Reminding everyone of what they do and what VSU President McKinney said, Students Against Violating the Environment has a new website.
S.A.V.E. is an environmental activist organization based on the campus of Valdosta State University (VSU). It is composed of students from all majors, and any VSU student is welcome to join regardless of race, gender, age, or sexual orientation.
The mission of the organization is Continue reading
The same Edison Electric Institute that warned electric utilities that distributed solar is already eating their lunch has codified a net metering talking point that utilities are pushing to try to shade solar power. It’s not working.
Power play: Utilities want solar users to pay up Mark Koba wrote for CNBC yesterday, Power play: Utilities want solar users to pay up,
But some experts say the mere fact that utilities— which generate $360 billion a year in energy sales—are battling with solar indicates the threat it now poses to them.
“The success of solar power is forcing utilities to rethink their business model and push for the changes,” said Franc Del Fosse, an energy industry lawyer and partner at Snell & Wilmer. “If you have an individual putting solar panels on the roof, it’s easy to suggest that a utility is making less money.”
The effort for higher fees on solar panel users could backfire, Continue reading
Do you want foreign corporations to be able to sue the U.S. because your county has implemented restrictions of pipelines feeding liquid natural gas exports? Or because your country hasn’t locked up enough people for unintentional infringement of copyright? Or because your state has implemented a GMO-labeling law? Then you oppose the TPP.
After the November
release of
the Intellectual Property Rights Chapter,
in December Wikileaks released
two documents from the secret
closed Salt Lake City TPP chief negotiators’ meeting
of the Trans-Pacific Partnership,
showing deep divisions between the negotiating countries that have
already caused a U.S.-imposed TPP deadline to be missed.
These documents add potential international treaty enforcement of
“mandates” against restrictions on trade to protect national products
or environment or labor to all the reasons
EFF gives for opposing this corporate-power-grab treaty
and the
LNG export pressures for TPP that would drive up the price of fracked
“natural” gas and push pipelines through numerous states for the profit
of a few fossil fuel and utility executives and investors.
The deep divisions among the negotiating countries exposed Continue reading
The Valdosta City Council votes Thursday on
a contract for flood mapping
related to the
series of secretive Army Corps of Engineers meetings,
plus bids for water and sewer and smoke testing sewers.
They’re also swearing in winners of the recent
election and electing a mayor pro-tem (probably the same one),
along with
a change to the
Entertainment Ordinance
and
public hearings to close an alley
and
abandon part of a street,
and the usual
City Manager’s Report,
Council Comments,
and
Citizens to be Heard.
No detail in the city’s agenda about the flood mapping, but
at the Lowndes County Commission
Work Session 11 November 2013
Emergency Services Director Ashley Tye said
the current agreement wouldn’t obligate any payment, merely to reserve the right to contract at a later date if that seemed to be in the county’s best interests,
and at the
Regular Session 12 November 2013
the county approved getting
LIDAR
data from
NOAA Coastal Services Center.
Neither the county nor the city has published this agreement.
Here’s the agenda: Continue reading
Received today, with this note.
FYI—this is now open to any residents of Lowndes County, not just City of Valdosta. Please spread the word. It is a great way to learn a LOT more about your local government.
Tim Carroll
Councilman District 5
City of Valdosta
Here’s the application. Continue reading
A county
no bigger than Lowndes County has
agendas and minutes online for
its Board of Commissioners, Board of Health, Local Emergency Planning Committee,
Board of Adjustment,
Board of Elections,
Social Services Board,
and yes, its Planning Board.
Why can Nash County, NC afford this yet Lowndes County Chairman Bill Slaughter
says Lowndes County can’t afford to put agendas and minutes online for
the Greater Lowndes Planning Commission?
And if a county can require a solar farm to follow stormwater management
and numerous other regulations, why can’t a county require a natural
gas pipeline to follow local regulations?
It can, if its elected officials actually stand up for their citizens.
And why can Nash County, quite a bit north of Lowndes County,
install solar farm after solar farm while there are none in Lowndes County?
The Nash County online documents also include the details of what the various boards were considering, such as in the Agenda and Minutes of the Nash County Planning Board 21 October 2013, which include this item:
- Conditional Use Permit Request CU-130901 (Previously Tabled Item).
