Tag Archives: Pollution

GA PSC questionnaire answers: Steve Oppenheimer

Steve Oppenheimer The Georgia Sierra Club sent a questionnaire to all candidates for Georgia Public Service Commission. None of the incumbents answered. The two challengers did. Here’s the one from Steve Oppenheimer for District 3. -jsq

  1. As a Candidate for Public Service Commission, what is your campaign strategy for achieving 50% +1 of the votes cast?

    [I’m omitting the answers to this question. -jsq]

  2. How should the Public Service Commission consider and weight the impacts to community health (asthma, cancer rates, etc.) and on Georgia’s environmental (water quantity, air quality etc.) when making decisions about a utility’s generation portfolio?

    The PSC has a major role shaping energy policy for Georgia. I would like to schedule PSC hearings on the relationship of power production and our air, water, morbidity and mortality and our general quality of life. My professional background in dentistry & health care provides a keen understanding of the relationship of power generation and health. Dr David Satcher, former US Surgeon General and Executive Director Satcher Health Leadership Institute at Morehouse University has become a friend and part of my professional network during the campaign. I would like to see PSC convene hearings on the topic. Georgians for a Healthy Future, a relatively new, broad based, organization would provide another forum for discussion of these issues. Membership in Georgians for a Healthy Future includes Georgia Legislators on both sides of the aisle. The PSC must be a leader on these issues—as the legislature as a body will likely not be progressive on these issues.

Continue reading →

GA PSC questionnaire: David Staples

David Staples The Georgia Sierra Club sent a questionnaire to all candidates for Georgia Public Service Commission. None of the incumbents answered. The two challengers did. Here’s the one from David A. Staples for District 5. -jsq

  1. As a Candidate for Public Service Commission, what is your campaign strategy for achieving 50% +1 of the votes cast?

    [I’m omitting the answers to this question. -jsq]

  2. How should the Public Service Commission consider and weight the impacts to community health (asthma, cancer rates, etc.) and on Georgia’s environmental (water quantity, air quality etc.) when making decisions about a utility’s generation portfolio?

    Impacts to community health and the environment have to be considered very carefully. I know there are a number of different ways of viewing the situation but the explanation I’ve found that works best with Republicans in trying to get their support is that it comes down to a private property matter. The right to swing ones fist ends at the other person’s nose. Does anyone have the right to pollute the air that I breathe or the water that I drink?

    If I buy a piece of property for instance along the Savannah River or Ogeechee River, does someone upstream from me have the right to pollute the water that then flows onto my land, carrying those pollutants with it?

    Absolutely not.

Continue reading →

Sewage problems in Quitman

Pipes In Quitman, several people told LAKE about an extensive sewage problem on the south side of town. At one house we were told that she had been having problems for 13 years. She said the city told her to lift up her pipes, which she did. Yet sewage still makes a pit in her yard, which she has covered with tin; you can see the pit under there.

Tin Lifting up the tin

When she uses her plumbing, sewage backs up inside the house. The city sent a jail inmate Continue reading →

Waste disposal discussions with Richard Raines —Gretchen Quarterman @ LCC 2012-10-09

Gretchen Quarterman Waste disposal issues in Lowndes County are more complex than one might think, and transparent processes could help citizens understand these stewardship issues, while helping the local government do its job.

Commissioner Raines called me yesterday evening after I had left him a voice mail and an e-mail letting him know that I had some questions.

I was particularly curious about the proposals in column “F” which asked for:

Contractor(s) agrees to provide an independent proposal option to address residential solid waste, bulky item, yard waste and recyclable materials collection, transportation and disposal, collection center management and related customer service, records, billing and payment processing services for unincorporated Lowndes County residents.

Proposal “F” Pricing —

Residential solid waste, bulky item, yard waste and recyclable materials collection, transportation and disposal, collection center management and related customer service, records, billing and payment processing services.

$______________ per month/subscriber

This was an opportunity for the vendors to provide some option that the county had not asked for but used their expertise in waste disposal and offer a creative solution.

Lowndes County Solid Waste RFP Summary Sheet October 9, 2012 The prices in column “F” ranged from $8.33 to $19.95 to “Negotiate”.

Commissioner Raines briefly explained what had been submitted by each vendor and it became clear that there was not a creative winning solution proposed there. In fact, submitting a “Negotiate Rates and Program” is clearly a failure.

