in the deeds,


but shown upon a plat therein referred to as laid out in a subdivision
of the grantor’s land, he is estopped to deny the grantees’ right to
use the streets delineated in such plat. Ford v. Harris [95 Ga. 97,
22 SE 144]; Schreck v. Blun, 131 Ga. 489 (62 SE 705); Wimpey v. Smart,
137 Ga. 325 (73 SE 586); Gibson v. Gross, 143 Ga. 104 (84 SE 373). By
parity of reasoning those claiming under such conveyances are estopped
from denying the existence of the streets so delineated upon the
plat of the subdivision and given as boundaries of lots acquired by
these and others from the grantor or those claiming under him. All
persons claiming under such grantor are forever estopped to deny their
existence. 19 CJ 928, § 127 (b).” Tietjen v. Meldrim, 169 Ga. 678, 697
(151 SE 349); Davis v. City of Valdosta,223 Ga. 523 (156 S.E.2d 345).

I am not a lawyer, but I wonder what a lawyer would say 1. above implies
about the county

doing nothing about a blocked public road?

But the Georgia Supreme Court didn’t stop there:

Continue reading →

Radioactive tritium leak at Plant Hatch discovered yesterday

Will Georgia Power CEO Paul Bowers say this tritium leak at Plant Hatch
is not a problem, like he did

about the one in September 2011?
Meanwhile, how many tritium leaks have you heard of from solar
panels or wind mills?

According to the NRC’s Event Notification Report for February 14, 2013,

OFFSITE NOTIFICATION DUE TO TRITIUM RELEASE ONSITE,

“As part of routine rounds on 2/13/13, site personnel discovered an


overflow condition at a collection tank containing water with low
levels of tritium (approximately 6,000 pCi/L). The discharge pump
for the tank was found to be nonfunctional which resulted in the
overflow condition. Following discovery, a portable pump was
utilized to pump the water to the normal monitored discharge path
and terminate the overflow condition. The exact volume could not be
determined but it is estimated that the volume of water that
overflowed to the ground was greater than the 100 gallon threshold
for voluntary reporting as indicated in Nuclear Energy Institute
(NEI) 07-07, ‘Industry Ground Water Initiative-Final Guidance
Document.’ A rough estimate of the release is between 100 and 300
gallons. The tritium was contained to a small area on the plant site
in the vicinity of the discharge structure, and there is no
significant potential for off-site impact or impact to on-site
personnel.

“Because the leak remained on site, there will be no offsite impact
to drinking water sources. Furthermore, the release posed no threat
to employees or the public. Southern Nuclear [SNC] will continue to
monitor the affected area as required.

Sure, and

they’ve got a ten-mile-radius emergency plan for Plant Hatch, too!
Nevermind the Floridan Aquifer that underlies the whole coastal plain hereabouts,
and that we drink from over here, only 100 miles from Plant Hatch.
The report says they’ll report to the state:

Continue reading →

Renewable energy much needed in Georgia —John S. Quarterman

My op-ed in the VDT today; I’ve added links, plus some more after the op-ed.



Finally! Kewaunee, Calvert Cliffs, and now Crystal River
permanently closing say it’s time for Georgia to stop wasting money
on Southern Company’s already over-budget and increasingly-late
nukes and get on with solar power and wind off the coast: for
jobs, for energy independence, and for clean air and plenty of
clean water.

February 2013:

Duke Energy is closing the Crystal River nuclear
reactor

(Tampa Bay Times, 6 Feb 2013),
160 miles south of us, because

nobody wants to pay to fix it:
between “$1.5 billion and $3.4 billion,
plus what it costs to buy power to replace
what Crystal River would have produced while it is
being repaired”

[Charlotte Business Journal, 11 Jan 2013].
November 2012:

NRC terminated Maryland’s Calvert Cliffs 3

(NRC 1 Nov 2012)
after

Constellation Energy dropped out because the cost “is too high
and creates too much risk for Constellation”

[Bloomberg 10 Oct 2010].

Continue reading →

As went Maine Yankee, so goes San Onofre: another reactor will close


San Onofre 4 will stay down,
if opponents can stop the hidden experiment shell game.
Maine Yankee was down for about a year, and never started up again.

Front page of the Bangor Daily News 28 May 1997,

Maine Yankee plant may be closed down: Owners weigh repair costs, deregulation,


Page 1A Bangor Daily News 28 May 1997

Maine Yankee President Mike Sellman said that spending
will be reduced by about 20 percent, or $41 million, from
June through December.

“I think every plant that I’m aware of that has made the decision
to essentially curtail start-up activities has then gone ahead
shut down permanently,” said Sellman.

