{"id":2626,"date":"2010-09-25T16:50:16","date_gmt":"2010-09-25T20:50:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2010\/09\/leigh-touchton-wonders-what-brad-lofton-is-hiding.html"},"modified":"2010-09-25T16:50:16","modified_gmt":"2010-09-25T20:50:16","slug":"leigh-touchton-wonders-what-brad-lofton-is-hiding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2010\/09\/leigh-touchton-wonders-what-brad-lofton-is-hiding.html","title":{"rendered":"Leigh Touchton wonders what Brad Lofton is hiding"},"content":{"rendered":"This message was sent to me by the author, who requested I blog it.\n

\n-jsq\n

\nSubject: My response to Brad Lofton, why doesn’t he want his correpondence in\nthe Valdosta Daily Times? What is he hiding?\n
\nFrom: Leigh Touchton\n
\nTo: blofton@industrialauthority.com\n
\nDate: Thu, 16 Sep 2010 20:53:56 EDT\n

\n(Please see\ncorrespondence below mine which I am responding to:\n\nMr. Brad Lofton’s email to his “stakeholders”<\/a>\nwhich he doesn’t want to put in the newspaper )\n

\nMr. Lofton:\n

\nMy title is President of the Valdosta-Lowndes branch of the NAACP, I am not\nthe Chairperson. I have a Master’s in Science in Biology from the\nUniversity of Virginia, I have taught Environmental Science classes at the\ncollege level. It is incorrect and furthermore rude for you to refer to the\nPresident of the NAACP as part of the “misinformation on the street.”\n

\nI would be happy to deconstruct your arguments on the trip to Cadillac,\nMichigan, and how “green” Biomass Incineration can be. I invite readers to\nresearch all the Biomass incinerators around the country that have been shut\ndown. They are banned in Massachusetts. They have been blocked in\nFlorida. They show up in areas of the country where wealthy industrialists\ncontrol the government and environmental regulations are lax. All the major\nenvironmental organizations in this country oppose them because they burn\nmore wood that can be sustainably harvested. In the decade that is the\nhottest on record, in a crucial period in human history when life literally\nhangs in the balance over Global Climate Change, the Lowndes County\nIndustrial Authority has decided to implement a Biomass Incinerator which\nspews more carbon dioxide than a coal plant.\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n

\nIn my letter to the editor of the Valdosta Daily Times, I did not call the\nIndustrial Authority an environmental racist. What I stated quite clearly\nwas that the siting of the Biomass Incinerator in a predominantly black\nneighborhood constitutes environmental racism.\n

\nRegardless of your attempted spin about the one-mile radius, there are 2\npredominantly black elementary schools in that 1-mile radius and of course\nthose students do not RESIDE at their elementary schools, neither do the\ncongregants at the 7 black churches located nearby. Your one-mile radius is\nan arbitrary number designed to manipulate the facts. Within 2 miles of the\nplant are Valdosta’s most affluent black residential community, a\nresidential assisted living facility serving over 60 families, 2 huge\napartment complexes, a third predominantly black elementary school, 2 Head\nStart programs, and 7 large black churches. You’ve obviously never driven\naround the proposed site because the disproportionate impact on black\npeople would have been made clear to you.\n

\nThe only good jobs this plant will bring are the developers who will receive\nlucrative contracts and the wood suppliers who will receive lucrative\ncontracts. The 25 jobs the plant will supposedly provide will be more than\noffset by the hundreds of people who will sicken and die every year from\ncancer and respiratory disease, particularly children, the elderly, and\nthose with lung disease. My friend with COPD lives in Brittany Wood\napartments and she doesn’t really care that the landfill’s lifespan will be\nlengthened by burning sludge because her lifespan will be shortened by it.\n

