Tag Archives: Safety

Earthquake busts Augusta water tower: what about Plant Vogtle?

Less than two years after

Southern Company CEO Tom Fanning assured us




It is not in a seismic-sensitive area.

Fanning also claimed the technology was safe, before
SO failed to get a reactor vessel from Savannah to the site,
and before a renewed scandal revealed
Korea’s document-forging Doosan supplies that “safe” nuclear technology.
How safe will Plant Vogtle be in a bigger earthquake?
How safe is it even without an earthquake?
Not safe for the ratepayers or the taxpayers of Georgia or the U.S.

Mark Sandritter wrote for SBNation yesterday,

Augusta National water tower leaking after Georgia earthquake, per report, Continue reading →

Moody Family Housing Environmental Assessment published

Spotted first by Michael G. Noll in the VDT yesterday,
the document promised by
Col. Ford
the previous evening.
A quick search finds nothing about the

Nelson Hill Wells,
and no mention of VSU or any of the professors there who have

expressed
concern and asked for access to the site to conduct an independent study.



USAF ANNOUNCES AN

ENVIRONMENT ASSESSMENT

In accordance with the National Environmental Policy
Act and Air Force regulations, the Air Force Civil
Engineer Center (AFCEC) has completed a Revised Draft
Environmental Assessment (EA), Finding of No
Significant Impact (FONSI), and a Finding of No
Practicable Alternative (FONPA) to evaluate the
consequences of the following stated proposed action:

The revised Proposed Action would involve the
construction of 11 housing units for senior leadership on
a 15-acre parcel on the base and 90 units on an
approximately 60-acre parcel located northwest of the
city of Valdosta, GA on Val-Del Road (the Val-Del
Parcel). This represents a reduction Continue reading →

Air Force has the environmental assessment for Moody Family Housing



Last night I chatted briefly with Moody’s
Col. Ford, before he spoke at the
Lake Park Chamber Annual Awards Dinner.
He said he had been able to get on the site of the proposed Moody Family
Housing about a year ago.
I mentioned the

Nelson Hill Wells
and he said they had spent a lot of time already investigating
water issues, and now the Air Force has received the environmental assessment.
Perhaps it includes the missing piece this time,
and maybe there’s a way for the public and local professors
to provide input.




Colonel Edward Ford is commander of the 23d Mission Support Group at
Moody AFB, Ga. He leads a group of more than 1,450 military and
civilian members providing support and services to a population of
28,000 active duty, retired military and family members. His group
maintains an installation with more than 830 buildings and more than
17,500 acres, including an adjacent bombing or strafing range. He is
responsible for ensuring the readiness of support forces to mobilize
and deploy to build, secure, and sustain air base operations at
austere bare base locations anywhere in the world.

The 23d Mission Support Group also retains responsibility for civil
engineering, environmental compliance, Continue reading →

Nelson Hill Wells

Seen today on

Recent clear cutting in north of Lowndes County:



In the Northwest and Southwest of the most westerly boundary line of
Nelson Hill Subdivision there are two well sites that had been
previously deeded to Lowndes County for Deep Wells for Lowndes
County Water Supply due to the problems at that time with the Well
at Stone Creek location. However the test bore water samples came
back with negative results due to surface water contamination
entering the aquifer from all the fractures in the fragile lime
stone basin and active sinkholes in that area, there is a sinkhole
less than half of a mile south from where the test bores were done
and it’s probably 90 feet deep. All this boarders the subject site
Moody Housing.

So let’s look on the west side of the
remainder of the Nelson Hill site,

parcel 0071 006B.
There are two cutouts, each about 50 feet square or 2500 square feet or 0.057 acre.
Trying to select those in the online tax assessors maps, we get:

No data found for Continue reading →

Recent clear cutting in north of Lowndes County



Multiple people reported clearing work at the site of the

Moody Family Housing project on Val Del Road,
with its

sinkhole next to an aquifer recharge zone,
that


not even
Moody Air Force Base can get in to inspect.
So we went out to look. There is clear cutting happening on Val Del Road (both sides) but it does not appear to be happening on the property slated for Moody Family Housing.




There has been clear cutting going on in the north of Lowndes County
for some time on large tracts near Skipper Bridge Road, Staten Road (near the
new river bridge) and on Val Del Road immediately south of the Moody Family
Housing tract.

It appears that most of those properties are owned by Natco LLC: Continue reading →

Weather report by Ashley Tye, Emergency Management Director @ LCC 2014-01-28



Lowndes County’s

Emergency Management Director
reported yesterday on projected icy roads today.

Here’s

the video:



Weather report by Ashley Tye, Emergency Management Director

Regular Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),

Video by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE),

Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 28 January 2014.

