A few new Commissioners on a five-member board is producing significant
changes in Clayton County.
What changes will the new Lowndes County Commissioners make?
The new County Commission set the tone this week by ushering in a
raft of changes aimed at creating better accountability in Clayton’s
finances while putting greater control in the hands of the new
chairman. The board removed County Manager Wade Starr, a long-time
kingmaker in Clayton politics, and will bring in a chief financial
officer to manage county finances.
The balance of power clearly has swung to newly elected
Commissioners Jeff Turner and Shana Rooks. Turner, who replaces
Eldrin Bell as chairman, and Rooks, who defeated Wole Ralph, teamed
with returning Commissioner Michael Edmondson to create a new voting
bloc on the five-member board, and they appear intent on taking
swift action.
“They hit the ground running,” said Carl Swensson,
chairman of the Clayton County Citizens Oversight Committee.
“The former power triumvirate has been absolutely shattered.
We’re going to have good people in position where they can do the
most good for this county. You’re going to find a more receptive ear
in the new structure.”
Pictured: newly elected Commissioners
Page, Evans (re-elected), Slaughter, and Marshall
The Industrial Authority wants to buy some unspecified property
public defender needs renewing,
plus 4-H agent and school bus activity.
Also workers’ compensation,
and the Commission needs to approve its own schedule,
since it’s a new Commission now, with two more voting members than
last year, and a new Chairman.
“To provide an efficient, effective and responsive local government
to all citizens of Lowndes County while maintaining the financial strength
to meet any contingency”
The county government has apparently been pretty good about that last thing
(although
that $8.9 million discrepency could make some wonder).
On responsiveness, not so much, considering
the trash non-solution railroaded through at the last meeting
of the previous Commission.
Maybe this new Commission will be different.
LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, JANUARY 7, 2013, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, JANUARY 8, 2013, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street — 2nd Floor
Does Hatch nuclear Unit 1 have substandard fire protection, like
many reactors built before 1975?
Protection against fires that the NRC says cause about half
the core damage risk, such as at Fukushima, which is the same
design as Hatch?
The [Japanese Nuclear Regulatory Authority] NRA announced recently that
reactors built before 1975 likely have sub standard fire protection
designs. This includes having important cables coated in fire resistant
insulation, isolating and protecting cables and creating barriers to
prevent fires from spreading to other areas of critical equipment.
DOE also instituted upgrades and changes to their reactor facilities
which included facility modifications as a result of Browns Ferry
fire. Private sector nuclear power reactors in the US are not all
fully up to the newer rules. The NRC has issued a number of
exemptions that watchdog groups have criticized as being unsafe.
Browns Ferry still does not meet the NRC fire rules for cables. 47
of 52 reactors in the US still do not comply with the 1980 fire
regulations.
Plant Hatch is privately owned and operated.
Has it been upgraded?
Continue reading →
Since the Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) approved Georgia
Power Company’s plan Nov. 20 to add 210 megawatts of solar power to
its electrical grid, the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial
Authority has been devising strategies to draw solar energy
producers to South Georgia.
Georgia Power will issue a Request for Proposals (RFP) from solar
energy collection and production companies in early 2013, according
to the PSC, and the company will contract with the lowest bidders to
purchase their energy and place it on the Georgia Power electrical
grid for public consumption.
Georgia Power plans to add 90 megawatts to its grid from distributed
generation (small companies producing between 100 kilowatts and 1
megawatt), and 120 megawatts of large utility-scale projects
producing up to 20 megawatts each. The company plans to price the
solar energy at $0.13 per kWh for distributed generation and up to
$0.12 per kWh for utility-scale projects, according to the PSC.
This government-approved commercial push for solar energy could be a
boon to sunny South Georgia as well as the greater Valdosta area
specifically, and the Authority is prepared to accommodate the solar
energy producers they expect.
“I think there’s a very good possibility of solar energy
coming to South Georgia,” Executive Director Andrea Schruijer
said. “Possibly in the near future.”
There’s more in the VDT story.
It’s pretty much what
Col. Ricketts also told me after the VLCIA meeting Tuesday a week ago.
He asked me if I knew what “distributed” meant.
I pointed out Georgia Power’s version of distributed was actually not
very distributed, compared to
Continue reading →
Lest you think fracking is something that happens only in faraway
places like
Alberta
or Pennsylvania,
look at
this map of North American shale gas basins,
extending right through the Appalachians from Pennsylvania through
West Virginia, Virginia, Tennessee, and North Carolina into Georgia, Alabama,
and Mississippi.
How long before Georgia Power or Southern Company decide natural
gas would be even cheaper if they fracked in Georgia or Alabama or Mississippi?
How long until
unavoidable human error
starts fracking polluting our local groundwater and rivers?
For that matter, isn’t it bad enough already that other people’s
water is fracked for cheap gas in Georgia?
After
Kendra Ulrich of Friends of the Earth asked
about some licensee documents related to last week’s
NRC hearing in faraway Maryland on restarting California’s
San Onofre nuclear reactor,
NRC’s
David Beaulieu expanded on NRC’s refusal to divulge the documents.
