Several dozen residents of the Foxborough subdivision came to the Lowndes County Commission meeting Tuesday to again express their dismay at the possibility of having a McDonald’s fast food restaurant located by the neighborhood’s entrance.Candelario (I believe that’s the actual spelling of his name) provided a list of suggestions to the Commission, which Chairman Paulk addressed, including: Continue readingResident Pete Candelaria said he has been living in Foxborough for six years and was speaking on behalf of the residents.
Category Archives: Safety
VDT on Foxborough v. McDonalds
According to Vince Schneider, the spokesman for the residents, the majority of the neighborhood is opposed to the possibility of a McDonald’s restaurant openin g there. The property is currently listed with Lowndes County as owned by First State Bank, but the county engineer, Mike Fletcher, confirmed Monday at the Lo wndes County Board of Commissioners work session that he has received a plat fo r the proposed development.Many of the residents only found out aboout the proposed McDonalds from a cryptic mention by Kay Harris in the VDT a few weeks ago. Naturally, the VDT ends the current story on a note of finality: Continue readingSchneider appeared before commissioners at the work session to request they rec onsider the commercial zoning in the area.
Good Meeting, Foxborough vs. McDonalds
See you there.
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Foxborough vs. McDonalds
The only mention of this project I can find in the VDT is this cryptic note by Kay Harris in her June 27, 2010 Business This Week:
The McDonalds project on N. Valdosta Road next to the Foxborough entrance should be finalized soon….
Neighbors immediately to the south of the project say that:
This property has not yet closed. Projected closing is the first week of August. Corporate McDonalds says construction will begin in October.They also tell me this will be a 24 hour a day 7 day a week fast food restaurant. Numerous residents mentioned safety concerns about the added traffic on the Foxborough Ave. entrance to the subdivision, and about pulling people off of I-75 into their neighborhood.
They’re holding a neighborhood meeting about it tomorrow (Thursday 8 July): Continue reading
Nix on biomass plant in Traverse City, Michigan
Complaints are more frequent along Mary Street, a short stretch a few hundred yards south of the plant. Residents there deal with more intense noise and odors.Nonetheless he didn’t say it affected his property values. However, that’s not the only issue.Craig Walworth’s home is among the closest to the plant. He walked up to his Jeep — a vehicle he cleaned the day before — and dragged his finger through a layer of film on the hood.
“Every morning, you have that to look forward to,” he said. “I clean my screens three times a year during the summer because they clog up.”
Meanwhile, about an hour north on the edge of Lake Michigan, in Traverse City local activism caused cancellation of a proposed biomass plant: Continue reading
Wellhead Protection Overlay, TXT-2010-01 2010 ULDC
At their 8 June 2010 regular meeting, the Lowndes County Board of Commissioners, at the recommendation of County Planner Jason Davenport, tabled revisions to the Uniform Land Development Code (ULDC) about wellhead protection. Such protections are a new requirment by the Georgia EPD, and it’s taking a while to figure out what is appropriate for the ten wells operated by the county and the 140 private community wells, many of which have trust indentures with the county that require the county to take them over if their current operators do not supply enough water, or of good enough quality.
Picture by John S.Quarterman, video by Gretchen K. Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange, 8 June 2010.
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Biomass Permit Expected Fortnightly
WIREGRASS POWER, LLC(VLCIA is the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority. Brad Lofton is its executive director.)The project should be approved and issued an air quality operating permit in the next 14 days, according to Lofton. A power purchase agreement should also be complete by June 1, 2010. The VLCIA granted an eight month extension for the project to begin construction.
We know from previous reports that this wood and sewage sludge incinerator is expected to produce a maximum of 25 long-term jobs. Many questions were asked at the air quality hearing about particulates, CO2, mercury, and other pollutants. The answers ranged from “we don’t monitor that” to Continue reading
WCTV on Biomass
On April 28 Deneige Broom wrote, Proposed Plant Raises Air Quality Questions:
A Biomass plant could bring business and money to the area. But some want to be assured their health won’t suffer in the name of progress.Some good quotes in there:
Dr. Brad Bergstrom attended the hearing wants concrete answers.Continue reading“There’s not going to be anything in the permit that will say, you can only burn this much sewage sludge,” said Bergstrom. “The company plans to only burn a small percentage but once they get their permit, that could change.”
Biomass Plant Hearing Today
The Georgia Department of Natural Resources (DNR) Environmental Protection Division (EPD) Air Protection Branch issued a Press Release on April 12, 2010 announcing a meeting:
EPD will hold a question and-answer (Q&A) session and a public hearing on Tuesday, April 27, from 6:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m. in the multipurpose room in the Valdosta City Hall Annex. The city hall annex is located at 300 N. Lee Street.The subject is “on Proposed Biomass-Fired Power Plant Application Submitted by WireGrass Power, LLC”
You can also submit questions and comments in writing: Continue reading
Europe has clean incinerators; why can’t we?
Far cleaner than conventional incinerators, this new type of plant converts local trash into heat and electricity. Dozens of filters catch pollutants, from mercury to dioxin, that would have emerged from its smokestack only a decade ago.Here’s the catch:
Denmark now has 29 such plants, serving 98 municipalities in a country of 5.5 million people, and 10 more are planned or under construction. Across Europe, there are about 400 plants, with Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands leading the pack in expanding them and building new ones.That means the biomass plant proposed for Valdosta is not that kind of clean incinerator.By contrast, no new waste-to-energy plants are being planned or built in the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency says — even though the federal government and 24 states now classify waste that is burned this way for energy as a renewable fuel, in many cases eligible for subsidies. There are only 87 trash-burning power plants in the United States, a country of more than 300 million people, and almost all were built at least 15 years ago.