Tag Archives: Lowndes County

Leigh Touchton wonders what Brad Lofton is hiding

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

-jsq

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.

-jsq

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.

-jsq

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.
Continue reading →

Bike-sharing in town

A truly friendly city can also bike-share. Paris, Montreal, and DC do it. London does it. How they do it can be applied stateside.

Georgia Tech is spinning off a startup to make it even easier to implement bike-on-demand networks.

Here’s the mayor of London on a bike-share bicycle:

Let’s see a video of the mayor of Valdosta on a bike-share bicycle. Riding with the president of VSU.

-jsq

Bike-sharing on campus

I keep hearing VSU students say “I don’t have a bike here”. There’s a solution for that, as Didi Tang writes in USA Today, Bike-sharing programs spin across U.S. campuses:
Shelenhamer, 20, is one of a number of students across the USA taking advantage of free or low-cost bike sharing programs, which have become increasingly popular. Drury students agreed to pay a $20-a-year sustainability fee, which funds the bike program. The Springfield, Mo., school purchased 40 new bikes for use by students in time for the fall semester.

“It’s helped me so much,” Shelenhamer said. “It’s been fun.”

That was at Drury University. Similar programs are available elsewhere. Continue reading →

Critical Mass this Friday

Critical Mass is riding again this Friday, September 24, starting from the Bleu Pub downtown.
The gathering starts at 6pm, followed by a 30 minute ride at 6:30pm.

Help raise awareness for the need of bike lanes and improved bicycler safety in Valdosta. Come and experience Valdosta in a new way- on a bike ride through the city with a few dozen friends!

All level-riders welcome and encouraged to participate.

Coming from VSU? Meet us at the Student Union at 5:50pm, a group will leave from the Student Union at 6pm and head to the Bleu Pub starting point downtown.

It has been happening in Valdosta since July 2009:

-jsq

SB 409, the “Georgia Forest Product Fairness Act”

State Senator Tim Golden reported May 1 on the April 2010 end of the Georgia legislative session:
Forest Tax Fairness: As a lead co-sponsor of legislation that would ensure property tax fairness for the owners of forest land, I am pleased to report that the House gave final approval to SB 409 last week and sent it to the governor for his signature.

This bill, which passed unanimously in both the Senate and House, requires that any tax break or exemption granted to a business that uses “raw forest products,” such as a biomass energy plant, must also be granted to the owner of the property where that product is harvested.

This is good legislation for PCA and other manufacturers in our district, as well as the forest industry.

Unlike the VDT, Sen. Golden’s own website includes a link to the bill, SB 409, the “Georgia Forest Product Fairness Act” which reads in part: Continue reading →

Solar Hahira

Kara Ramos writes in the VDT that Z.T. Wilkins of Hahira went solar:
…the 3,600-square-foot home uses electricity to run such operations as fans, electric fences, a four-ton air conditioning unit, and a five-horsepower submersible pump.

Prior to having the solar panels, Wilkins’ monthly electric bill was roughly $350 a month during the summer. Since he has had the system installed, he has seen a decrease of about $250 a month.

Wilkins predicts his monthly bill to decrease substantially during the winter.

For the past three months, Wilkins, wife Janet, and daughter Taylorlyn, 2, have been living more of a green energy lifestyle out of their home.

Deciding he wanted to invest in his daughter’s future, Wilkins made the financial investment to have South GA Solar Power LLC install the solar power system.

I’ve met Ron Jackson Sr. of South GA Solar Power LLC, and I’m sure he’d be glad to talk to you, too, about installing solar.

(We used Georgia Solar Power Company out of Marietta when we installed our solar panels back in 2009. There weren’t any local solar companies back then. Now there are.)

-jsq

Solar Companies Booming in Buffalo

There’s still time to lead the solar parade:
“The solar market is the fastest-growing market worldwide, bar none,” said Ryne P. Raffaelle, director of the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Center for Photovoltaics in Colorado. “For the last half-dozen years, it’s grown at about a 40 to 45 percent compound annual growth rate per year.”

That growth is expected to accelerate next year, said Raffaelle, who was a Rochester Institute of Technology faculty member for 10 years. But the vast majority of that growth, both in the manufacturing and deployment of systems, is happening outside the United States. Asia has taken a “commanding lead” in manufacturing, and Europe leads in deployment, he said.

“But the rest of the world, they’re still watching the United States. They still see us as the 800-pound gorilla,” Raffaelle said. “It’s like, ‘When are they going to do something?'”

That was from a conference held in the Buffalo area recently.

In Buffalo, New York, they’re not just talking about solar power: Continue reading →

If it’s sunny enough in Buffalo….

Charlotte Hsu writes in the UB Reporter about Site preparation to begin on ‘Solar Strand’:
Workers will begin mowing, clearing and grading land adjacent to Flint Road next month to make way for “The Solar Strand,” a 1.1 megawatt solar-energy array designed by internationally renowned landscape architect Walter Hood and funded by a $7.5 million grant from the New York Power Authority.

The installation, with 5,000 photovoltaic (PV) panels powering more than 700 student apartments at UB, is calculated to reduce carbon emissions by more than 500 metric tons per year. That will bring the university closer to its goal of reaching carbon neutrality by 2030 under its Climate Action Plan. But the project is more than a means of generating energy.

Buffalo is at 42 degrees 53 minutes north, about a thousand miles north of Valdosta at 30 degrees 49 minutes north. On the NREL solar radiation map, Buffalo shows significantly less solar radiation than Valdosta.

So if Buffalo can do it, why can’t Valdosta? Continue reading →