Tag Archives: Water

Another October LAKE meeting Tuesday 22 October 2013

Pipeline and local governance: Water (sinkholes, aquifer recharge, runoff, drinking water, and wastewater), trash (how about that Exclusive Franchise!), and money (no-bid contracts and plus SPLOST VII). If you want to help, we have a little list of tasks you can do. Why another meeting in October? The first one was at a time when many of the regulars couldn’t come, so here’s one for them.

What: Another October LAKE Meeting
When: 6:15PM Tuesday
after the Lowndes County Commission meeting
7 October 2013
Where: Michael’s Deli
1307 N Ashley St.
Valdosta, GA 31601

If you're on Facebook, please Like the LAKE facebook page. You can sign up for the meeting event there, Or just come as you are.

-jsq

Videos, AAUW Candidates’ Forum @ AAUW 2013-10-15

Water was a popular topic, as you can see in these videos of the Candidates’s Forum by AAUW. Same location (VSU Continuing Education Building) as the one Chamber held, but this time the audience got to ask questions. Yes, Virginia, they do all live in their districts, and some of them have widely divergent views about what cities or school boards should do.

Local AAUW President Diane Holliman gave a welcome, and then Dr. Luke Fowler moderated. Here’s the list of qualified candidates. Here’s Matthew Woody’s writeup in the VDT.

Valdosta City Council District 2

John Hogan and Calvin Graham Sr. were present; Sandra J. Tooley was not.

John Hogan pointed out that a road issue could really be a drainage issue, so it’s necessary to look at context.

Calvin Graham Sr. said he was retired military, lived in the district, and had been spending a lot of time volunteering. He indicated the Continue reading →

Spectra met Lowndes and Valdosta @ Pipeline 2013-10-16

Spectra Energy subsidiary Sabal Trail Transmission held a landowner one-on-one at Wiregrass Tech last night. Matthew Woody of the VDT was there, as was one Valdosta City Council member, one Lowndes County Commissioner, and at least two county staff, plus some landowners (“might as well get something out of this”, several said at the food bar), one of whom was a match for Andrea Grover.

Matthew Woody, VDT:

Continue reading →

Pipeline dog and pony in Albany Monday

Monday in Albany, Tuesday in Moultrie, and tonight in Valdosta, the pipeline roadshow is rolling through Georgia towards Florida. These are not public hearings or town halls: the pipeline company seems to be trying to get landowners in the path to show up, but anybody can attend.

Brad McEwen wrote for the Albany Herald yesterday, Residents attend pipeline forum,

Sabal Trail Transmission LLC, which is a joint venture between energy giants Spectra Energy Corp. and NextEra Energy Inc., hosted the event to give citizens an opportunity to ask questions and learn more about the proposed project.

Set up like an open house, the forum had 15 Sabal Trail subject matter experts on hand to greet residents and Continue reading →

Spectra pipeline meeting tonight at Wiregrass Tech @ Pipeline 2013-10-16

Spectra Energy will tell us how great their proposed pipeline will be, as it cuts a 100-foot wide path from Anniston, Alabama to Orlando, Florida through south Georgia, using eminent domain to make you sell your land, to deliver gas from fracking in Pennsylvania for the benefit of Florida Power and Light. Maybe you’d like to ask Spectra reps Brian Fahrenthold or Andrea Grover a few questions, like can we see a map of the proposed route, with parcel numbers, and what about those fines for violating federal regulations and Spectra’s own corporate operating procedures?

Added: facebook event.

Tonight (Wednesday) 16 October 2013 5:00-7:30 pm.
Wiregrass Georgia Tech (Atrium)
4089 Val Tech Road
Valdosta, GA

The Wiregrass Tech contact is Christy Cobb; she wasn’t in when I called yesterday. Tech’s web server still seems to be down, but Google has cached her as: Continue reading →

From Seven Out in Waycross to CSX to Pecan Row Landfill in Lowndes County

CSX was involved directly in the Seven Out contamination, storing hazardous water that leaked: and then that water was apparently shipped to the Pecan Row Landfill in Lowndes County. This is in addition to the the CSX trichloroethylene groundwater contamination dating back to 2000 and earlier.

