Tag Archives: Texas

Videos: Appointments to Hospital Authority and Parks and Rec + well pump @ LCC 2017-07-11



Two Regular Sessions back,
they started with a moment of silence for Mike Everett, recently deceased employee
of the Public Works department.
The

obituary in the VDT
, 14 July 2014,

Michael Thomas Everett, a senior heavy equipment operator with
Lowndes county and long time resident of Berrien County, GA, died
unexpectedly on July 9, 2017 at the age of 58 at his home. Mike was
born in Miami, Florida on December 29, 1958 to Hermon J. Everett and
Mary C. Everett both deceased and is survived by his loving
Step-Mother Nora N. Everett. Mike also known as Mr. Mike to many of
his close friends and co-workers was an avid race car fan, loved
cooking, enjoyed tending to his many gardens. He also loved music
and often played guitar with family and friends. He was a magnet for
all dogs taking great care of any that showed up on his doorstep.
Mike was a very kind and generous man who will be deeply missed by
his family, close neighbors, friends, co-workers and all who knew
him. There is no service scheduled at this time.

No surprise on the

pump
or
for the

Hospital Authority
,
but news about Ashley Paulk and

VLPRA
.
They approved everything else unanimously, as they usually do.

Below are links to each LAKE video, with a few notes, followed by a LAKE video playlist.
See also the agenda.
There are no LAKE videos of the previous morning’s Work Session,
because, they moved it half an hour early and didn’t send a notification.
But there is a blog post about one Commissioner’s response to that.
The county apparently does video its work sessions, but not that one,
and not this Regular Session, either.

Continue reading

Videos: Appointments to Hospital Authority and Parks and Rec + well pump @ LCC 2017-07-10

Nope, there are no LAKE videos of yesterday morning’s Work Session,
because, remember,

they moved the meeting half an hour earlier so when Gretchen showed up it was already over
.
The county does not video its Work Sessions, so there is no county video, either.
Since the Valdosta Daily Times apparently did not run a story (I don’t even know if they had a reporter there),
this means you won’t know what the Commissioners discussed nor who else was there Monday morning before they vote this evening at 5:30 PM.


Valdosta City Manager Larry Hanson welcomes new 23d Wing Commander Col. Jennifer Short at the July 10 Change of Command ceremony.


City of Valdosta PR 2017-07-10:

Valdosta City Manager Larry Hanson welcomes new 23d Wing Commander Col. Jennifer Short at the July 10 Change of Command ceremony.

Commissioner Scottie Orenstein asked, on facebook, in response to

yesterday’s LAKE blog post about the moved meeting
: Continue reading

Pipelines companies don’t detect corrosion or stop explosions

A reminder of why to stop pipeline companies from burying investors’ money in the ground and get on with solar power:
the pipeline that exploded in Texas last week was
half owned by Spectra Energy,



the pipeline company behind
Sabal Trail, AIM, Penneast, and numerous other fracked methane invasions

and behind thirty years of undetected corrosion resulting in leaks, explosions, property damage, and deaths.
The pipeline company didn’t detect it and couldn’t even turn it off quickly.
Want to bet that it,
like Spectra’s Pennsylvania explosion last spring, was corrosion?

A very Texas report said “no people or cattle were injured”
and also notice: “The fire is under control and will burn itself out.” Continue reading

Southern Company buys 157MW Roserock Solar Farm in Texas

That’s great, but how about more of those hundreds of construction jobs
and operation money right back here to Georgia?
But since you’re buying solar power,
why do you need

to buy a pipeline company
?
How about

helping us against Sabal Trail
invading us from Texas
through Southern Company territory?

Southern Company PR, 30 November 2015,

Southern Company subsidiary acquires first solar project in Texas
,


Continue reading

Sabal Trail front page Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Now that Atlanta has finally taken notice there’s even more reason
to repel these pipeline invaders.

300x434 Page A1, in Sabal Trail front page Atlanta Journal-Constitution, by John S. Quarterman, 3 April 2015

There’s still time to submit an amicus brief for the

court case in Leesburg, Georgia
.
And time to file an ecomment or an out-of-time motion to intervene against Sabal Trail.
Or against

Elba Island LNG

or against

Transco and Atlanta Gas Light’s Dalton Expansion Project
.
Or to oppose

Kinder Morgan’s southeast Georgia Palmetto oil pipeline

at the Georgia Department of Transportation or GA-EDP.
Both those state agencies have to provide permits for Sabal Trail
to get the Georgia emininent domain it demands in Leesburg,
so they are relevant to Sabal Trail, as well, as is your opinion
and those of all local elected governments in Georgia.