Made by Chris Killenberg With Community Energy Solar on Behalf of Castalia Solar LLC to Develop a Solar Farm on an Approximately 22.91 Acre Portion of Two Tracts Located on the West Side of N NC Highway 58 and South of NC Highway 56 in the A1 Agricultural Zoning District.
And not just the agenda item, also extended discussion in the meeting, including: Continue reading
Here’s a handy form by EFF to oppose the secretly-negotiated privacy-deleting corporate-greed-defending natural gas export pipeline-enabling Trans-Pacific Parternship treaty.
Parker Higgins and Maira Sutton wrote for the Electronic Frontier Foundation 28 December 2013, 2013 in Review: The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement,
The biggest TPP story this year was the publication by WikiLeaks in November of the chapter titled “Intellectual Property.” Unfortunately, its contents confirmed many of our worst fears: from ratcheting up copyright term lengths around the world, to boxing in fair use, to mandating a draconian legal regime around DRM software, section after section contained clauses plucked from corporate wishlists and snubbed the public interest altogether.
And then there’s Ted Poe’s House Subcommittee pushing TPP for LNG exports that would propel “natural” fracked gas pipelines such as Spectra Energy’s Sabal Transmission gas pipe through private property and public rivers and watersheds and aquifers.
Here’s what’s up next: Continue reading
The VDT report doesn’t say when or where, and doesn’t say whether
Dexter Sharper (District 177) wasn’t invited or chose not to attend.
There’s nothing about this meeting in the online agendas or calendar, even though that calendar lists Pictures with Santa at the Historical Courthouse (12/19/2013).
There is this undated public notice with no agenda:
The Lowndes County Board of Commissioners will meet with members of Lowndes County’s Legislative Delegation on Friday, December 20, 2013, at 4:00 p.m. in the Commissioner’s Conference Room located on the 3rd floor of the Judicial-Administrative Complex, 327 North Ashley Street, Valdosta, Georgia.
K. Paige Dukes, County Clerk
pdukes@lowndescounty.com 229-671-2400
Matthew Woody wrote for the VDT 22 December 2013,
Commissioners host local delegation,
oddly omitting the when and where and much of the why from
the traditional
who, what, when, where, and why of journalism.
The Lowndes County Commission hosted Continue reading
Here’s Susan Waller of Spectra
refusing to even listen to a question that she had just asked for:
FERC-required Open House about the
Sabal Trail natural gas pipeline
by Sabal Trail Transmission and Spectra Energy,
Video by Blake Clark, Madison, Madison County, Florida, 17 December 2013.
Blake Clark remarked on this video he took:
This short clip speaks for it’s self. Notice Susan Waller’s condescending tone through out the clips entirety. It is assumed, and I have witnessed her speaking to most landowners inquiring more information in the same tone here. Are the people at Sabal (Spectra) or “what ever they may be calling themselves this week” really concerned for you, your questions, or your property? You decide!
Visit Spectrabusters.org for more information on the Sabal Trail Pipeline, Thank you!
Earlier
she complained that someone who presented her with evidence
was “disruptive”.
What I wanted to ask her about was Continue reading
When someone took Susan Waller up on her offer to answer questions about the Sabal Trail pipeline, she seemed to find the truth as reported by her own company to a federal pipeline oversight agency to be “disruptive”.
Disable Sabal – Sabal Trail (Spectra Energy) Open House Madison, FL,
We are a very genuine, safe, law-abiding company.So said Spectra VP or Shareholder Outreach Susan Waller. She then complained that “your group” was “disruptive” and “you don’t want to hear the truth”.
So Ben Vieth showed Waller lists of incidents of corrosion reported by Spectra to PHMSA. To which another Sabal Trail rep. said, “We have a safe operation”.
Here’s the video:
Video of Spectra answering a question about Sabal Trail in Madison, FL
Sabal Trail natural gas pipeline,
FERC-required Open House, Sabal Trail Transmission and Spectra Energy (Sabal),
Video by Blake Clark, Madison, Madison County, Florida, 17 December 2013.
It’s interesting that even after Continue reading