To get an idea of why big timber growers might find biomass attractive,
here’s an article by Terry Dickson in the Florida Times-Union from 20 June 2005,
State’s forestry industry in an ‘alarming decline’
People have long debated whether there is a sound if a tree falls in a forest but nobody is there to hear it.Continue readingThe fall of revenue from Georgia’s forestry industry, however, has attracted a lot of attention — but $10 billion is hard to ignore.
First I praised the
completion of the Wiregrass Solar LLC plant in Valdosta.
Then I complimented
Brad Lofton on finding his new job and hoped he’d be happy in Myrtle Beach.
Then I praised the VDT for
its editorial recommending using this opportunity to consult
the councils of the various municipalities and the County Commission,
and in particular that one way to produce
unity in the community
as G. Norman Bennett had previously advocated,
would be to find out what the community wants VLCIA to do.
I understand the point about beliefs. But it’s not all about just the beliefs of just the people on the board. It’s also about things like is there enough water, and do we want businesses that soak up a lot of water, like Ben Copeland said at the Lake Park Chamber of Commerce. Beliefs are good, but facts are better. Thank you.
-jsq
And what about all that land?
In addition to a news story about Brad Lofton moving on up to Myrtle Beach, the Valdosta Daily Times also had an editorial yesterday (14 March), Lofton’s leaving a void in which they make some good points, including:
While the search is on for a new director, now is the time for the city, county and industrial authority board to come together to make some decisions about the organization and what the community leadership needs and wants it to be.Here are a few modest suggestions along those lines, including considerations such as water.
More from the VDT: Continue reading
If they can do this in California, why can’t we do it here?
Sustainable City Network posts, Housing Authority Completes 28-Collector Solar Thermal System:
The City of Alameda, Calif., announced the completion of a solar water-heating system installed at a Housing Authority building on Park Street. Designed and built by SunWater Solar, the system will reduce utility bills by meeting up to 70 percent of the 65-unit building’s hot water load. The system is powered by 28 Heliodyne Gobi 410 collectors. A Heliodyne Delta T Pro monitoring device will provide online access to system performance data.The Park Street system was recently approved for a $42,785 California Solar Initiative-Thermal rebate that will help cover the system’s $139,000 cost. CSI-Thermal rebates are currently at their highest tier: $12.82 per therm of natural gas offset. SunWater Solar contributed to the development of the CSI-Thermal program and has administered $237,000 in CSI-Thermal rebates on behalf of clients.
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It’s like denying the earth goes around the sun. Why would they identify with such a silly thing? Because of what actually dealing with climate change would mean: Continue readingAnd the reason is that climate change is now seen as an identity issue on the right. People are defining themselves, like they’re against abortion, they don’t believe in climate change. It’s part of who they are.
|
| Daniel Mayer, November 2006 |
Valdosta Utilities Director Henry … Hicks addressed the sewage spills, saying they are caused by excess rain which overloads the Withlacoochee River Water Pollution Control Plant. He said growth along the river and throughout the regional watershed area has contributed to the amount of excess water running into the river.Some of the comments on the VDT page are also interesting. Guest remarked: Continue reading“When you have all this growth and you create more impervious surface area (through paving and development), more and more water is running into the Withlacoochee. On average, the plant handles six million gallons a day and is equipped to accommodate twice that, but in recent rain events, we’ve gotten upwards of 15 million gallons extra in stormwater runoff and the system can’t handle that,” Hicks said.
And now a word from Wendell Berry:
The mentality that exploits and destroys the natural environment is the same that abuses racial and economic minorities…. The mentality that destroys a watershed and then panics at the threat of flood is the same mentality that gives institutionalized insult to black people and then panics at the prospect of race riots.Source: “Think Little” in A Continuous Harmony: Essays Cultural and Agricultural, by Wendell Berry, 1972. Forty years later, that mentality is still a problem.
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NAACP reiterates charges of environmental racism,
despite claims from Brad Lofton, Executive Director of the
Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority,
that
“all of a sudden we haven’t heard anymore about environmental racism.”
Leigh Touchton, president of the local NAACP chapter,
presents to the Valdosta City Council
research published by
Robert D. Bullard about environmental apartheid.
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Dear Mr. Quarterman:Continue reading
Sure, everyone wants jobs for the people right now and jobs
so the children don’t have to go somewhere else to find one.
But what good is that if those jobs suck up all the water
those children need to drink?
This is the problem:
“What I believe the three most important things are, not only for our community, and our state, and our country, but for our country, thats jobs number 1, jobs number 2, and jobs.”
I shook Brad Lofton’s hand after that speech and told him I liked it, because I did: in general it was a positive speech about real accomplishments. I’ve also pointed out I had a few nits with that speech. This one is more than a nit. This one is basic philosophy and policy.
Now one would expect an executive director of an industrial authority to be all about jobs. And that would be OK, if Continue reading
Ben Copeland, who is on the
Suwannee-Satilla regional water council,
has learned something about rivers:
“One of the things that keeps some of these rivers going is the treated effluent that goes into them.It’s at the end of this video:Now Brad Lofton wants to use some of that up in a biomass plant. We have a problem there.”
Matthew Richard brought up a similar point in his LTE in the VDT of yesterday: Continue reading