\nThe NAACP is not interested in how many people you say you contacted prior\nto this plant being approved, because apparently no one ever contacted the\nresidents who are going to have to live with 50 trucks a day spewing gas,\nfumes, and creating noise pollution in their community while they watch\ntheir property values decline. Apparently you never spoke with the health\ncare professionals at Sands-Horizon or the people living with asthma and\nCOPD in Brittany Woods and Park Chase apartments. Apparently you never spoke\nwith a single minister of any of the large black churches that are located\nnear this site. Apparently you never spoke with the local Boards of\nEducation because at Monday night’s VBOE meeting not a single Board Member\nknew anything about this. Apparently you never spoke to any PTO parents at\nthe 3 elementary schools that will be impacted by this plant. Apparently\nyou never spoke to any pulmonologist or spokesperson for the American Lung\nAssociation because they overwhelmingly oppose these kinds of plants.\nApparently you never spoke with any representative from any environmental\norganization in the country because the vast majority oppose these kinds of\nplants.\n

\nBut you did manage to email your “stakeholders” privately outside the glare\nof the news media, an action that I find reprehensible. Democracy demands\ntransparency.\n

\nAs we in the NAACP often are forced to confront, most government officials\nthink that black citizens don’t need to be consulted prior to siting a\ndangerous polluting factory in their midst. As we in the NAACP are often\nforced to confront, most government officials think they know what is best\nfor black people.\n

\nI think it is quite clear who is misinforming the public.\n

\nI have intentionally copied your correspondence and mine to the Valdosta\nDaily Times and all of the real stakeholders in our county precisely because\nI want to energize a forum for the truth.\n

\nLeigh Touchton, President\n
\nValdosta-Lowndes NAACP\n
\n229-245-1009\n

\nBrad Lofton correspondence is included below:\n<\/blockquote>\nAnd I already posted it\n\nin a previous blog entry.<\/a>\n

\n-jsq\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This message was sent to me by the author, who requested I blog it. -jsq Subject: My response to Brad Lofton, why doesn’t he want his correpondence in the Valdosta Daily Times? What is he hiding? From: Leigh Touchton To: blofton@industrialauthority.com Date: Thu, 16 Sep 2010 20:53:56 EDT (Please see correspondence below mine which I […]","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":[97,120,141,216,14,16,2,41,21,32,23,73,289,1106,178],"tags":[8750,4631,4630,4606,8738,5404,5394,1747,5401,5311,4129,2043,8745,8753,4083,8704,2061,4566,188,8751,8801,8701,5343,1790,4131,793,847,154,4020,7,5111,661,1809,1603,5403,5220,8863,1197,5386,4530,5221,8715,5402,5314,5313,6,2900,180,8742,8749,294,4123],"class_list":["post-2626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-biomass","category-co2","category-coal","category-economy","category-environment","category-government","category-health-care","category-planning","category-pollution","category-renewable-energy","category-safety","category-science","category-vboe","category-vlcia","tag-agriculture","tag-ala","tag-american-lung-association","tag-asthma","tag-biomass","tag-black-church","tag-black-neighborhood","tag-brad-lofton","tag-brittany-wood","tag-cadillac","tag-carbon-dioxide","tag-clean","tag-co2","tag-coal","tag-copd","tag-economy","tag-electricity","tag-environmental-racism","tag-executive-director","tag-florida","tag-forestry","tag-georgia","tag-global-climate-change","tag-green","tag-incinerator","tag-industry","tag-jobs","tag-landfill","tag-leigh-touchton","tag-lowndes-county","tag-lung-disease","tag-massachusetts","tag-mercury","tag-michigan","tag-minister","tag-mud-creek-wastewater-treatment-plant","tag-naacp","tag-paper-mill","tag-park-chase","tag-particulates","tag-perimeter-road","tag-pollution","tag-sands-horizon","tag-sewage-sludge","tag-timber","tag-valdosta","tag-valdosta-daily-times","tag-valdosta-lowndes-county-industrial-authority","tag-vdt","tag-vlcia","tag-wastewater","tag-wiregrass-power-llc"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-Gm","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2626","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=2626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2626\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}