Tag Archives: WALB

“Olive branch or smokescreen?” –Patrick Davis

Patrick Davis

wonders from Macon:



Is this Brad Lofton-led ‘solar’ groundbreaking event by the
Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority an olive branch or
a smokescreen.for the community Or an example of ‘compassionate
consevratism’?

The solar plant has been part of the plan from the beginning,
which of course doesn’t quite answer Patrick Davis’ question.
VLCIA knows it can increase the size of the solar plant,
and they seem to think that could be a good idea.
They could also choose to forget the biomass plant,
but they refuse to do that.
Much more about Wiregrass Solar Power LLC.

Also please note that this blog is

On the LAKE Front,
where
LAKE is an acronym for the


Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange,
which is about

citizen dialog for transparent process
for all of Lowndes County and the general area, not just Valdosta.

-jsq

Hannah Solar at Wiregrass Solar groundbreaking, 21 Feb 2011


Actually installing the Wiregrass Solar LLC plant is

Hannah Solar.


Speaking

here is
Patrick T. O’Donnell, Managing Partner,
who talks about two other Hannah Solar people standing there,
Project Manager Dave Fisher,
and CEO Pete Marte.
Here’s the video.





Wiregrass Solar LLC groundbreaking, 21 Feb 2011,
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia.
Video by John S. Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.



According to the VDT CEO Marte later said:

“Solar energy is definitely part of the solution for water issues
in Georgia, and it’s not being talked about. When the president of
Georgia Power is the chairman of the water commission and 52 percent of
water is being used for power generation, you’ve got the fox in the
henhouse,” said Pete Marte, chief executive officer of Hannah Solar.

According to VDT commenter Solar All The Way:

Continue reading →

Sonny Murphy talks at Solar Groundbreaking



The biggest dignitary among the bunch at the

Wiregrass Solar groundbreaking
was

Therrell “Sonny” Murphy,
Chairman of the Board, Sterling Planet, the parent company
of Wiregrass Solar LLC.
Nice fellow; I talked to him at length before most people showed up.
To his credit, he didn’t shy away from directly talking about
the proposed neighboring biomass plant (Sterling Planet owns
Wiregrass Power LLC, too).
He also mentioned geothermal and “efficiency itself”,
which shows he has a broader grasp of the potential energy sources
than some participants.





Wiregrass Solar LLC groundbreaking, 21 Feb 2011,
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia.
Video by John S. Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.





I congratulate Chairman Murpny and Sterling Planet on the solar groundbreaking.
I offered to introduce him to the biomass protesters.
He said he didn’t want to get into a debate.
Hm, that
reminds me of something.

-jsq

Mayor Fretti at Wiregrass Solar LLC groundbreaking




Valdosta Mayor John Fretti remarked
at the Wiregrass Solar groundbreaking 21 Feb 2011:

“…solar is an important component of our electricity needs
and our power energy needs, and that it will continue to be.
We need to take into consideration all renewable energy resources
such as solar, and wind, and bio, and bring those together
to eventually make them more efficient and effective to supply
our grid with energy sources.”

He also talked about eventual lower rates to the customers.
And he bragged about how big it is:

“I think currently the largest array… in Georgia”

Um, no,

Dalton, Georgia already has a 365kW solar array installed and in use,
although

that information never seems to get through the VLCIA filter.





Wiregrass Solar LLC groundbreaking, 21 Feb 2011,
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia.
Video by John S. Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

Still, it’s a start, and I congratulate VLCIA on doing it.

-jsq

VLCIA Speeches at Wiregrass Solar LLC groundbreaking



I’m in favor of solar plants, and it was good to see the participants
helping out at the groundbreaking for the Wiregrass Solar LLC plant

at the Valdosta Mud Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant yesterday.


But wait! What’s that behind them?
Seems like even solar supporters aren’t all in favor of the
proposed neighboring biomass plant.

In this post are videos of the speeches by VLCIA personnel;
speeches by other dignitaries will follow.

Brad Lofton,
Executive Director of the
Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA),
said they’ll have a commissioning reception in a few months
(currently scheduled for
Wednesday 16th April 2011)


to which they’ll invite “the entire City Council
and the County Commission.”
Interestingly, there was nobody from the County Commission
at this groundbreaking ceremony.
They’ve said they’re in favor of biomass;
are they not in favor of solar?
Lofton says they’ll also invite

“…the governor of Georgia who has about half a million
dollars invested in this project.”





Wiregrass Solar LLC groundbreaking, 21 Feb 2011,
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia.
Video by John S. Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

Lofton also said:

“We’ll go around and if anybody has any comments,
I’d like you to make them.”

Hm, they never seemed to get around to me.


Brad Lofton explained that the property for the solar plant
is owned by the City of Valdosta and leased to VLCIA and
then subleased

Continue reading →

Protesters, police, and press at Wiregrass Solar LLC groundbreaking



All these protesters were in favor of the groundbreaking today for the

Wiregrass Solar LLC plant, but they wanted to object to the
related biomass plant proposed for next door.

Here you can see Valdosta police saying they’re going have to
issue a summons to some protesters because they didn’t have a permit,
Valdosta Mayor Fretti saying the permit process is simple,
and Dr. Michael Noll president of Wiregrass Activists for Clean Energy (WACE)
explaining that they only heard of the event recently,
and besides he’d be happy to pick up a shovel and help with the
groundbreaking for the solar plant:





Wiregrass Solar LLC groundbreaking, 21 Feb 2011,
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia.
Video by John S. Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.


Enter the police chief.

Continue reading →

Reporting on Valdosta without water



The talk of the town (and apparently all of south Georgia today) is the Lowndes County seat
lost water.
Both the Valdosta’s city government web pages (VLD) and the newspaper (VDT)
have been reporting
online, but it’s hard to tell exactly when, since both have
only datestamps, not timestamps.
What does “in the next hour” mean when you don’t know in what
hour the notice was posted?
Time notations appropriate for paper media issued once a day
aren’t quite adequate for online posts multiple times a day.

WCTV does include timestamps, and Dontaye Carter did some reporting

for her story posted 6:48 PM:

Continue reading →

New Stories of Lowndes County

Here’s the Lowndes County Commission (most of it), posing about the new StormReady County designation:

StormReady County

We love the Valdosta Daily Times (VDT), WCTV, and WALB, but if they published anything about that, we missed it. They have space constraints, and we don’t. Local governments do a lot of good things (and other things) that don’t get reported in the traditional press. This is where LAKE comes in.

Continue reading →