After only a few weeks of organized opposition by citizens,
including Satilla Riverkeeper and activists from as far away as Waycross,
mighty DuPont has had to think again about mining Wayne County near Jesup.
Not given up, but at least not just breezing through unnoticed.
Update 2014-08-28 14:00: Greenlaw Press Release.
Terry Dickson wrote for jacksonville.com 27 August 2014, DuPont withdraws application for permit to mine more than 2,200 acres in Wayne County, Continue reading
Update 2014-08-25: There was some rationale for why the Commission voted to approve. See Videos: developer property rights and effects on neighbors, Leninco, Roger Budd, Lake Park @ LCC 2014-08-12.
With little notice local citizens didn’t have time to organize opposition
to a rezoning for three companies domiciled outside Lowndes County
on behalf of a developer who doesn’t even own the property next to them.
Yet again no agenda was posted for the Planning Commission last month
so few people showed up.
More spoke at the Lowndes County Commission this month.
But with so little time, only 38 people signed a petition,
and there were no
citizen-organized meetings, unlike for
the Brookhaven rezoning back in March and April.
Unlike the Lake Park City Council, which
held a special public hearing,
the Lowndes County Commission plowed ahead on its usual schedule
and voted on a bare majority to approve anyway for a developer on which
they are on a first-name basis,
while local neighbors went un-named and unheeded.
Does this seem right to you?
Toma Hawk videoed and edited together the Work Session of 11 August 2014 and the Regular Session of 12 August 2014 to emphasize this item from the agenda: Continue reading
All aboard for the second and last rail plan meeting in Valdosta tonight.
Maybe you see something missing in
the current passenger rail corridor
proposal pictured on the right.
Maybe you’d like to suggest some changes or additions.
Stuart Taylor wrote for the VDT today, Rail plan meeting scheduled,
Continue readingGeorgia Department of Transportation will host a 2014 Georgia state rail plan public meeting from 5-7 p.m. Thursday, April 17, in the Valdosta City Hall Annex, 300 N. Lee St.
The VDT’s page-long coverage wasn’t just fluff.
Spectra’s Andrea Grover admitted they need complete survey data,
and Sabal Trail admitted they have no Georgia customers, which means
they have no Georgia eminent domain, so every landowner who refuses is
indeed putting a crimp into Spectra’s fracked methane pipeline.
Plus Grover admitted trees don’t grow back fast, so her promise
“It’s restored to what it was before” is pretty hollow.
She admitted she knows the Department of Energy’s Office of Fossil Fuels
can approve LNG export, but she didn’t admit that it has already done
so for three companies right there Spectra’s Sabal Trail pipeline leads
on Florida’s Atlantic coast.
She still can’t seem to remember Spectra’s long list of safety violations.
And she’d already forgotten exactly when her posse of seven
rode into Leesburg, GA seeking an eminent domain court order,
and rode away without it.
Not a word, though, about Lowndes County Chairman Bill Slaughter’s fourteen points of Continue reading
AJC on the
EPA hearings this week:
they didn’t print my proposed second step for natural gas,
but they did quote Sierra Club on efficiency.
Kristina Torres wrote for the AJC today, EPA brings ‘clean power’ plan to Atlanta. Will it hurt Georgia? Continue reading
High noon rally Tuesday and 9AM to 8PM hearings Monday and Tuesday 29-30 July 2014
at the
Sam Nunn Atlanta Federal Center, Main Tower Bridge Conference Area, Conference Room B, 61 Forsyth Street, SW, Atlanta, GA.
Plus you can comment online, maybe about
mercury from coal Plant Scherer
in the Alapaha River and how shifting to “natural” gas just promotes
more fracked methane pipelines like that
Sabal Trail boondoggle.
EPA could take a second step on methane, and we can get on with
faster, cheaper, cleaner, and far more environmentally beneficial
solar power in the sunny southeast.
For details see the
Sierra Club
or
WWALS
or
SpectraBusters postings.
-jsq
6-8PM tomorrow, Thursday 17 July 2014
Memorial Stadium, 715 Dewey St., Waycross, GA 31501
The Environmental Protection Agency, GA Environmental Protection
Division, and Georgia Department of Public Health will be present to
discuss sample collection and results from the Seven Out Tank site
in downtown Waycross.
EPD will also be available to address issues and answer questions regarding CSX.
From Satilla Riverkeeper’s facebook event. Here’s a map: Continue reading
Candidate for Governor of Georgia Jason Carter headlines
the program for the annual Lowndes County Democratric Party Barbecue Tuesday.
LCDP wrote yesterday, Georgia: Back on Track –LCDP BBQ 1 July 2014,
Other candidates speaking include Democrats Daniel Blackman for GA PSC, Valerie Wilson for State School Superintendent (runoff), Bikram Mohanty for Georgia State Senate District 8, Dexter Sharper for Georgia House District 177, and Demarcus Marshall for Lowndes County Commission District 4. Plus G. Norman Bennett and Clay Griner in the nonpartisan special election runoff for Lowndes County Commission District 5. All statewide and local candidates are still invited.
When: 6 p.m., Tuesday, July 1st, 2014 Where: Mathis Municipal Auditorium
2300 North Ashley Street
Valdosta, GeorgiaPrice: $25.00 PROGRAM
Continue reading
According to Sabal Trail’s own numbers, twice as much land for
the entire three-pipeline Spectra -> Sabal -> FSC proposed gouge
through three states
as would be required to produce as much solar power.
STT’s solar acreage estimates from their Draft Resource Report 10: Alternatives (RR10) of November 2013, Continue reading
The same Energy Policy Act of 2005 that
subsidized dirty oil and fracked methane including LNG exports
also funded
that oxymoron “clean” coal such as Southern Company’s Plant Ratcliffe
in Mississippi,
ethanol production lining the pockets of Monsanto, and
the $8.3 billion loan guarantee
to Georgia Power for the new nukes at Plant Vogtle.
2005 was a very long time ago in solar PV years:
prices are halved, and installed solar power production is up more
than ten times and growing exponentially like compound interest.
We need to stop throwing money at dirty, water-sucking,
centralized baseload 20th century non-solutions and get on with
clean 21st century distributed solar and wind power
for jobs, for energy independence, and for clean air and water,
not to mention less climate change.
-jsq