{"id":8276,"date":"2014-03-31T08:12:24","date_gmt":"2014-03-31T12:12:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/?p=8276"},"modified":"2014-03-31T08:16:59","modified_gmt":"2014-03-31T12:16:59","slug":"how-to-invite-toxic-industries-to-your-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2014\/03\/how-to-invite-toxic-industries-to-your-county.html","title":{"rendered":"How to invite toxic industries to your county"},"content":{"rendered":"

\r\n<\/a>\r\nMaybe we should stop inviting toxic industries to Lowndes County.\r\nWe’ve been doing that with coal ash, PCBs, superfund wastewater,\r\nused diapers in recycling, and suing local businesses while not terminating\r\nan exclusive franchise with a company that is involved in all of that.\r\nNot to mention Sterling Chemical.\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nHere in Lowndes County we have\r\n\r\nTVA coal ash and Florida coal ash<\/a>\r\nin our landfill,\r\nand the landfill operator spreads the coal ash on roads on the site,\r\nwhich is just uphill from the Withlacoochee River.\r\n\r\nGA EPD\r\nfined that landfill operator $27,500 in January 2013\r\n\r\nfor accepting PCBs<\/a> into that same Pecan Row Landfill.\r\nThe same landfill that accepted\r\n\r\n196,500 gallons of wastewater<\/a> from the\r\nSeven Out Superfund site in Waycross, GA.\r\n

A landfill that is\r\n\r\nin an aquifer recharge zone<\/a>.\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\n\r\nFor the Floridan Aquifer, the source of all our drinking water.\r\n

\r\nYet the Lowndes County Commission\r\n\r\ngranted an exclusive franchise<\/a>\r\nto that same landfill operator, ADS,\r\nand\r\n\r\nsued a local business for competing with it<\/a>.\r\nAfter\r\n\r\na judge said Lowndes County can’t make a monopoly<\/a>,\r\nADS\r\n\r\nappealed<\/a>, and the County Commission\r\n\r\njoined that appeal<\/a> on a 3 to 2 vote, with Commissioners\r\nJohn Page and Demarcus Marshall voting against.\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nEven though the City of Valdosta had stopped taking recycling from ADS\r\n\r\nbecause ADS put household trash, including used diapers<\/a>\r\nin its alleged recycling.\r\nLater we learned from Commissioner Demarcus Marshall that\r\n\r\nADS is nor providing an annual report nor a recycling rebate<\/a>,\r\neven though both are required in that exclusive franchise.\r\nThat exclusive franchise has\r\n\r\na termination clause<\/a>,\r\nbut the County Commission has so far refused to consider exercising it.\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nRemember the first starting point for the Sabal Trail pipeline we heard was\r\n\r\nPCB-contaminated Anniston, Alabama<\/a>,\r\nthe place Monsanto left perhaps more toxic than any other city in the country.\r\nAlthough with \r\nthat $15 million fine for 89 pipeline PCB spills<\/a>,\r\nwho knows where else Spectra Energy left contaminated?\r\n

\r\n\r\nWouldn’t a county that accepts superfund wastewater, coal ash, and PCBs\r\ninto its landfill in an aquifer recharge zone,\r\nthat makes an exclusive contract with the landfill operator,\r\nthat sues a local business about that contract and even appeals,\r\nthat does nothing about that landfill operator\r\nviolating that exclusive franchise; wouldn’t such a county sound like\r\na great place to run a hazardous fracked methane pipeline through\r\na drinking water aquifer?\r\n

\r\n<\/a>\r\nThat’s without even digging up the\r\n\r\n1990s Lowndes County Commission decision to bring in Sterling Chemical<\/a>.\r\nAs the VDT reminded us again\r\n\r\n3 March 2014<\/a>,\r\n

\r\n

\r\nthe entire county commission was voted out of office following the\r\ndecision to bring Sterling Chemical Co. to the community.\r\n

\r\nSterling, known today as Erco Worldwide, remains here but the wounds the\r\nbattle over the industry left community-wide were far-reaching and deep.\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nCounty Commission terms got staggered since then so that can’t happen again,\r\nbut there’s an election going on right now.\r\nIncumbent Demarcus Marshall runs unopposed for District 4,\r\nand three other seats do not have an incumbent running.\r\nTwo of those seats will be decided May 20th.\r\n

\r\nDistrict 2\r\n\r\nwill be decided at the primary on May 20th<\/a>,\r\nbetween Jody Powell (R) and Scott Orenstein (R).\r\n

\r\nDistrict 3\r\n\r\nis down to two candidates<\/a>,\r\nMark Wisenbaker (R) and Tom Hochschild (D).\r\n

\r\nDistrict 5 will be decided in a nonpartisan special election May 20th,\r\namong\r\nNorman Bennett, Clay Griner, and Gretchen Quarterman.\r\n

\r\nFour of these candidates spoke Saturday.\r\nVideo to come.\r\n

\r\nAnd don’t forget\r\n\r\nwho’s running for the county school board and for the state legislature<\/a>.\r\nRemember who voted for toxic industries in Lowndes County and who\r\nhas repeatedly spoken up against that.\r\n

\r\n -jsq\r\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Maybe we should stop inviting toxic industries to Lowndes County. We’ve been doing that with coal ash, PCBs, superfund wastewater, used diapers in recycling, and suing local businesses while not terminating an exclusive franchise with a company that is involved in all of that. Not to mention Sterling Chemical. Here in Lowndes County we have […]","protected":false},"author":3,"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":[216,49,16,8,19,1105,88,6124,6687,73,178,55],"tags":[210,8753,2406,7316,8721,8706,6279,8701,8709,8702,154,2475,8815,12,7,8734,562,6711,6076,5605,657,6597,8731,6966,7546,1981,8773,1399,6,8749,8727],"class_list":["post-8276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-coal","category-elections","category-environment","category-georgia","category-history","category-lcboe","category-lowndes-county-commission","category-natural-gas-2","category-pipeline-2","category-safety","category-vlcia","category-water","tag-aquifer","tag-coal","tag-coal-ash","tag-diapers","tag-elections","tag-environment","tag-exclusive-franchise","tag-georgia","tag-history","tag-lake","tag-landfill","tag-lawsuit","tag-lcboe","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-lowndes-county-commission","tag-natural-gas","tag-pcb","tag-pipeline","tag-recharge","tag-recycling","tag-sabal-trail-transmission","tag-safety","tag-spectra-energy","tag-sterling-chemical","tag-toxic","tag-trash","tag-tva","tag-valdosta","tag-vlcia","tag-water"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-29u","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8276","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\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8276"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8276\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8282,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8276\/revisions\/8282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}