{"id":130,"date":"2013-02-10T23:07:24","date_gmt":"2013-02-11T04:07:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2013\/02\/what-does-lowndes-comprehensive-plan-say-about-river-corridor-protection.html"},"modified":"2013-02-10T23:07:24","modified_gmt":"2013-02-11T04:07:24","slug":"what-does-lowndes-comprehensive-plan-say-about-river-corridor-protection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2013\/02\/what-does-lowndes-comprehensive-plan-say-about-river-corridor-protection.html","title":{"rendered":"What does Lowndes Comprehensive Plan say about river corridor protection?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\n\"Future<\/a>\nIs the Lowndes County Commission a “Qualified Local Government”?\nGeorgia state law says perennial river corridors\n\nshall be protected<\/a>,\nall of the major rivers in Lowndes County\n(Alapaha, Withlacoochee, Little)\n\nqualify as perennial<\/a>,\nand\n\nGA EPD rules say<\/a>\nto be a \u201cQualified Local Government\u201d a comprehensive plan including\nRiver Corridor Protection Plans with protection for a natural vegetative\nbuffer area bordering each protected river is required.\n<\/p>\n

\nGA DCA keeps a list of\n\nall the comprehensive plans in the state.<\/a>\nHere’s\n\nLowndes County’s 2030 Comprehensive Plan.<\/a>\nThe main document is the\n\nCommunity Agenda<\/a>\nand here is\n\nthe map.<\/a>\nHm, the map shows a light blue color for “Park\/Recreation\/Conservation”\nfor parts of the Little, Withlacoochee, and Alapaha Rivers in Lowndes\nCounty, but not all.\nWhat about the rest of those rivers in the county?\n<\/p>\n

\n\n<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

\nWhat does the Community Agenda say?\nIt doesn’t mention any River Corridor Protection Plans.\nHowever, it does say this:\n<\/p>\n\n\n

\n2.4.1 Park\/Recreation\/Conservation Area\n
\nIMPLEMENTATION MEASURES:\n
\n2) Interconnected network of greenspace\/green infrastructure: Can be\ncreated utilizing public land, privately donated land, and existing\nriver and stream corridors.\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nWell, that sounds good.\nWhere would the money come from?\n<\/p>\n

\n5) Acquisition of land: Potential park\/recreation\/conservation areas\ncan be acquired through donations, SPLOST funds, grants or low-interest\nloans through programs such as the Georgia Land Conservation Program,\nor outright purchase.\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nEven better. Anything more specific?\nHere are some items for Lowndes County:\n<\/p>\n

\n4.1) – Conserve Sensitive Areas (cont.)\n
\n4.2.1 \u2013 Update Greenspace Plan to include Green Infrastructure and Linear Greenspace Areas\n
\nContinue preparation and implementation of the Withlacoochee River Greenway Plan.\n
\nAdopt, implement, and update provisions of the Greenspace Initiative Plan to include land acquisition and resource enhancement\/protection.\n$500,000 in Acquisition Funds Available\nGeneral Fund and SPLOST\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nSo according to its own Comprehensive Plan, Lowndes County\nhas half a million dollars available for land acquisition and the like for\na “Greenspace Intiative Plan” which it mentions immediately after a\n“Withlacoochee River Greenway Plan”.\n<\/p>\n

\nNow this is the same county government that had to\n\nclarify how much proposed SPLOST VII money\nwas intended for the Five Points library and how much for parks<\/a>;\nthe same county that\n\nclosed the county waste collection sites without ever providing\nan accounting for how much and why they were allegedly losing money.<\/a>\nBut the county’s own Comprehensive Plan says\n<\/p>\n

\n$500,000 in Acquisition Funds Available\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nSo I’ve got an idea for Lowndes County to use that money\nfor a River Corridor Protection Plan so it can be\na “Qualified Local Government”.\nSee\n\nnext post.<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

\n-jsq\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Is the Lowndes County Commission a “Qualified Local Government”? Georgia state law says perennial river corridors shall be protected, all of the major rivers in Lowndes County (Alapaha, Withlacoochee, Little) qualify as perennial, and GA EPD rules say to be a \u201cQualified Local Government\u201d a comprehensive plan including River Corridor Protection Plans with protection for […]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[552,686,2,88,55],"tags":[465,453,8777,292,8701,8699,692,548,8702,91,464,12,7,8734,687,690,466,688,689,8700,8767,6,8727,463,691],"class_list":["post-130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comprehensive-plan","category-gadca","category-government","category-lowndes-county-commission","category-water","tag-alapaha","tag-alapaha-river","tag-comprehensive-plan","tag-ga-epd","tag-georgia","tag-government","tag-greenspace-initiative-plan","tag-john-s-quarterman","tag-lake","tag-lcc","tag-little","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-lowndes-county-commission","tag-perennial","tag-qualified-local-government","tag-river","tag-river-corridor","tag-state-law","tag-transparency","tag-transportation","tag-valdosta","tag-water","tag-withlacoochee","tag-withlacoochee-river-greenway-plan"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-26","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}