Category Archives: LAKE

On What Basis Does ZBOA Decide?

How does the Valdosta-Lowndes County Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBOA) base its decisions? Well, its members are appointed by two different local governments, of the City of Valdosta and Lowndes County, and each government provides its own criteria. Here they are: Continue reading →

Who is ZBOA?

The current members of the Valdosta-Lowndes County Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBOA) are:
City of Valdosta
Allan Strickland, Chair
Laverne Gaskins
Scott Orenstein, Vice-Chair
Nancy Hobby
Paul Alvarado 		Lowndes County
Gretchen Quarterman
Dr. William Houseal
Dave Kirk
Here they are at their 14 Sep 2010 meeting:

Left to right: Laverne Gaskins, Gretchen Quarterman, Paul Alvarado, Allan Strickland (Chair), Scott Orenstein (Vice-Chair), and Dr. William Houseal. (Nancy Hobby and Dave Kirk were not present at that meeting.)

According to the city’s web page about them:

The ZBOA is a joint board consisting of eight appointed citizens, four each for the City of Valdosta and Lowndes County. Members are appointed for three year terms. City board members are appointed by the Mayor-Council based on their experience in land development, their familiarity with the City of Valdosta Zoning Ordinance, and their willingness to commit sufficient time to the board in order to be an effective board member.
What do they do? Continue reading →

Video of Biomass Air Quality Hearing, Valdosta, 27 April 2010

A video of a hearing about the biomass plant Wiregrass Power LLC proposes to build in Lowndes County just outside of Valdosta was held in Valdosta on 27 April 2010 by the Air Protection Branch (APD) of the Environmental Protection Division (EPD) of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources (DNR).

Eric Cornwell of APD explains location, process flow, and specific items covered by the permit (soot, SO2, NOX, CO, VOC, HCL, etc., but not CO2). He remarks that Wiregrass Power LLC is building a small plant with a “lower emission limit in order to avoid some of the red tape” by getting a minor permit instead of a major permit. The first half hour concludes with Bob Turner, the plant manager, presenting similar material, ending with:

“No new carbon is added to the atmosphere when burning woody byproducts.”
I beg to differ on that: in the time it takes trees to grow back, there is indeed new carbon dioxide added to the atmosphere. More from Dr. William Sammons on that.

Back to the video of the hearing. Questions start at 00:29:44. Here are some time markers and very brief summaries of Q and A; see the video for the full questions and answers. Continue reading →

jsq VDT LTE pro Solar GA

The VDT printed my LTE today. It doesn’t seem to be online yet. Appended is what I submitted, annotated with some links and pictures. The last picture shows the solar panels on my farm workshop.

-jsq

Re: Forester R. Wayne Bell’s points of May 20, 2010. (Hi Wayne; I’ll get those dibbles back to you soon.)

Where does Georgia Power say Albany’s biomass plant will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 95 percent? Biomass proponents usually say what Forester Bell says: trees are carbon neutral. That ignores the time gap between clearcutting and new growth. That gap from 15 to 100 years or more can produce a lot of CO2.

As a tree farmer myself, I know the pulpwood market is down in Georgia due to the recession and foreign competition. I’d like to be convinced that biomass is the new market we need, but the more I look into it, the more obfuscation I encounter.

Forester Bell seeks a study showing solar will work in Georgia. Georgia Power’s web pages (renewable energy -> solar -> solar potential)
http://www.georgiapower.com/spotlightsolar/solar_potential.asp
include a map of Georgia’s Solar Potential, Continue reading →

First Friday, Valdosta, 3 Sep 2010

Downtown Valdosta was bustling Friday night:

That’s Albert in the hat bending my ear.

There was food, there was blown glass and much other artwork, and bands. As previously mentioned, SAVE was educating people about the problems with biomass. More pictures in the flickr set.

First Friday, Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 3 September 2010, Pictures and videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

-jsq

Proposed Solar Plants

OK, let’s look at “solar” in the online interactive map from Joel Achenbach’s story about The 21st Century Grid in the July 2010 National Geographic. It’s easy to count the proposed solar power plants in Georgia: zero. Yet there’s one in Virginia, one in Maryland, and at least three in Florida, adding to the currently largest solar plant in the country near De Soto, Florida. The map legend repeats the GEFA canard that
The Southwest is a solar-power hotbed. To supplement fossil fuel plants, long-distance transmission lines stretch from the Mojave Destert, which has plenty of sun.
Yes, that’s true, but what about this. At least three solar plants are proposed around San Antonio and Austin, which are not in the area of the southwest the map blurb is referring to. In fact, the largest solar plant in the country is proposed for Austin. Austin is one degree of latitude south of Valdosta, and has been leading the country in solar deployment for many years now. Texas in general almost doubled renewable energy generation between 2004 and 2006 while Georgia did nothing. Texas hasn’t stopped. When will Georgia start?

