Tag Archives: drought

Major climate change victory in U.S. House on Bastille Day 2017-07-14

On the anniversary of the French Revolution against a corrupt old regime, the U.S. House of Representatives took a step towards independence from the clammy grip of the fossil fuel companies. This has direct implications on Moody AFB. No more pipelines. Solar power now.

Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian, 14 July 2017, In Landmark Move, GOP Congress Calls Climate Change ‘Direct Threat’ to Security: Extreme weather and rising seas threaten bases from Virginia to Guam. For the first time, a Republican House has voted to recognize that.,

One study last year found that rising oceans threaten 128 military installations on the coasts, including naval facilities worth around $100 billion.

The Pentagon has been aware for years of Continue reading →

French, German, and Spanish nukes unreliable in heat

Invest in nukes for hot water in rivers damaging plants and animals while there’s less water for agriculture and cities and droughts and summer heat waves cause power shortages. That’s Europe’s experience. Or we could profit by their experience and get on with reliable renewable solar and wind power.

The Guardian, 12 August 2003, Heatwave hits French power production,

France has shut down the equivalent of four nuclear power stations as the heatwave eats into the country’s electricity generating capacities. With temperatures in French rivers hitting record highs, some power plants relying on river water to cool their reactors have been forced to scale back production.

Julio Godoy wrote for OneWorld.net 28 July 2006, European Heat Wave Shows Limits of Nuclear Energy,

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Sinkhole costs, and prevention vs. reaction

The day after the VDT ran Lowndes County’s admission that the sewer line break was theirs, not Valdosta’s, did the VDT start a series of financial investigation like they did about Valdosta’s water issues? Nope, they ran a piece about how much weather costs the county, with no recognition of watershed-wide issues, nor of any need for the county to participate in proactively dealing with them, to reduce costs, for better quality of life, to attract the kinds of businesses we claim we want. Nope, none of that.

Jason Schaefer wrote for the VDT 27 April 2013, What natural events cost Lowndes taxpayers,

In the Deep South, near a river plain where floodwaters rise and ebb from season to season and wetlands that distinguish the region from anywhere else in the nation, flooding makes a significant portion of the concern for Lowndes County emergency management.

OK, that’s close to getting at some of the basic issues. We’re all in the same watershed, and we need to act like it instead of every developer and every local government clearcutting and paving as if water didn’t run downhill. Does the story talk about that? After all, the county chairman attended the 11 April 2013 watershed-wide flooding meeting that led to the city of Valdosta’s likely participation in flodoplain planning. Nope; according to the VDT, everybody around here seems to be hapless victims of weather:

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Circular wastewater firing squad continues

The VDT's Sunday front page was covered with wastewater stories, continuing the circular firing squad of the local powers that be. Meanwhile in Dublin, GA, they're breaking ground for solar panels at the local high school, using a bond financing model that we could use here, if local leaders would look up.

In addition to some detail about the city's FEMA application and following up on flooded yards, the VDT followed up on its EPD and EPA scrutiny story with one saying City received help from EPD to keep EPA away. It's good the VDT is covering these issues, but it's still leaving out important parts of the local water story.

Apparently firing back at Thursday's Valdosta City Council session, perhaps especially Robert Yost's very pointed criticisms of the VDT, the VDT concluded its rather rich Sunday editoral:

City leaders, please, no more of the blame game. The citizens of this community are imploring you to just accept responsibility and fix it.

Yet the VDT has spent the last week blaming the city, and has accepted no responsibility for its own role, or that of its editor, Kay Harris, in the recent loss of the SPLOST referendum that would have further funded wastewater work in Valdosta.

Now, I agree with the VDT that Continue reading →

2012 Drought more expensive than Hurricane Sandy

You thought Hurricane Sandy was bad? You were right, but economically, the ongoing drought is worse economically. But we already know a much brighter path.

Weather Underground founder Dr. Jeff Masters wrote 16 November 2012, Lessons from 2012: Droughts, not Hurricanes, are the Greater Danger,

Sandy’s damages of perhaps $50 billion will likely be overshadowed by the huge costs of the great drought of 2012.

By Dr. Masters’ estimate, the 2012 drought will cost more than half again as much as Hurricane Sandy.

