Tag Archives: Valdosta

State law requires public hearing before trash decision

Counter to state law, Lowndes County did not hold public hearings within 45 days before the decision to close the waste collection centers.

Georgia Comprehensive Solid Waste Management Act of 1990 GEORGIA COMPREHENSIVE SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT ACT OF 1990 AS AMENDED THROUGH 2004: An Abstract from OFFICIAL CODE OF GEORGIA ANNOTATED Volume 10 Title 12 Article 2 Part 1 Conservation and Natural Resources:

ยง 12-8-24.2. Public hearing prior to entering contract regarding landfill

The governing authority of any county or municipal corporation and the directors or managers of any local authority or special district shall hold a public hearing before entering into a contract for the sale, lease, or management of a landfill or solid waste disposal facility owned by such county, municipal corporation, local authority, or special district. The party responsible for holding such a public hearing shall cause notice of the hearing to be posted at the site of the landfill or facility and to run in a newspaper of general circulation serving the county, municipal corporation, local authority, or special district not less than 30 nor more than 45 days prior to the date of the hearing.

Can anyone argue that “or solid waste disposal facility owned by such county” does not include Lowndes County’s former solid waste collection centers? Continue reading →

Bubba McDonald’s solar evangelism

I’ve thanked Bubba McDonald for being serious about solar. However, 500 MW by Georgia Power in several years is nowhere near enough, when New Jersey has 1,000 MW already installed. What we need in south Georgia is distributed solar power for local jobs and direct reduction of electricity bills. Making a solar monopoly as in HB 657 wouldn’t solve that problem; it would actually hinder a real distributed solution. Instead we need to reform that antique 1973 Territorial Electric Service Act to enable financing for distributed solar.

Jim Galloway wrote for the AJC yesterday, GOP revolutionaries push Georgia Power to embrace solar energy,

Lauren “Bubba” McDonald Jr. has spent more than four decades in and around the state Capitol. That fact alone should automatically disqualify him as a rabid revolutionary.

And yet here he is, attempting to force real, radical change upon one of this state’s most staid and revered institutions. McDonald is the leader of a new and very Republican effort to require that Georgia Power give solar energy a chance.

Continue reading →

Google fiber expanding: how about here?

Nothing gets the attention of the incumbent duopoly of telcos and cablecos like an upstart doing it 10 times faster for a lower price, and claiming that can be profitable.

Dan Graziano wrote for BGR yesterday, Google expects Fiber to be profitable, hints at new markets,

Google Fiber is seen by many as a regional experiment that will push current Internet service providers to offer faster speeds at more affordable speeds. Google Fiber head Milo Medin countered that perception at an event on Wednesday, however. Speaking at a Fiber-to-the-Home Council meeting, the executive explained that the company’s fiber-optic broadband network isn’t just an expensive research project but a great and profitable business for Google, CNET reported.

Medin noted that Google has kept costs down by partnering with cities that are interested in bringing the company’s gigabit fiber network to its residents. Partners help Google build a less expensive and less time-consuming network.

Any local cities around here interested in partnering with Google?

-jsq

Bicycle Workshop June 10th –VLMPO

Biking is the lead story in the Spring Transportation Newsletter from the Valdosta-Lowndes Metropolitan Planning Organization and the Southern Georgia Regional Commission.

Regional Bicycle Workshop On Monday, June 10, 2013, from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. the Southern Georgia Regional Commission will host a Regional Bicycle Workshop to discuss local bicycle infrastructure planning and safety efforts.

Bicycling is becoming a more popular mode of transportation throughout the nation and here in Southern Georgia. Our pleasant climate and relatively flat landscape makes bicycling popular for both commuting and recreation. Individuals of all ages are bicycling more for various reasons, whether it be to save money on gas, to get to work or the store, for exercise, or to go see a friend across town.

GA Bicycle Route 10 This event will feature speakers on the topics of challenges to building bicycle friendly infrastructure, bicycle safety and how our communities can be healthy, happy, wealthy and wise when it comes to bicycling. Brent Buice, from Georgia Bikes! will help lead a discussion on what our communities can do to become more bicycle friendly.

To RSVP for this event, please contact Corey Hull at chull@sgrc.us or at 229-333-5277.

The newsletter also has a list of bike trails, with a pointer to Public Hiking and Walking Trails of Southern Georgia. The state also has maps of bicycle routes, including this one for the Valdosta area:

Continue reading →

VDT should dig deeper into county trash

The VDT should dig deeper into the finances of Lowndes County trash collection. Nobody has ever seen an accounting of where where the money went for the county’s former waste collection sites, so nobody knows whether the county was really losing money or how much, and the county’s version of how those sites had to be paid for doesn’t match state law.. Sure, Bill Slaughter defending a decision made when Ashley Paulk was chair is amusing, but instead of transcribing what county officials tell it, the VDT could find lots more under the county’s garbage with a little digging.