Maine Yankee has been off line since Dec. 6, 1966.
Several repair and improvement projects had been planned so the plant’s
operators could seek Nuclear Regulatory Commission approval to
restart and return the plant to service.

See also
“It has to close because of the pocketbook.” —Kyle Jones on Maine Yankee nuclear power plant.

-jsq

“It has to close because of the pocketbook.” —Kyle Jones on Maine Yankee nuclear power plant

Instead of demonstrating to influence legislators, sometimes it's better
to get elected and legislate: that's what Kyle Jones did in Maine,
and he closed the Maine Yankee nuke,
de-monopolized the state's electrical utilities,
and instituted a 30% renewable energy goal.
All this was helped by the nuclear industry's own incompetence.

Bangor Daily News, Page A2, 28 May 1997,

Maine Yankee plant may be closed down: Owners weigh repair costs, deregulation,


Page 2A Bangor Daily News 28 May 1997
Cracking in the plant's steam generator tubes, which carry the superheated,
radioactive water, was first discovered in 1990.
In 1994, Main Yankee officials predicted that the plant's problems
were over after they plugged more than 300 of the cracked tubes.
However, testing of the tubes during a shutdown for refueling in 1995
revealed as many as 10,000 additional cracked tubes.

Sounds a lot like

San Onofre.

At the time, it was estimated that permanently shutting down
the plant would cost at least $316 million while,
after 23 years of operation, Maine Yankee had collected only
$100 million to pay for its decommissioning. The most recent
estimate for decommissioning is $369 million, of which
only $169 million has been raised as of this month.

Facing the accumulation of these engineering and operational difficulties,
the owners of the plant signaled a departure from business-as-usual
and, earlier this year, brought in the New Orleans-based Entergy Corp.
to provide management services at Maine Yankee.

Oh, my!
The same Entergy that's now

likely to close Vermont Yankee.
And Vermont Yankee wasn’t the first to follow this financial path to closure:

Continue reading →

Tabled for two weeks: proposed Old State Road to Alapaha River @ LCC 2013-02-12

The good news: they didn’t close the road to Hotchkiss Crossing
at the Alapaha River.

Lowndes County Water Resource Protection Districts Ordinance (WRPDO) Overlay Map
They tabled it until their next meeting, which is in two weeks,
26 February 2013. Video will follow tomorrow, in which you will
see the room was packed, mostly with people opposed to the road closing,
some from as far away as Tifton.
All concerned now have two weeks to absorb all the new information
and work out a solution.

Below is what I sent to the Lowndes County Commission at
Commissioner Joyce Evans’ request before the meeting tonight,
followed by a bit more information.

Subject: River Corridor Protection Plan

Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2013 16:49:50 -0500

Dear Commissioners and County Planner,

When I was talking to Joyce Evans just now, I mentioned the
100 foot natural vegetative buffer state law requires
local governments to establish next to perennial rivers.
Here is a summary of the state law, the definition it contains,
the GA EPD rules, and some notes on the relevant parts of
the Lowndes County Comprehensive Plan.

Continue reading →

No list of who bought waste collection center cards? @ LCC 2013-02-12

How can Lowndes County not have a list of who it
sold waste collection center cards to?
How can it not provide it in response to an open records request?

In the

9 October 2012 Regular Session, Lowndes County Manager Joe Pritchard
said:


Just under 5,000 residents who have purchased the cards

That was in his curiously redacted summary of the history of
solid waste handling in the county, and he was referring to the
access cards to the waste collection centers.


Paige Dukes to April Huntley 2013-01-28
Yet when April Huntley submitted an open records request asking
for the names of the 5,000 people who would be affected by the
waste collection centers, this is what County Clerk Paige Dukes
replied:

In regards to your open records requst for a copy of the 5,000 residents
in unincorporated Lowndes County who will be affected by the closing of
the recycling centers, the document you have requested does not exist.

Maybe this explains part of why

Veolia, excuse me, ADS, seemed so confused yesterday morning.
Come tonight to see if any Commissioners ask about this.

-jsq

Letters against closing Old State Road to the Alapaha River @ LCC 2013-02-12

Here is a list of the letters I have copies of that oppose
closing Old State Road to the Alapaha River; probably more have been sent.


The

vote is tonight 5:30 PM
12 February 2013 at 327 North Ashley Street 2nd Floor,
Valdosta, GA.

According to state law and the public hearing notice,

Any citizen of Lowndes County or any person wherever residing may be
heard by the Lowndes County Board of Commissioners during the
aforesaid public hearing.

That means anyone from anywhere may speak.

Here’s the list.

Continue reading →