FDEP is fine with Sabal Trail
boring through the Marjorie Harris Carr Cross Florida Greenway in Marion County, FL,
as well as
drilling under Suwannee River State Park in Hamilton and Suwannee County, FL.
For that Greenway, see the maps shown here (click on any one of them for a larger image), pulled from Sabal Trail’s Continue reading
Tallahassee does it, and local governments here could also sit down
and talk with citizens.
It even has built-in time limits, for those elected officials who are
concerned about citizen longwindedness.
Gina Pitisci wrote for WCTV Thursday, Ever heard of speed dating? What about speed dating your local officials?
“The more any one of us can get out and talk with the citizens the better off we are,” Gil ziffer, Tallahassee City Commissioner, said. “If we’re insulated in our offices, it’s not like getting out and talking with folks so this is great for us.”
Here’s how it works: every 9 minutes the 12 leaders rotate from table to table giving each group of people an opportunity to ask questions or offer their ideas.
Listening to citizens: now there’s an idea!
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Even closer than Tampa Bay or Fort Myers, Tallahassee has sinkhole problems in our same Floridan Aquifer just across the state line. Will the Lowndes County Commission do anything about our sinkhole problems before people start losing their insurance and get sucked into holes in the ground?
Andy Alcock wrote for WCTV Wednesday, Tallahassee Woman Faces Sinkhole Problem,
Imagine living in a home you can’t insure, no one wants to buy and it may not be safe.
A Tallahassee woman is currently facing that problem.
At first glance, her home in Tallahassee’s Mission Manor neighborhood on the city’s northwest side doesn’t look much different from any of the other homes in the neighborhood.
Then about two years ago, homeowner Vickie Gordon found a problem.
“I started noticing that the doors were getting stuck in the bathroom, couldn’t open them,” said Gordon.
Then the issues became more noticeable.
Cracks started showing up all over the house.
After Gordon contacted her insurance company, investigators found sinkhole activity at her home.
I wish this part was a joke:
Continue readingMeanwhile, just across the Florida line, Leon County Commission and the Tallahassee City Comissioners don't seem to want sprawl.
James Buechele wrote for WCTV yesterday, Neighborhood Has Zoning Concerns: County commissioners met to talk about nine amendments for a comprehensive plan to tackle developments.
Leon County commissioners and Tallahassee City Commissioners met Tuesday evening to talk about nine proposed amendments to the comprehensive plan.
One of the issues dealt with the Haute Headz salon off of Thomasville and Gadsden roads in Mid-Town.
Property owner Marshall Cassedy wants to see the area in this section of Mid-Town changed from a residential preservation zone to one that would allow offices.
Right now, it's home to the salon, but because of the residential preservation zone, if something should happen to the business a home would have to take it's place instead of another business.
That's something Cassedy wants to change because he says the busy location is not ideal for a home.
But opponents say that if someone wants to build offices there's plenty of room downtown.
"We already have about a million and a half square-feet of vacant office space in the city and the county," said Tallahassee resident Darwin Gamble. "Help building more offices won't create more jobs."
This issue was tabled at the meeting and will come up again June 26th. Until then both sides will continue to negotiate.
That's almost strategic:
"Help building more offices won't create more jobs."
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Takao Yamada wrote for Mainichi Japan 2 April 2012, In light of further nuclear risks, economic growth should not be priority,
A report released in February by the Independent Investigation Commission on theFukushima Daiichi Nuclear Accident stated that the storage pool of the plant’s No. 4 reactor has clearly been shown to be “the weakest link” in the parallel, chain-reaction crises of the nuclear disaster. The worse-case scenario drawn up by the government includes not only the collapse of the No. 4 reactor pool, but the disintegration of spent fuel rods from all the plant’s other reactors. If this were to happen, residents in the Tokyo metropolitan area would be forced to evacuate.
Fukushima is about 200 miles from Tokyo. Plant Hatch at Baxley, which has the same reactor design as at Fukushima, is about the same distance from Atlanta and Charleston, closer to Tallahassee and Jacksonville, and much closer to many of us in south Georgia.
The article concludes:
We cannot accept the absurd condescension of those who fear the worse-case scenario, labeling them as “overreacting.” We have no time to humor the senseless thinking that instead, those who downplay the risks for the sake of economic growth are “realistic.”
So, what do you get in a solar spill? Sunshine. What do you get when a wind turbine breaks? Maybe some local damage. What do you get when a nuclear plant fails? Oh….
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Judge rules prison privatization plan unconstitutional Dara Kam wrote for Post on Politics yesterday, Judge Rules Florida Prison Privatization Unconstitutional,
The order doesn’t say Florida can’t privatize prisons, rather that it can’t do it by hiding it in the budget process. But alleged budget savings are the only reason privatization backers are willing to admit to, so that’s no small matter.The privatization of 29 prisons in the southern portion of the state from Manatee County to Indian River County to the Florida Keys should have been mandated in a separate bill and not in proviso language in the budget, as lawmakers did in the must-pass budget approved in May and signed into law by Gov. Rick Scott, Fulford ruled.