Jason Schaefer write for the VDT Thursday, Concerns continue over garbage agreement: Business owner argues case against County

The County is not required under Georgia law to issue RFPs to any company for waste disposal services, according to Slaughter. That decision was made in a good-faith effort to find the lowest possible rate for garbage service for the citizens of Lowndes County, he said Tuesday.

Is that the point of county government, to act like Wal-Mart? Is money the only value the county government can name? Everyone I talked to about the trash issue in 2012 who already had a waste collection card said they’d be willing to pay more to keep the sites open. Maybe if the county had held public hearings they would have learned that.

And does anyone believe ADS’s rates are going to stay that low? Look at Wakulla, Florida, where it’s $196/year. But the bigger question is why did the county privatize trash collection anyway?

Continue reading →

If Effingham County can do it, why not Lowndes?

A county half the size of Lowndes has all its Commission meeting documents online. Why doesn’t Lowndes? Is there something the Lowndes County Commission doesn’t want us to know? If not, why are they hiding the people’s business from the people?

contract change order library board bylaw applications to volunteer for board board responsibilities CPA agreement letter Contract change orders, library board bylaws, applications to volunteer for boards, board responsibilities, CPA agreement letters, invoices with itemized expenses, zoning amendment applications, deeds, invoice plats, cell phone tower applications with maps, and that solar farm application: the Effingham County Commission has all this and more in its meeting documents online along with its agendas and minutes. The format is kind of clunky: one big PDF for all the meeting documents. But it’s also easy for any competent County Clerk to assemble and post. itemized expenses zoning amendment application deed plat cell phone tower applications with map That way local citizens can get all this information without having to guess what they need to find out, file an open records request, wait at least three days (or years), see what excuse the county came up with for not answering or try to deduce what was left out, etc.

With meeting documents online, you can just go to the web and look. In Effingham County, with half the population of Lowndes County: Continue reading →

Solar Effingham County

Somebody wants to build a solar farm in Effingham County, Georgia, has found a location suitable for Georgia Power’s Advanced Solar Initiative program, and is asking the Effingham County Commission to agree.

HMP Solar This item is on the May 7th and May 21st 2013 agendas for the Effingham County Commission:

VI Appearance 5:30 p.m. HMP Solar
Effingham County also has online Meeting Documents for each meeting. The Meeting Documents for May 21st include this memo from their zoning administrator: Continue reading →

Solar park in Ontario –GDF Suez

If a French energy utility can put a 10 megawatt solar park in Ontario, more than a thousand miles north of here, why is Southern Company still locating all its new solar installations in western states and none in Georgia? GDF Suez is starting the new Suez Canal of solar energy. What are Southern Company and Georgia Power doing?

Enerzine.com posted today, GDF Suez met en service son premier parc solaire au Canada, GDF Suez commissioned its first solar park in Canada,

A consortium of GDF Suez Canada, Japan’s Mitsui, and Fiera Axium Infrastructure Tuesday announced the commissioning of a solar photovoltaic farm in Brockville, Ontario, with an installed capacity of 10 MW.

The solar park is comprised of 42,000 solar panels spread over an area of over 32 hectares [79 acres], enough to generate electricity for about 1,700 homes.

The proposed $50 million project benefited from the Feed-in Tarriff (FIT) program. The electricity produced will be sold to the local company in charge of Energy, Ontario Power Authority, for a period of 20 years.

“With Brockville, we diversify our technology base and enter a new and exciting field. We are proud to provide another form of clean, renewable energy to the province and we hope this will be the first of a list of many solar projects,” said Mike Crawley President of GDF Suez Canada.

The project located in Brockville, Leeds County is the first solar power plant operated by the joint venture in Canada. The consortium currently operates in Canada 362 MW of wind power. Other wind projects with a total capacity (300 MW) is under construction in Ontario and British Columbia.

Translation mostly by google translate with a few touches by me.

-jsq

Groundwater wall at Fukushima

Same design as Plant Hatch, which is leaking radioactive tritium into our groundwater. And when contamination gets into the watershed it doesn’t go away; there’s not even an ocean at Hatch or Vogtle for it to disperse into.

Tsuyoshi Inajima and Yuji Okada wrote for Bloomberg News today, Japan Orders Tepco to Build Underground Wall at Fukushima Plant

The Japanese government ordered Tokyo Electric Power Co. to build an underground wall at the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant to prevent groundwater from flowing into basements of reactor buildings.

The government plans to set up a task force with Tokyo Electric, construction companies and plant makers by the end of June to discuss the details, Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Toshimitsu Motegi said today in Tokyo. He made the remarks at a meeting with Naomi Hirose, the utility’s president, which was open to reporters.

Tepco has struggled Continue reading →