Category Archives: Water

Work and Regular Sessions both Tuesday @ LCC Work 2015-09-08

Both LCC meetings Tuesday, plus Development Authority 10AM, Chamber members to be Heard 3:30PM, and Board of Elections 4:30PM, before the Commission votes 5:30 PM.

Update 2015-09-08: LAKE did what the county staff didn’t: turned a mound of paper into electronic format and posted it. The added material is for the Shiloh Road Roundabout (county has to maintain lighting and landscaping) and the bids for the Bevel Creek and Coleman Road lift stations. Except there’s no bid from Xylem for replacing the Coleman Road pump. Did they not bid, or did the Clerk’s office not supply that bid? (Also updated links to other meetings in first line of this post.)

Parcel 0259 034 The Lowndes County Commission will consider a church rezoning on Mullins Road that’s so close to a county water line near the Lake Alapaha development on the Alapaha River that the County staff felt they had to warn the applicant. Bid awards for the utilities extension to Lowndes Middle School is on the agenda as South Perimeter Road Utility Extension, and it appears staff may have outsourced this million-dollar decision to Lovell Engineering. Utilities also wants $38,930.50 for Bevel Creek and $35,144.20 for Coleman Road for new Wilo lift station pumps. Their one-paragraph writeups sound like a good deal with substantial savings, but they reference multiple quotes which were not included. Where are those quotes? (They were on paper; see above.)

The county staff also wants wants a roundabout for Shiloh Road! Next they’ll be wanting speed humps on county roads they’ve made unsafe by paving (don’t hold your breath).

Here’s what LAKE got online for the commission packet and the Lowndes County Commission agenda. See also the LAKE videos of the preceding Planning Commission meeting.

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 2015, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 2015, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor

Continue reading →

Let’s stop Sabal Trail before it makes any more mistakes

Thanks to Julie Bowland for the picture of my VDT op-ed today. -jsq

jsq op-ed in VDT The same day the Sabal Trail was quoted in the VDT August 5th as saying it had done enough subsurface analysis on our fragile karst limestone topography, a sinkhole opened up next to Shiloh Road. Sabal Trail already had to move its Albany compressor station because arrowheads had been found there. The pipeline itself is a much bigger mistake: let’s stop it before it damages our property values, forests, rivers, or our people.

Spectra Energy’s paid staff are continue to assert that Sabal Trail’s proposed gouge through our fields, farms, and under our rivers will proceed according their plan to profit executives and investors in Houston, Texas.

Actually, Continue reading →

Citi agrees fixing climate change is profitable

Save more by acting to fix climate change, on similar overall investment for trying to deal with unfixed effects, says Citi Global Perspectives & Solutions (GPS). Save more on similar expense: that’s profiting by fixing climate change. Fastest way to do that with least expense: deny all new pipelines, all LNG export, and end fracking.

Dana Nuccitelli, Guardian, 31 August 2015, Citi report: slowing global warming would save tens of trillions of dollars: A report from America’s 3rd-largest bank asks why we’re not transitioning to a low-carbon economy, Continue reading →

Videos: Suwannee-Satilla Water Council @ SSRWPC 2015-07-20

Fascinating stuff here, especially from Liz Booth and Jim Kennedy. They meet again today at Aniston’s Restaurant, 1404 W. Baker Highway, Douglas, GA.

You’ll probably notice there were some glitches with these July videos; thanks to Gretchen for salvaging most of them. And there’s no video of WWALS board member Al Browning speaking about water quality, nor of my presentation of the WWALS letter to SSRWPC: Please join the opposition to the Sabal Trail watershed invader —WWALS to SSRWPC.

Videos: Nuisance ordinance, numerous emergencies, small rezoning, and alcohol @ LCC 2015-08-11

They meet again Monday morning; here are videos from when they voted two weeks ago. There was a brief update on the Shiloh Road sinkhole, adding to the previous morning’s report; see also news reports. The rest of the meeting was rather predictable Continue reading →

Renewable energy world’s second largest source of electricity

Why are we building any new natural gas pipelines when solar and wind have already won the world? Plus solar and wind don’t frack, don’t need any fuel, don’t require eminent domain, and don’t suck up any cooling water.

Alex Kirby, Climate News Network, 19 August 2015, World’s Second Largest Source of Electricity Is Now Renewables, Continue reading →

Videos: Unknown ordinance, numerous emergencies, small rezoning, and alcohol @ LCC 2015-08-10

Here are videos of yesterday morning’s Work Session. This morning, the same day as tonight’s voting Regular Session, we got a few answers to some of yesterday’s questions about the Nuisance Abatement Ordinance:

What 1992 ordinance? Which state law? Where’s the new draft?

Here’s the old ordinance and the new draft. And the memo wrapping the new draft refers to O.C.G.A. §§41-2-7 through 41-2-17. The memo doesn’t seem to say when that Georgia law was updated.

Here’s the agenda. See also the Continue reading →

Land is not just money: appeal tax valuations today

Appeal today if you think there’s more to land (or business) and woods and fields and streams than money, unlike the Tax Assessors, whose revaluation would drive development into agricultural areas of the county where it doesn’t belong, while avoiding populated areas such as the south side of Valdosta. We can expect pipeline companies and utilities from other states to think nothing of pillaging our lands for their profit. We shouldn’t expect that of our neighbors whom we elected Tax Asssessors. If you have affection for your land, your county, your neighborhood, today’s the deadline to appeal your valuation. And there will be an election later.

As Wendell Berry said,

Whatever has happened in what economists call “the economy,” it is generally true that the land economy has been discounted or ignored.

Are the Tax Assessors boomers? Are you a sticker? Wendell Berry explains: Continue reading →

Unknown ordinance, numerous emergencies, small rezoning, and alcohol @ LCC 2015-08-10

How can we “Know the Laws” as the county’s front page says, if a county ordinance being revised isn’t there and isn’t distributed when the county is about to vote on it Tuesday evening after the Work Session this morning at 8:30 AM?

For the Nuisance Abatement Ordinance the packet agenda sheet says only: Continue reading →

Hamilton County, FL Commission considers opposing FL-DEP Sabal Trail permit 2015-07-21

Local resident Chris Mericle asked his county commission to once again oppose the Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline, this time by opposing a permit the Florida Department of Environmental Protection proposes to issue for Sabal Trail to bore under the Suwannee River and other sovereign submerged lands and wetlands of Florida.

This time, Continue reading →