“This Court concludes that if it is the will of the Legislature to itself initiate privatization of Florida prisons, as opposed to DOC, the Legislature must do so by general law, rather than ‘using the hidden recesses of the General Appropriations Act,’” Fulford wrote in her order issued Friday morning.
And if prison privatization is such a money-saver, why did the prison companies’ cronies in the statehouse try to do it like this: Continue reading
Ben Copeland asked the big question: “How much growth do we want?”
He related it to regional water in the aquifer, rivers, growth, and planning,
speaking at the Lake Park Chamber of Commerce annual dinner, 28 January 2011.
Copeland is Past Chairman of the Board, Wiregrass Technical College.
He serves on the regional water planning council.
He said
those councils were started due to worries
about Atlanta not having a reliable water supply.
He said the councils were
planning for water and wastewater to 2050.
The local regional council is the
Suwannee-Satilla regional water council.
He described the
extent of the water planning region (see map).
He
expects finalization of the water plan by May.
He talked about the Floridian aquifer, and how he’s worried not so much about Atlanta taking our water as about Orlando, Jacksonville, and Tallahassee.
“Because they all have their straws in that same aquifer.”
Finally, Ben Copeland asked the big question: “How much growth do we want?”
“Do we want to be Jacksonville? Do we want to be Tallahassee? Do we want to be a large metropolitan region?Continue readingFolks are going to move to south Georgia, I can tell you that, because of all the resources that we have. I’m a great believer in the free enterprise system. How much do we try to limit that?
The VDT explains how to effect change, if anyone is listening.
Editorial, 13 Jan 2010,
Powerless to stop the power plant:
This week as the rhetoric around the proposed biomass facility has continued heating up, leading up to last night’s forum, one of the main themes has been that “government should do something.”
While the Times does not condone or condemn Chairman Paulk’s actions in the commission meeting Tuesday night, understanding the situation may help shed light on the issue. The county is powerless to do anything to stop this power plant. The only governmental entity with any power over the project is the city, and that’s only in the form of the services being extended and the water being sold to the company, as well as the sewage sludge that’s being burned. They too are powerless at this point to stop it.
The editorial continues with the tired old excuse “they can be sued”.
Don’t they have insurance for that?
If the whole thing goes as bad as some opponents predict,
they could be sued for the kind of financial disaster
that faces Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
There is one governmental entity that does have the power. Ah, here it is: Continue reading
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Continue readingFrom: Leigh Touchton
Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2010 20:04:48 -0400
Subject: Mr. Lofton once again misrepresents the facts
To: wace-georgia@googlegroups.com
Cc: blofton@industrialauthority.com, [and the VDT and some elected officials and other interested parties]Dear WACE:
1. Mr. Lofton stated: “Despite what Mrs. Touchton stated, we’ve been in touch with the Massachusetts and Florida EPD, and in no way, shape, or form is either state banning biomass facilities. In fact, there are 15 scheduled now for New England, many in Mass, and a number in Florida. There have been discussions regarding the level of incentives (tax credits) allowed, but no moratorium. We’ll be happy to share our contacts with you.”
I would like for Mr. Lofton to share his contacts with WACE. Because previously his contacts at the Sierra Club were misrepresented by him. Sierra Club does NOT endorse Biomass Incineration, neither does any other major environmental organization in America.
I would also like Mr. Lofton to share his private email list of stakeholders with WACE, in particular the investors, because I would like to share some information with them. I expect transparency in our public officials and his refusal to address my letter to the editor of the Valdosta Daily Times in the same newspaper in which it was published does not lead me to believe that he is operating in good faith. I am very disturbed that any public official would state that they did not want to “energize a forum for misinformation” regarding published concerns in the local newspaper. Mr. Lofton has a duty to respond to all citizens’ concerns publicly. I am very disturbed that he thought he could privately email a group about my published letter to the editor and that the first I learned of it was nearly a month after he did so. And no, I still don’t wish to have a private telephone conversation with him or a private meeting with him, I’ve been reading all the public documents that have resulted from his supposed lengthy due diligence period. As I stated, the first I learned of this proposed biomass incinerator was when the EPD called for public comments. Mr. Lofton and Councilman James Wright were both invited to the June Women in the NAACP meeting and neither man showed up so I don’t really care to engage in who didn’t return whose phone calls. Additionally he could have made contact with the schools and churches in the area, or attended an SCLC or NAACP meeting but he did not. All our our meetings are open to the public, unlike his private list of stakeholders.
Here’s one internet article on the moratorium in Massachusetts.
Who does know?
We are mapping all of the existing, proposed, closed and defeated dirty energy and waste facilities in the United States. We are building a network of community groups to fight the facilities and the corporations behind them.The detail map shown includes the Wiregrass Power LLC proposed plant (the orange oval I just south of Valdosta), two plants in Hamilton County, Florida Continue reading