Also notice Hurricane Katrina still at the top of that table, with almost three times the economic damage and far more deaths than Hurricane Sandy. We could have gotten the message back in 2005, but hey, those were only poor southern people, so who, in for example New York City, really cared? Yes, I know many of us did and many of you actively helped, but I’m sure you see my point that when greater New York gets the storm, suddenly the country pays attention and a lot more people want to find out how to keep that from happening again.

What’s that drought look like for us here in Georgia at the moment, according to U.S. Drought Monitor?

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More concerned about feeding cars than the hungry? —Michael G. Noll

Received Tuesday on Georgia EPD to suspend consideration of some new farm water permit applications 07/30/2012. -jsq

And Southern Company/Georgia Power are still pushing for power plants that waste hundreds of thousands of gallons of water daily (nuclear, biomass)? Water for cooling purposes instead of agriculture? That's about as insane as corn for the production of ethanol instead of feeding people. And how much water do wind mills or solar panels need once they have been installed? About as much as they create problems with air pollution and radioactive waste: zero!

Please note a recent article by George Monbiot on a global crisis caused by investments made in biofuels (e.g. ethanol from corn). To quote from the article (13 August 2012, Hunger Games):

"Already, 40% of US corn (maize) production is used to feed cars(6). The proportion will rise this year as a result of the smaller harvest. Though the market for biodiesel is largely confined to the European Union, it has already captured seven per cent of the world's output of vegetable oil(7). The European Commission admits that its target (10% of transport fuels by 2020) will raise world cereal prices by between 3 and 6%(8). Oxfam estimates that with every 1% increase in the price of food, another 16 million people go hungry."

Where does this leave our "Christian" values as we are obviously more concerned about feeding cars than the hungry?

-Michael G. Noll

-jsq

Georgia EPD to suspend consideration of some new farm water permit applications 07/30/2012

In case you had any doubt we’re in serious drought conditions, here’s a PR from GA EPD of 30 July 2012 suspending new agricultural water permits in numerous southwest Georgia counties, as close as Colquitt County, which adjoins Lowndes County.

-jsq

The Director of the Georgia Environmental Protection Division (EPD) has announced that consideration of new applications for agricultural water withdrawal permits in a 24­county area ofsouthwest Georgia will be suspended. The suspension takes effect immediately, but does not apply to applications EPD has already received as of this date.

Map of SW GA suspended water permit regions

Map of SW GA suspended water permit regions

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TS Debbie and south Georgia extreme drought —Ashley Tye @ LCC 2012-06-25

Lowndes County Emergency Management Agency Director Ashley Tye correctly predicted no tornadoes and quite a bit of rain for when Tropical Storm Debbie made landfall. He also mentioned our chronic drought, and Commissioner Richard Raines was surprised about that.

Raines asked:

What kind of conditions would it take for us, because you and I talked a couple of weeks ago, and I was I was surprised when you said that. I guess there’s a difference between drought and extreme drought. What kind of rain conditions would we need to get out of that, I guess in terms of inches, for the water table….

Tye answered:

For them to officially declare us out of the drought, the latest numbers I’ve seen were about 15 inches over the next 30 days, or over the next 3 months, it would have to be like 25 to 30 inches. So we still need a lot of rain. But every little bit is going to help. With the rain we’ve got recently we’re better off than we were, but we’re still technically classifed as in extreme drought.

Here’s the video:

TS Debbie and south Georgia extreme drought —Ashley Tye
Work Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Video by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE), Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 25 June 2012.

Readers of this blog know we were already in drought more than a year ago. According to U.S. Drought Monitor, we’ve been in a protracted extreme drought since then. According to USGS, our groundwater levels are all red, as in extremely low. Extremely low as in at historically low levels, as in they’ve hardly ever, if ever, been this low.

-jsq

Lowndes County is disaster area —Gov. Deal

Climate change makes Lowndes County a disaster area.

Amber Eady wrote for WALB, Deal requests disaster designation for Lowndes County:

Gov. Deal sent a letter to the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack asking that 22 Georgia counties be declared disaster areas because of Georgia’s ongoing drought.

Lowndes County was on that list of 22 counties that Deal wants to be declared as disaster areas.

-gretchen