Dan Chapman, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 3 April 2015,

Pipeline project fuels fight on state’s future,

Regardless of route, Sabal Trail opponents fear pipeline
construction could create sinkholes Continue reading

Minnesota follows Austin with Value of Solar Tariff: better than net metering, or not?

Yes, it’s better than the unequal “net metering” Georgia has now,
where your one-and-only utility pays you a rate they determine,
typically their “avoided” rate of not generating energy by some
other means, which is usually a lot less than what you pay your utility.
Is it better than real one-to-one net metering?
That’s a harder question, because even if it pays more now, it’s
less predictable.
In any case VOST has spread

from Austin
to Minnesota.

Herman K. Trabish, GreenTechMedia, 10 April 2014,

A Rising Tension: ‘Value-of-Solar’ Tariff Versus Net Metering
,




Source: Institute for Local Self Reliance

The Alliance for Solar Choice, a group made up of Continue reading

Sabal Trail’s eminent domain argument applied to FPL headquarters


300x72 Between the Atlantic and the canal, in FPL Headquarters, by John S. Quarterman, 24 November 2014

The alleged “Project Need” in

Sabal Trail’s Friday FERC docket CP15-17 permit application

to get eminent domain for its 100-foot-wide gouge for a yard-wide hazardous fracked methane pipeline is: Sabal Trail claims it has contracts to sell the gas.
Let’s apply that logic to Sabal Trail co-owner FPL’s headquarters.

This is FPL headquarters at 700 Universe Blvd., Juno Beach, Florida,
in the Palm Beach County Property Appraiser’s map: Continue reading

Sabal Trail admits no Georgia customers, tree destruction, to VDT



The VDT’s page-long coverage wasn’t just fluff.
Spectra’s Andrea Grover admitted they need complete survey data,
and Sabal Trail admitted they have no Georgia customers, which means
they have no Georgia eminent domain, so every landowner who refuses is
indeed putting a crimp into Spectra’s fracked methane pipeline.
Plus Grover admitted trees don’t grow back fast, so her promise
“It’s restored to what it was before” is pretty hollow.
She admitted she knows the Department of Energy’s Office of Fossil Fuels
can approve LNG export, but she didn’t admit that it has already done
so for three companies right there Spectra’s Sabal Trail pipeline leads
on Florida’s Atlantic coast.
She still can’t seem to remember Spectra’s long list of safety violations.
And she’d already forgotten exactly when her posse of seven
rode into Leesburg, GA seeking an eminent domain court order,
and rode away without it.

Not a word, though, about
Lowndes County Chairman Bill Slaughter’s fourteen points of Continue reading

Spectra reps unfamiliar with Spectra fines @ LCC 2013-12-09



Both of Spectra’s principal representatives to the Lowndes County Commission
and the Dougherty County Commission claim not to be familiar
with Spectra’s well-known public record of safety violations,
and some of what they say contradicts the public record,
so how can we believe any of their safety assertions about
Spectra’s proposed Sabal Trail Transmission pipeline?

Update 3PM: more evidence from Pennsylvania and elsewhere.

As I’ve mentioned
before,
Spectra’s Andrea Grover told us that
everyone in Pennsylvania was happy now, after I asked her
about

the Steckman Ridge compressor station leak

in front of reporter Matthew Woody,
at the

16 October 2013 Spectra meeting at Wiregrass Tech in Valdosta
.
There’s more beyond
the article about pipeline fines and incidents

Woody wrote 24 November 2013
for the Valdosta Daily Times (VDT), the local
newspaper of record.

Her excuse for the compressor leak, if I recall correctly,
was that Continue reading

From fracking to pipelines –Michael G. Noll



LTE in the VDT today. I added the images and the links. -jsq

Albert Einstein once said that “the world will not be destroyed by
those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing
anything.” This philosophy can be applied to countless social and
political issues and speaks of the dangers of apathy. Add to this
situation a lack of information and our society is truly in danger,
as companies like SPECTRA Energy not only count on our apathy, but
will also try to hoodwink us.


The Sabal Trail Pipeline currently discussed in our community is

really part of a larger story
, a process known as hydraulic
fracturing, or fracking. Fracking allows companies like Halliburton
to free oil and gas trapped in geologic formations, but in a fashion
that is extremely dangerous to our environment (especially



groundwater aquifers) and human health. Exempt from the Clean Air
Act, the Clean Water Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act, fracking
has created countless problems for communities from Pennsylvania to
Texas, and

may soon be coming to north Georgia
.

The gas pipeline under discussion is literally a tentacle Continue reading