Tag Archives: Forestry

Privatizing water: could it happen here?

Water, the next oil: many big companies have already been betting on that for years now. Do we want privatize companies controling our water supplies for their profit, running up prices at our expense? We can prevent that, and we should get on with it.

Jeneen Interlandi wrote for Newsweek 8 October 2010, The New Oil: Should private companies control our most precious natural resource?

…privately owned water utilities will charge what the market can bear, and spend as little as they can get away with on maintenance and environmental protection. Other commodities are subject to the same laws, of course. But with energy, or food, customers have options: they can switch from oil to natural gas, or eat more chicken and less beef. There is no substitute for water, not even Coca-Cola. And, of course, those other things don’t just fall from the sky on whoever happens to be lucky enough to be living below. “Markets don’t care about the environment,” says Olson. “And they don’t care about human rights. They care about profit.”

Well, that couldn’t happen here. Or could it? What about this:

Many of us have no idea where our water comes from….

Do you know what’s upstream of you, that might be getting into your water? Do you know what’s downstream of you, that your runoff migh be getting into? If you’re like me, you’ll have to look that up.

Remember what Ben Copeland said: Orlando, Jacksonville, and Tallahassee “all have their straws in that same aquifer.” The Floridan aquifer, which is the source of most of our drinking water. Our rivers and streams help replenish the Floridan aquifer, but we’re using it up faster than rain falls.

The article goes on about Bolivia privatizing water as a condition of “austerity”, until Continue reading →

Better cities and counties make better watersheds

Want jobs, low taxes, and less flooding? Help maintain our watersheds with good local planning.

What’s a watershed? Kaid Benfield wrote for Atlantic Cities today, The Cost of Sprawl on Clean Water:

Watersheds are topographic areas where all the rain that falls eventually ends up in a namesake steam, river, lake, or estuary.

These are our local watersheds. Purple is the Little River Watershed, blue is the Withlacoochee Watershed, and Valdosta is where the Little River flows south into the Withlacoochee. Green is the Alapaha watershed, and Tifton is where all three meet. Every drop of rain or used well water or wastewater overflow or pesticide runoff or soapy shower water or clearcut mud that runs downhill into one of these rivers is in their (and our) watersheds.

Becoming greener doesn’t just mean a municipality’s adding a pleasant new park here and there, or planting more trees, although both components may be useful parts of a larger effort. How a town is designed and developed is related to how well it functions, how well it functions is related to how sustainable it really is, and how sustainable it is, is directly related to how it affects its local waters and those who use those same waters downstream.

Compact, mixed-use, well-designed in-town growth can take some of the pressure off of its opposite on the outskirts — or beyond the outskirts — of towns and cities. We know that sprawling growth is generally pretty bad for maintaining environmental quality in a region (air pollution from cars that become necessary in such circumstances, displacement of open land, water pollution from new roads and shopping centers that are begot by such growth patterns).

We also know, as UGA Prof. Dorfman told us several years ago,

Local governments must ensure balanced growth, as
sprawling residential growth is a certain ticket to fiscal ruin*
* Or at least big tax increases.

Kaid Benfield explains how town planning is related to watersheds:

Continue reading →

VLCIA and local counties

In which of these five, seven, eleven, or thirteen counties is Athens, Georgia?

According to Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA), Regional Hub,

Valdosta is a regional hub for eleven Georgia counties and two Florida counties. Valdosta-Lowndes County acts not only as the regional hub for retail, medical, transportation and entertainment. Our community is also the regional hub for employment for five contiguous, predominantly rural Georgia counties and two Florida counties (as indicated in the chart to the right) and supports a thirteen county region referenced from the 2000 Census (see chart attached below).
The five Georgia counties are (alphabetically) Brooks, Cook, Echols, Lanier, and Lowndes, and the two Florida counties are Hamilton and Madison. In which of those seven counties is Athens, Georgia?

The thirteen counties, barely legible on VLCIA’s webpage, are: Berrien GA, Brooks GA, Clinch GA, Colquitt GA, Columbia FL, Cook GA, Dougherty GA, Duval FL, Echols GA, Fulton GA, Hamilton FL, Lanier GA, and Madison FL. Fulton County, Georgia? OK, that’s odd. Hm, the table is entitled

“Journeys To and From LOWNDES GA (Threshold = 50)”.
It’s about vehicles travelling in and out of Lowndes County. So Fulton makes some sense, due to people travelling between here and Atlanta. Local region, though? Not Fulton. Ditto Duval County, Florida. Jacksonville, local? I think not.

So maybe call it an eleven county region. In which of those eleven or thirteen counties is Athens, Georgia?

-jsq

Why doesn’t VLCIA buy locally?

