\nafter the<\/p>\n
\n
\n<\/a>
\nIn a recent Valdosta council meeting, longtime councilman Sonny Vickers
\nasked if there was any way to put the biomass issue to rest once and for
\nall. The good news, Councilman Vickers, is that there is and it’s all
\nin the city\u2019s hands.<\/p>\n\nThe Industrial Authority signed an agreement with Wiregrass Power LLC
\nwhich allows the company to purchase the land from the Authority and
\nproceed with the project on its own. Although the Authority hasn’t
\nyet voted on the issue, it appears that they don\u2019t have a choice and
\nmay be compelled to honor the agreement.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\nCompelled? Give me a break!
\nVLCIA has an attorney, and one of its board members is an attorney.
\nIf they can’t find a way to break a land purchase contract because
\nconditions have changed, they need new legal counsel.<\/p>\n\nWhy didn’t they discuss that in
\n
\ntheir yet another special called meeting Thursday morning<\/a>,
\nin which they apparently discussed that
\noffer from Sterling Planet to buy the proposed biomass plant site?<\/p>\n\nVDT continued:<\/p>\n
\nAnd once the land is purchased,
\nas long as the company complies with existing zoning laws, there is not
\na way to prevent the plant from being built.<\/p>\n\nOh, but there is.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
<\/p>\n
\nCouncilman Vickers, all you and your fellow councilmen have to
\ndo is to vote down the request for water from Wiregrass Power
\nLLC. Simple. Especially in drought times, even treated wastewater is a
\nprecious commodity for agricultural uses, and the community needs it all,
\nrather than see it evaporated in order to burn wood.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\n<\/a>
\nOh, like
\n
\nKaren Noll asked the Valdosta City Council to do back in March<\/a>,
\npetition in hand?<\/p>\n\nIn addition, with all of the wildfires and the amount of woodlands that
\nhave burned in recent months, the supply of timber is currently at the
\nlowest it’s been in many years, forcing prices to rise far beyond the
\nlevel the company had intended to spend purchasing it.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\nValdosta has no control over that, though.
\nAnd how do we know what price the company expected to pay for wood,
\nsince VLCIA has refused to release that information?<\/p>\n\nThere’s something Valdosta could do, however: demand release of that
\nwood sourcing report, along with an update on price changes since then.<\/p>\n\nTo go one further, the city needs to pass an ordinance or impose a policy
\nthat no solid waste in the form of human feces will be permitted to
\nbe burned in this or any incinerator in the community. It is untested
\ntechnology. No other plant in the world is currently burning feces,
\nand Lowndes County shouldn’t be the testing ground.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\nGood try, but the plant location is actually in the county and not
\nin the city, which is why
\n
\nthe county had to rezone it.<\/a>
\nBut the county could do something like the VDT is suggesting;
\nmore in a later post.<\/p>\n\nAccording to Wiregrass officials, they were simply burning the city’s
\nwaste at the city’s request, in order to save Valdosta around $250,000
\na year in landfill fees. So rescind the request.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\nGood idea.
\nOf course, that alone won’t stop Sterling Planet, because the solid wastes
\nare a small proportion of the fuel they plan to use.<\/p>\n\n
\n<\/a>
\nTo those who oppose the Wiregrass Power plant, and to Vickers and the
\nother councilmen who are genuinely concerned about protecting your
\nconstituents, the future of the plant is entirely up to the City of
\nValdosta.<\/p>\n\nMay you use your power wisely.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Thursday I saw Council Vickers on a public street telling Rev. Rose
\nthat the City Council ought to be the last place to go for a decision.
\nAs I told him at the time, that’s what’s wrong with the Valdosta
\nCity Council.<\/p>\n\nBe that as it may be, the Valdosta City Council is now one of the
\nlast places to go for a decision on this, since VLCIA has once again
\npassed the buck.
\nCouncil Vickers could be the swing vote that turns the tide against
\nthis losing boondoggle plant.
\nWill he stand up for the people of the community?<\/p>\n\nCome on, Valdosta City Council, are you the
\n
\nCouncil of Hamlets,<\/a>
\nor are you
\nelected representatives of the people?<\/a><\/p>\n\n-jsq<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
VLCIA has once again passed the buck on biomass, and the Valdosta City Council could pick it up and finally deal with it. VDT editorial yesterday: after the In a recent Valdosta council meeting, longtime councilman Sonny Vickers asked if there was any way to put the biomass issue to rest once and for all. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[97,202,120,2,4136,88,1794,3,133,178,4122,700],"tags":[8738,8717,4132,3975,4133,4131,4134,250,8714,2537,8840,8726,180,8742,8749,8796,294,8727],"class_list":["post-1778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-agriculture","category-biomass","category-government","category-lcc-9-june-2009","category-lowndes-county-commission","category-sterling-planet","category-transparency","category-vdt","category-vlcia","category-vlcia-8-july-2011","category-wace","tag-biomass","tag-community","tag-elected","tag-feces","tag-hamlet","tag-incinerator","tag-irrigation","tag-people","tag-solar","tag-sonny-vickers","tag-sterling-planet","tag-valdosta-city-council","tag-valdosta-lowndes-county-industrial-authority","tag-vdt","tag-vlcia","tag-wace","tag-wastewater","tag-water"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1778","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=1778"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1778\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}