{"id":37,"date":"2013-03-11T13:19:36","date_gmt":"2013-03-11T17:19:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2013\/03\/circular-wastewater-firing-squad-continues.html"},"modified":"2013-03-11T13:19:36","modified_gmt":"2013-03-11T17:19:36","slug":"circular-wastewater-firing-squad-continues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2013\/03\/circular-wastewater-firing-squad-continues.html","title":{"rendered":"Circular wastewater firing squad continues"},"content":{"rendered":"

\nThe VDT's Sunday front page was covered with wastewater stories,
\ncontinuing the circular firing squad of the local powers that be.
\nMeanwhile
\n
\nin Dublin, GA, they're breaking ground for solar panels
\nat the local high school<\/a>, using a bond financing
\nmodel that we could use here, if local leaders would look up.\n<\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/a>
\nIn addition to
\n
\nsome detail about the city's FEMA application<\/a>
\nand
\n
\nfollowing up on flooded yards<\/a>,
\nthe VDT followed up on
\n
\nits EPD and EPA scrutiny story<\/a>
\nwith one saying
\n
\nCity received help from EPD to keep EPA away.<\/a>
\nIt's good the VDT is covering these issues, but it's still leaving out
\nimportant parts of the local water story.\n<\/p>\n

\nApparently firing back at
\n
\n<\/a>
\n
\nThursday's Valdosta City Council session<\/a>,
\nperhaps especially
\n
\nRobert Yost's very pointed criticisms of the VDT,<\/a>
\nthe VDT concluded its
\n
\nrather rich Sunday editoral:<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

\n

\nCity leaders, please, no more of the blame game. The citizens of
\nthis community are imploring you to just accept responsibility and
\nfix it.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nYet the VDT has
\n
\nspent the last week blaming the city<\/a>,
\nand has accepted no responsibility for its own role, or that of
\nits editor, Kay Harris, in the recent loss of the SPLOST referendum
\nthat would have further funded wastewater work in Valdosta.\n<\/p>\n

Now, I agree with the VDT that<\/p>\n


\n
\n<\/a>
\nit seems like more could have
\nbeen done to prevent yet another flooding problem.
\nAnd I especially agree with the letter in the VDT from Jerome Tucker
\nthat people downstream should be considered more.
\nI bet people
\n
\nall the way to the Gulf think that<\/a>.
\nHowever,
\n
\nYost at least admitted he was wrong to think that a 100 year flood
\nwouldn't happen again in four years.<\/a>
\nPerhaps I missed where the VDT admitted it was wrong to say
\nthat the city hadn't done much of anything since 2009.\n<\/p>\n

\nIt's time for local leaders, including Yost and the VDT,
\nto get serious about climate change.
\nDespite the recent rains, we're still in a protracted drought
\nthat isn't likely to get better.
\nAlready,
\nthree of the top four most expensive U.S. weather disasters ever<\/a> have been
\nthe droughts of 1980, 1988, and 2012.
\nAnd three of the top six were hurricanes Katrina, Sandy, and Andrew.
\nWe're not on the coast so we don't have to worry about being
\n
\ncompletely flooded like Savannah and Jacksonville<\/a>,
\nbut obviously we have flood issues here that we need to address,
\nplus drought issues (pine beetles, failed crops, etc.) that affect
\nour biggest economic sector: agriculture.
\nWe can do our part to slow climate change by getting on with solar and wind energy.
\nIt’s great that the City of Valdosta
\nrecently approved more solar panels at its other wastewater treatment plant.<\/a>
\nMaybe Valdosta and Lowndes County can move ahead with solar high schools like in Dublin.\n<\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/a>
\nAnd nobody here seems to be addressing the
\n
\nsinkhole issue in our Floridan Aquifer.<\/a>
\nWill we wait until
\n
\nsomebody here<\/a>
\ngets pulled into a sinkhole under their house?\n<\/p>\n

\nIf we get a hurricane this year, we could easily have another "100 year"
\nflood this year.
\nOr maybe not even a hurricane.
\nThat 700 year flood in 2009 did not come from a 700 year rain,
\nnor did the flood last week.
\n
\n<\/a>
\nWe're still way behind our formerly normal rainfall.
\nOur local watersheds have been so damaged by clearcutting,
\ninvasive species, and development without adequate regard for
\nhydrology that it doesn't take much rain to cause a serious flood.
\nLike Gabe Fisher said about the manhole in his back yard,
\n
\n"Sometimes all it takes is a heavy rain".<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

\nPerhaps all the local leaders could start paying attention to
\nbigger pictures of local water issues, which extend
\nfar upstream and downstream of Valdosta.\n<\/p>\n

\n-jsq<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The VDT's Sunday front page was covered with wastewater stories, continuing the circular firing squad of the local powers that be. Meanwhile in Dublin, GA, they're breaking ground for solar panels at the local high school, using a bond financing model that we could use here, if local leaders would look up. In addition to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[97,202,47,40,263,14,15,16,50,70,8,2,19,20,21,22,32,73,289,24,52,53,3,54,133,55,89],"tags":[8736,8750,298,8719,8717,300,293,271,8704,8705,8706,8722,8728,59,209,272,292,8701,8699,8709,301,299,291,135,8702,8710,12,7,8711,8712,8715,302,290,8731,8758,208,8714,8724,8725,296,8700,6,8726,8742,294,8727,297,8735,58,295],"class_list":["post-37","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-agriculture","category-climate-change","category-community","category-dublin-ga","category-economy","category-education","category-environment","category-epa","category-ethics","category-georgia","category-government","category-history","category-law","category-planning","category-politics","category-pollution","category-safety","category-science","category-solar","category-splost","category-sustainability","category-transparency","category-valdosta-city-council","category-vdt","category-water","category-weather","tag-activism","tag-agriculture","tag-clearcutting","tag-climate-change","tag-community","tag-development","tag-drought","tag-dublin","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-epa","tag-ethics","tag-flood","tag-floridan-aquifer","tag-ga","tag-ga-epd","tag-georgia","tag-government","tag-history","tag-hydrology","tag-invasive-species","tag-jerome-tucker","tag-kay-harris","tag-lake","tag-law","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-planning","tag-politics","tag-pollution","tag-rain","tag-robert-yost","tag-safety","tag-science","tag-sinkhole","tag-solar","tag-splost","tag-sustainability","tag-suwannee-river","tag-transparency","tag-valdosta","tag-valdosta-city-council","tag-vdt","tag-wastewater","tag-water","tag-watersheds","tag-weather","tag-withlacoochee-river","tag-withlacoochee-wastewater-treatment-plant"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37","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=37"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}