All the local schools are closed, public and private, K-12 and college,
so the best thing to to is to stay home.

Commissioner John Page said a constituent had just asked him
if Lowndes County owned any snow plows.
Answer: no, but the county can get access to them if needed.

County Clerk Paige Dukes enumerated ways she had tried to get the word out,
including

this information on the county’s front web page,
which will probably disappear without trace in a day or so,
so I’ve copied it below. Continue reading →

America’s Dangerous Pipelines –Center for Biological Diversity


7,978 fatalities by in 2013 – 4,199 by 2001 = 3,779,
which is more than the 2,977 killed by the hijackers on 9/11.
If the fossil fuel industry was a foreign country, we would have invaded it by now.
Why should we let that industry invade our lands for their profit?
Let’s not permit

a fossil fuel disaster here.

Center for Biological Diversity
wrote on YouTube 31 July 2013

America’s Dangerous Pipelines: Continue reading →

Nottinghill resolved, Spectra profit sharing? Planning Commission transparency? @ LCC 2013-12-10



The Commission’s designated first speaker

confused order with good.
Chairman Bill Slaughter
required a sitting judge to go to the podium to speak,
even though he had not required that for multiple Spectra pipeline reps
the previous morning.
Nottinghill is finally resolved,
after yet more probing questions by Commissioners; more than they
asked the Spectra reps.
A

VSU professor
and

a landowner
asked very good questions about the pipeline,
a

KLVB board member gave a report,
and

Gretchen asked the Commission to post Planning Commission minutes online.

Two people were

appointed; one spoke.
The two

beer licenses, a

liquor license,
the

decorative special tax lighting district for Windstone,
the

contracts,
the

resolution to ask the legislature for an additional judge,
and the

bids were all approved with little discussion.
The

settlement for back pay it turns out didn’t
actually involve
employees having to sue to get paid.

Here’s

the amended agenda with the

two added items,
plus links to the videos and a few notes.
See also

the previous morning’s Work Session.

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS

AMENDED AGENDA

WORK SESSION, MONDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2013, 8:30 a.m.

REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2013, 5:30 p.m.

327 N. Ashley Street — 2nd Floor

Continue reading →

Sabal Trail not a common carrier with open access in Georgia –Mindy Bland @ LCC 2013-12-10



A local landowner said that with no open access in Georgia,
Sabal Trail Transmission should have no standing to use
Georgia eminent domain law.
And Sabal Trail must comply with local, state, and federal laws and
ordinances, including ones that could be passed by the Lowndes
County Commission, she said at their

10 December 2013 Regular Session.



For example, a depth ordinance, or an ordinance requiring
a minimum distance from homes or schools.
Or a tax on the pipeline easement.
She recommended

PipelineSafetyInfo.com.
She asked for the Commissioners to use their voice.

As
WCTV quoted her in their coverage, she said,

I don’t want to have to fear for my children as they sleep at night.



County Manager Joe Pritchard shuffled papers and

alleged County Attorney Walter G. Elliott yawned during these
citizen presentations.

Mindy Bland
noted Commissioner Powell had asked for Continue reading →

Last day to oppose NRC bad nuclear waste plan



Today you can object to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC)
inadequate plan for radioactive waste storage.

Comment through regulations.gov

on Docket #NRC-2012-0246-0456;
here’s

a link to the comment form.

NRC’s web page on

Waste Confidence:

The public comment period on the Waste Confidence Draft Generic
Environmental Impact Statement and proposed rule ends on Friday,
December 20, 2013.

Background from

Beyond Nuclear:

No safe, permanent solution has yet been found anywhere in the
world—and may never be found—for the nuclear waste
problem. In the U.S., the only identified and flawed high-level
radioactive waste deep repository site at Yucca Mountain, Nevada has
been canceled. Beyond Nuclear advocates for an end to the production
of nuclear waste and for securing the existing reactor waste in
hardened on-site storage.

Facebook event with more information.

Here’s
a petition:

The NRC, by court order, has been required to gather public input
regarding a Generic Environmental Impact Statement (GEIS) regarding
the storage of nuclear waste that is grossly inadequate and leaves
over 150 million Americans who live within 50 miles of a nuclear
power plant at risk.

The NRC has declared that it would only be a SMALL risk to the
environment and communities near nuclear power plants to store
nuclear waste on-site for 60 years, 160 years or even INDEFINITELY
if no permanent repository is established….



And NRC’s oversight committee is the

Subcommittee on Energy and Power
of the

Energy and Commerce Committee,
which just held a hearing 12 December 2013 on

Oversight of NRC Management and the Need for Legislative Reform.

-jsq