Video by Myla Reson at NRC, Maryland, 18 December 2012.
You can hear him say it’s “never been a practice” to let the public
see licensee documents. But if they’re being used in making a license
decision, why doesn’t that make them public documents accessible by the
public? Oh, right “it’s very complex” but “it’s a yes or no question”
and “I will assess”, he says. It’s good to be king!
I wonder if the public had some assurance of
transparency maybe the NRC wouldn’t get
so many FOIA requests?
What do you get in a solar spill?
A sunny day.
What do you get in a fracking spill?
Polluted groundwater and drinking water.
When do you get it?
Whenever somebody makes a mistake, which turns out to be frequently.
“There is no amount of regulation that can overcome human error,”
said Alberta’s Energy Resources Conservation Board (ERCB) spokesman
Darin Barter. ERCB released an investigation report that cites
inadequate management of risks as one of the main causes of a
September 2011 accident that contaminated groundwater with toxic
hydraulic fracturing chemicals, including the cancer causing agent
known as BTEX (benzene, toulene, ethylbenzene, and xylene).
At least the company involved in this particular incident did something about it:
Personnel from Crew Energy told the Calgary Herald the company is
“embarrassed” about the accident. Rob Morgan, chief operating
officer for Crew said, “there’s no question of our appreciation of
the severity of this,” adding, “pretty much all of the personnel who
were involved in this particular circumstance are no longer with the
company.”
But the groundwater is still contaminated.
And where will they find replacement personnel who will never make mistakes?
Dominion Power is shutting down a nuke because it can’t compete economically.
Why are we letting Georgia Power charge us up front and load us up with
debt to build a nuke we already know can’t compete economically?
After all, if it could, it wouldn’t need
three-legged nuclear regulatory-capture stool
that we the rate-payers and taxpayers are already paying on, instead of getting on with
solar and wind power.
Dominion (NYSE: D) today said it plans to close and decommission its Kewaunee Power Station in Carlton, Wis., after the company was unable to find a buyer for the 556-megawatt nuclear facility.
According to Dominion:
Kewaunee, Dominion’s fourth nuclear station, generates 556 megawatts
of electricity from its single unit. That’s enough to meet the needs
of 140,000 homes.
The pharmaceutical giant Pfizer (PFE) has confirmed that it will no
longer support the Heartland Institute, a political advocacy group
that questions the science of climate change and tobacco smoking.
Forecast the Facts, which is leading the
campaign calling on
corporations to drop Heartland, was informed of the decision by
Pfizer's Corporate Secretary Matthew Lepore. Pfizer was a major
donor to Heartland, giving $45,000 in 2012 alone.
Pfizer's decision means that there are no longer any pharmaceutical
companies known to support the Heartland Institute.
Pfizer's last contribution to Heartland was in 2012. Pfizer's
decision follows a groundswell of public outrage over the corporate
support for the Heartland Institute's toxic behavior, including a
billboard campaign that equated believers in climate change with
serial killers such as the Unabomber. Over 150,000 people have
signed petitions to corporate leaders to drop Heartland. Pfizer is
the 21st company to end its support for Joseph Bast's organization,
joining its competitors Amgen (AMGN), Eli Lilly (LLY), Bayer
(BAYRY), and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), as well as major companies like
General Motors (GM), State Farm, and PepsiCo (PEP).
That’s the best you’ve got for support, PSC, and you’re pretending continuing
to let Southern Company and Georgia Power run up a bill of $billions is in the
best interests of the people of Georgia?
Kendra Ulrich of Friends of the Earth asked the NRC some simple questions
that stumped the Commissioners and staff.
She wondered when the public could expect to see a
a 50-59 analysis California Edison had done about
restarting San Onofre.
Dave Beaulieu, NRC Generic Communications Branch,
said it was a “licensee document, licensee documents are not made public.”
He did say NRC would release its own inspection results.
She asked again, and Rick Daniel, NRC meeting facilitator
suggested she submit written questions.
Beauleiu summarized:
“At the end of the day, licensee documents are not made public;
that’s the answer.”
So what would be the point of her submitting questions when
she was just told they won’t make the answers public?
Ulrich continued by asking why NRC was considering going ahead
on the basis of experimental data that has never been used before
and that has not been made public.
Remember this is about a nuclear reactor that was shut down because
it was leaking.
That question sure caused some passing of the buck and pretending
not to understand the question by everybody in the room
who should have been able to answer the question.
The new County Commission set the tone this week by ushering in a raft of changes aimed at creating better accountability in Clayton’s finances while putting greater control in the hands of the new chairman. The board removed County Manager Wade Starr, a long-time kingmaker in Clayton politics, and will bring in a chief financial officer to manage county finances.
The balance of power clearly has swung to newly elected Commissioners Jeff Turner and Shana Rooks. Turner, who replaces Eldrin Bell as chairman, and Rooks, who defeated Wole Ralph, teamed with returning Commissioner Michael Edmondson to create a new voting bloc on the five-member board, and they appear intent on taking swift action.