Col. Ricketts reminded VLCIA board members at their most recent regular meeting (2012 01 17) that he had asked them for input about trees for Miller and Westside Business Parks.
We have identified trees from a nursery, Select Trees, in Athens, Georgia, with a special five year warranty on those trees, that meet our landscape plans for both Miller and Westside Business Park. As we discussed in our last board meeting, there is some cost savings available to us, and the ability for us to select trees now and hold them if we make a deposit.
OK, I commend VLCIA staff and board for trying to save we the taxpayers money.

But isn’t VLCIA supposed to be promoting local business and agriculture? Why is our Industrial Authority outsourcing to a company halfway across the state? Why doesn’t it buy locally, even if it costs a little more?

For that matter, aren’t there plenty of local trees, like sycamores, magnolias, and even longleaf pines that would cost very little to transplant to a local business park? Maybe those are the types of trees they’re buying. We don’t know, because only the board got the list of trees.

For that matter, why didn’t VLCIA put out a public request for bids for the trees?

Here’s the video:


Why doesn’t VLCIA buy locally?
Regular Meeting, Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA),
Norman Bennett, Tom Call, Roy Copeland chairman, Mary Gooding, Jerry Jennett,
Andrea Schruijer Executive Director, J. Stephen Gupton attorney, Allan Ricketts Project Manager,
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 17 January 2012.
Videos by John S. Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

-jsq

USDA Under Sec. to speak in Tifton Tuesday at forestry conference

From longleaf restoration to biomass, lots of interesting talks and tours.

Georgia Forestry Association wrote about the 30 October – 2 November 2011 Southern Woodland Owners Conference & Solutions Fair, USDA Under Sec. to speak in Tifton Tuesday at forestry conference:

9:00 a.m. – 10:00 a.m. Opening Session
Welcome Remarks and Announcements –
Introduction of Conference Co-Chairs, Steve McWilliams, President, Georgia Forestry Assoc.
KEYNOTE: Honorable Harris Sherman, Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Washington, DC/Introduced by Honorable Gary Black, Commissioner, Georgia Department of Agriculture

-jsq

Lowndes County Commission: presentations, appointment, resolutions, and contracts

No rezonings but a nomber of other things. Too bad this one is only in the work session; sounds interesting:
6. Community Wildfire Protection Plan Presentation (Buck Kline) — Work Session Only
Here’s a writeup about Chief Senior Ranger Buck Kline.

There’s an appointment to a relatively new (1994) board:

7. Appointment for Introduction – South Georgia Community Service Board-Sheila Wakeley

Here’s the agenda:

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2011, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2011, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor
Continue reading →

VSU Faculty Senate passes anti-biomass resolution

Karen Noll reported on WACE’s facebook page that the VSU Faculty Senate passed a resolution Thursday 19 May 2011 that biomass will not be considered renewable for VSU’s climate commitment goal.

Why? Because leading medical associations have identified woody biomass incineration as increasing risks of “a variety of illnesses, some life-threatening”, because biomass incineration produces more CO2, NOX, and fine particulates than existing coal plants, and because it “may lead to unsustainable forestry practices and a net increase in global greenhouse gas emissions”.

Who proposed this? Continue reading →

The business of carbon trading in Georgia

Rich McKay wrote for the ajc, Carbon limits a boon for traders: Proposed emissions standards may galvanize business in Georgia.
The carbon-emitting companies pay the farmers to not cut down the trees or to plant new trees. The idea is that the trees, which gobble up carbon, will store up the carbon from the atmosphere and offset what the smokestacks spew.
Blake Sullivan, of the Macon-based Carbon Tree Bank, has 26,000 acres of forest in the state under contract for carbon banking.

“Georgia has an abundance of forests right here, and trees are like the lungs of the Earth,” he said. “They inhale carbon and exhale oxygen. We can be part of the solution right here in our own backyard.”

Why is this suddenly a business? Continue reading →

Georgia forests worth more standing than incinerated

Sandi Martin writes in Southeast Farm Press:
A University of Georgia researcher has found that Georgia’s forestlands provide essential ecosystem services to the state worth an estimated $37 billion annually.

This is in addition to the value of timber, forest products and recreation. This is the first time these indirect benefits of Georgia’s private forests have been estimated.

That’s substantially more than the $28 billion annually from the conventional wood-products industry.

What are these ecosystem services? Continue reading →

What’s the Industrial Authority’s Plan?

Appended is my LTE in the VDT today. I’ve added links. -jsq

What is the Industrial Authority’s plan to bring in real clean jobs?

MAGE SOLAR is hiring for the first of 350 jobs in its photovoltaic (PV) solar manufacturing plant in Dublin, Georgia, with half the population of Valdosta, in Laurens County, with half the population of Lowndes County. They’ve parlayed their position between the Atlanta airport and the Savannah seaport for many new clean jobs.

Suniva of Norcross’s second PV plant with its 500 jobs went to Michigan. Saginaw Valley calls itself Solar Valley and collaborates with governments, academia, and industry, winning thousands of clean jobs in wind and solar manufacturing and generating plants.

The Saginaw News remarked (7 Nov 2010): Continue reading →