\n\n<\/a>\nIn two months, less than 60 days away, Wiregrass Power LLC is supposed to\nbreak ground on the biomass facility in Lowndes County. By now, they are\nsupposed to have contracts with power companies to sell the electricity\nto and with suppliers to purchase the wood waste. They have neither,\nnor does the company have an agreement with the city of Valdosta to\npurchase the wastewater from the sewage treatment plant.\n<\/blockquote>\nWell, the City of Valdosta could\n\nrefuse to sell the wastewater.<\/a>\nAnd maybe the Lowndes County Commission could exercise its\n\nfiduciary responsibility.<\/a>\nBut, sure, the Industrial Authority could just say no.\n
\n<\/a>\nAnd yet the folks at the Industrial Authority appear to be rather\nnonchalant about the fact that this company has yet again broken its\nagreement. They have the power to renogiate the terms of the agreement and\nthey also have the power to cancel it, but neither is happening. Instead,\nthey are giving the company all the leeway they need to continue dragging\nthis project along that the community doesn’t want.\n<\/blockquote>\nFolks?\nLike Col. Ricketts?\nBut remember, he and\n\nLame-Duck Lofton<\/a>\nare only\n\n\nfollowing policies set by their board.\n\n
<\/a>\nThe picture on the right\nmay or may not be of\nthe VLCIA board negotiating\nwith somebody, because,\n\nremember Col. Ricketts informed us,<\/a>\n
\n“These agreements are made with utilities under a non-disclosure\nclause, due to the competitive nature of utilities and pricing for\nenergy sources.”\n<\/blockquote>\nAnd after all,\n\nBrad Lofton informed us,<\/a>\n\n\n<\/a>\n“we are not at liberty to share specifics of any active recruitment”\n<\/blockquote>\nAt least they’ve backed off from\nsaying they have a public-private partnership with Wiregrass Power LLC.<\/a>\nBut why is it exactly that an appointed board spending $3 million of\nour tax dollars every year can hold secret negotiations with who knows whom?\n
\nBack to the VDT’s opinion:\n
\nPerhaps with the imminent departure of the Authority\u2019s executive\ndirector, the appointed members of the Authority board may see things\nin a different light.\n<\/blockquote>\nPerhaps.\nBut so far \nhe doesn’t seem to be gone yet.<\/a>\nAnd he’s not even the source of VLCIA’s policies.\n\nOnwards to the larger issues, in the last paragraph of the VDT’s editorial:\n
\nAnd perhaps the Industrial Authority will begin to again recruit viable\nindustries while taking care of the industries currently here, which\nrepeatedly have proven to be the source of most new jobs in the area. It\nshouldn\u2019t take too much effort to replace the 45 jobs that will be\nlost if the plant doesn\u2019t come to fruition.\n<\/blockquote>\nYou know if the Industrial Authority spent half as much PR effort\nsupporting local industries old and new, we wouldn’t have to waste\nyears hearing about a deader like a biomass plant or an even worse\nidea like a\n\nprivate prison.<\/a>\nAnd if the Industrial Authority actually listened to\nthe numerous people around the county and the country who are\ntrying to help it do research, it would have a better idea\nwhen to cut its losses and move on to better pastures.\nMaybe the Industrial Authority could even invite some of those\nsame people to help it put\n\nparameters on the types of industry<\/a> it recruits.\n\n-jsq\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"VDT reported on Biomass plant misses deadlines, but what do they really think? The title is my paraphrase of Sunday’s editorial title, It\u2019s all up to the Industrial Authority: In two months, less than 60 days away, Wiregrass Power LLC is supposed to break ground on the biomass facility in Lowndes County. By now, they […]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","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":[97,120,40,14,88,22,1794,54,133,178],"tags":[8788,4791,193,8738,1747,4792,8717,143,2061,8722,1909,8708,793,4611,8734,3330,4580,8840,8726,180,4123],"class_list":["post-2235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-biomass","category-community","category-economy","category-lowndes-county-commission","category-politics","category-sterling-planet","category-valdosta-city-council","category-vdt","category-vlcia","tag-adage","tag-air-quality-permit","tag-allan-ricketts","tag-biomass","tag-brad-lofton","tag-cemc","tag-community","tag-duke-energy","tag-electricity","tag-epa","tag-epd","tag-georgia-power","tag-industry","tag-local","tag-lowndes-county-commission","tag-protesters","tag-sonny-murphy","tag-sterling-planet","tag-valdosta-city-council","tag-valdosta-lowndes-county-industrial-authority","tag-wiregrass-power-llc"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-A3","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2235","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=2235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2235\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}