The Austin solar solution doesn’t require massive new power lines, either. It’s mostly been accomplished with solar panels on houses and business roofs; panels that wouldn’t show up on National Geographic’s map because they’re small and distributed. Which is the point: they generate power where it’s needed, and at peak times when it’s needed, namely when it’s hot and sunny out and air conditioners are running on max. There’s no reason Georgia can’t do the same.

I would continue this series by showing wind generation proposed for Georgia, but there isn’t any of that, either. There could be, off the coast.

Which makes more sense: polluting our air with more coal and biomass plants, or getting a move on with solar and wind?

-jsq

Proposed Biomass Plants

Let’s select “other” in the online interactive map from Joel Achenbach’s story about The 21st Century Grid in the July 2010 National Geographic. This map clearly shows the proposed Wiregrass LLC plant in Valdosta, as well as two plants proposed just to the south for Hamilton County, Florida, and one in Echols County, Georgia, which presumably would be the Oglethorpe Power alternative site. Several of the other plants shown are probably the other proposed Oglethorpe Power plants. Missing is Georgia Power’s Plant Mitchell in Albany, which is supposed to convert from coal to biomass. (Also if you select “nuclear”, the two Georgia Power proposed nuclear plants on the Savannah River are missing.) Apparently National Geographic edoesn’t have a complete list of proposed biomass plants. I wonder who does, if anybody?

Nonetheless, take this map of proposed biomass plants and combine it with the map of proposed new coal plants, plus the existing coal plants in Juliette, Georgia (dirtiest in the country) and Albany, and south Georgia is slated to become even more infested with polluting energy sources.

Does that seem like a good idea to you?

Next: proposed solar plants.

-jsq

Proposed Coal Plants

In the July 2010 National Geographic, Joel Achenbach writes about The 21st Century Grid. It’s mostly about how we need a smart grid and additional power lines to redistribute power better, but it does get into proposed power plants to generate new power.
Although everyone acknowledges the need for a better, smarter, cleaner grid, the paramount goal of the utility industry continues to be cheap electricity. In the U.S. about half of it comes from burning coal. Coal-powered generators produce a third of the mercury emissions in America, a third of our smog, two-thirds of our sulfur dioxide, and nearly a third of our planet-warming carbon dioxide—around 2.5 billion metric tons a year, by the most recent estimate.
Then it talks about how it’s hard to get stodgy electric utilities to invest in anything else. However, there is at least one way:
A California law requires utilities to generate at least 20 percent of their electricity from renewable sources as of this year.
OK, so what new energy plant are proposed for Georgia? The online interactive map lets you select different energy types. The map above shows four proposed new coal plants in Georgia, surrounding south Georgia (plus something nonrenewable in Florida near Tampa). I recognize the one in far southwest Georgia as the one proposed for Early County and fortunately still tied up in litigation. All four are in addition to the existing Plant Scherer at Juliett, GA, near Macon, the dirtiest coal plant in the country, and the one that generates 2/3 of our power for south Georgia (as well as selling a lot of power to Florida). Adding still more dirty coal plants does not look like progress.

Continued in next blog entry.

-jsq

Candidates, Lowndes County Commission, District 2, at LCDP BBQ

Every year the Lowndes County Democratic Party (LCDP) has a barbecue to which it invites candidates for public office. These include local candidates. Here we have the two Democrats running for Lowndes County Commission in District 2, in alphabetical order: Debra M. Franklin and John S. Quarterman. Notice the two candidates dining amicably side by side.

Debra M. Franklin: Continue reading →

Polling Places, Lowndes County, Georgia

There’s an election going on, with the primary this Tuesday, July 20th. Here’s a google map of Lowndes County Polling Places:


View Lowndes County Polling Places in a larger map

To find out where you should go vote, go to the Georgia Secretary of State My Voter Page. It will be one of these places: Continue reading →