According to a letter from Georgia Department of Natural Resources to BCX, Inc. of 20 July 2004, EPA Identification Number: GAR000030007,

  1. Twenty-seven tanks of wastewater were stored at the facility. Four portable tanks were storing the excess capacity of wastewater next door on property owned by CSX Transportation. These portable 10,000-gallon tanks were not labeled to indicate their contents;
  2. According to a BCX representative, one of the portable 10,000-gallon tanks had a gasket failure on the forward manhole which caused the release of an unknown substance onto the ground at the site owned by CSX Transportation;
  3. Dead vegetation was observed in a 15 feet by 30 feet area downgradient of the tank that caused the release;
  4. A yellowish-green substance was observed on the ground between the portable tank that had the release and another portable tank adjacent to it. There was also dead vegetation observed between these two tanks; and

And GA EPD tested the soil and found something the document doesn’t specify, but whatever it was was enough that: Continue reading →

CSX groundwater contamination in Waycross

The MCLG for
trichloroethylene
is zero.
Around the Seven Out and CSX contamination areas in Waycross more than 100 people have gotten sick or died, most since 2000, with groundwater contamination known since 1985, according to Joan Martin McNeal, So the CSX problem long predates the Seven Out problem. Here’s her map of the CSX property (in yellow) and contamination, sickness, and death:


brown stars: known contamination areas
red markers: confirmed deceased or confirmed cases of severe illness mostly cancer (bone, lung, prostate, blood, colon, breast), some severe neurological disorders, some heart failure, with ages ranging from 4 to 85 years.
green markers: likely early stage cases of such problems

According to this February 2000 tricholoroethylene isopleth map, there was already extensive contamination in the CSX railyard by 2000, extending across an internal drainage ditch that goes into the Waycross Canal that become Tebeau Creek, running through downtown Waycross into the Satilla River.

According to U.S. EPA, Trichloroethylene 79-01-6 Hazard Summary-Created in April 1992; Revised in January 2000, Continue reading →

October LAKE meeting Monday 7 October 2013

Different day (Monday) and time (4PM), and some new developments, also adding that natural gas pipeline to the usual agenda of local governance: Water (sinkholes, aquifer recharge, runoff, drinking water, and wastewater), trash (how about that Exclusive Franchise!), and money (no-bid contracts and plus SPLOST VII). If you want to help, we have a little list of tasks you can do.

If you're on Facebook, please Like the LAKE facebook page. You can sign up for the meeting event there, Or just come as you are.

Pipeline points with streets
What: Monthly LAKE Meeting
When: 4PM Monday
7 October 2013
Where: Michael’s Deli
1307 N Ashley St.
Valdosta, GA 31601

-jsq

WWTP surveying, Norwood withdrawn, Colbert on agenda, radar, benefits, and parking @ VCC 2013-10-10

Valdosta wants to survey to prepare for moving and upgrading the Withlacoochee Wastewater Treatment Plant. The City Council is awarding retirement benefits, and the employee of the month is three people this month. One rezoning has been withdrawn and another is up for action Thursday. Plus somebody didn’t like the Valdosta Historic Preservation Commission actually requiring preservation and is appealing to the City Council. It would be interesting to see what’s in that WWTP surveying and engineering contract and which parking is being appealed, but Valdosta City Council doesn’t publish its agenda packets online, unlike for example Augusta, which has the second highest high tech job growth in the country.

Here’s the agenda. They also have a Work Session Tuesday 8 October 2013 at 5:30 PM, inconveniently the same time as the Lowndes County Commission Regular Session.

AGENDA

REGULAR MEETING OF THE VALDOSTA CITY COUNCIL

5:30 P.M., Thursday, October 10, 2013
COUNCIL CHAMBERS, CITY HALL
Continue reading →

Jellyfish 1 Nuke 0

One of the world’s largest nuclear reactors was shut down Sunday by jellyfish. Not a tsunami, not an earthquake, not a blizzard, not even hot water: jellyfish. And it’s not the first time or the first reactor. Tell me again how reliable centralized baseload power is?

AP reported yesterday, Jellyfish force nuclear plant shutdown in Sweden: Tonnes of jellyfish clog pipes that bring in cool water to the plant’s turbines

Operators of the Oskarshamn nuclear plant in southeastern Sweden had to scramble reactor number three on Sunday after tonnes of jellyfish clogged the pipes that bring in cool water to the plant’s turbines.

By Tuesday, the pipes had been cleaned of the jellyfish and engineers were preparing to restart the reactor, which at 1,400 megawatts of output is the largest boiling-water reactor in the world, said Anders Osterberg, a spokesman for OKG, the plant operator.

All three Continue reading →