We then went on to discuss at length the whole solid waste disposal history, problems, options, and so on. Commissioner Raines stressed his focus Continue reading →

Solar and broadband are good for the economy and for PR

When the Industrial Authority came out for solar and broadband WCTV noticed. It seems solar and broadband are good not only in themselves, but also for good PR for the community. PR that might attract the kinds of businesses the Industrial Authority is looking for.

WCTV wrote 9 September 2012, Solar Power and Broadband Internet Could Boost Local Job Growth,

The Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority has put a spot light on solar power and broadband internet. That’s according to a new analysis of regional businesses and employment. They say it will be a way to generate job growth going forward. Many in the community agree.

Valdosta Resident Mark Yates said “if they could bring those all in, it would be great for the economy and bring a lot of jobs for a lot of people in town here.”

That’s how Saginaw, Michigan, attracted that second Suniva plant away from Georgia: it has a plan for solar industry and it gets it in the news. Way better than worrying what Albany thinks, don’t you think?

By the way, Saginaw also goes for wind manufacturing jobs, and we already have one wind manufacturing business right here; more on that later.

It sure would be good if the Industrial Authority, with its 1 mil tax rate or almost $3 million a year, could succeed in attracting some jobs here:

Continue reading →

Lowndes County Solid Waste RFP Summary Sheet @ LCC 2012-10-08

This is the summary sheet Kevin Beals presented at the Lowndes County Commission Work Session this morning.

Assuming the dollar figures in the table are monthly charges to the end user, note that the only one that comes out less than the current $100/year is the $8.33 in the lower right corner: $8.33 * 12 = $99.96. Presumably plus tax, since this would be a private service. So if the Commission chooses any of these options, we the current waste disposal customers will have to pay more.

The upper end of $19.95 (upper right corner) comes to $239.40 per year. Or 140% more than the current price. A bit more to a lot more: that’s what we’ll have to pay. Plus the socialized costs of privatizing waste disposal, such as code enforcement to pick up trash dumped on rights of way, private fences and gates built to keep trash out, and other costs.

Average is somewhere around $13/month, for $156/year. If they simply charged that for the current service, the already rapidly decreasing budget deficit for waste disposal would vanish, and there would be no need to change to something else.

If you want to see the actual proposals summarized in this table, you can file an open records request. According to the County Clerk’s web page:

Once a request is received, Lowndes County will notify the requesting party within 3 days regarding the availability of information.

So if you file it today, you’ll get a response of some sort within two days after they vote on waste management tomorrow.

Does this seem right to you?

-jsq

Waste disposal railroad by County Commission @ LCC 2012-10-08

The Lowndes County Commission plans to vote tomorrow evening to privatize waste disposal in the unincorporated areas of the county, after numerous discussions at meetings the public were unaware of, without any public hearings, and regardless of whether the people want it.

County Manager Joe Pritchard talked about “a long, long process” they’d been through, including at the Commissioners’ retreat.

You remember,

Although I don’t recall it being there last night when I picked up the agenda, the RFP is now linked into the county’s front web page (copy on the LAKE website).

At this morning’s meeting, Kevin Beals, Lowndes County Development Reviewer, addressed the Commissioners and said,

Continue reading →

What Georgia Power is afraid of: GaSU and Dr. Smith; and you

So what is Georgia Power afraid of that made their CEO Paul Bowers double down on old-style baseload? Competition, that’s what! What could be more scary in the power-monopoly state of the 1973 Territorial Electric Service Act?

GaSU sun On one side, Georgia Power faces GaSU and its 80 or 90 MW solar plant proposal. Walter C. Jones wrote for OnlineAthens 24 September 2012, Proposed solar company could stir up Georgia’s utility structure,

A proposal from a start-up business promises to lower electricity rates by rebating profits to customers if given a chance to compete as Georgia Power Co.’s “mirror image.”

GaSU fb profile image To proceed with its long-range plan of developing 2 gigawatts of solar power, the start-up, Georgia Solar Utilities Inc., wants to start by building an 80-megawatt “solar farm” near Milledgeville as soon as it gets a green light from the Georgia Public Service Commission. GaSU filed its request last week, and as of Monday, it’s still too fresh for public evaluation.

So radical is the proposal that spokespersons for Georgia Power and the Georgia Solar Energy Association said they still were evaluating it and could not comment.

Groups that normally advocate for customers also are staying quiet.

GaSU executives recognize such a big change won’t come easily.

Continue reading →

Southern Company’s three-legged nuclear regulatory-capture stool

The failed EDF nuke project at Calvert Cliffs in Maryland makes it clearer why Southern Company (SO) was the first company to get a nuclear permit in 30 years: it was the only one big enough and monopolistic enough to pull it off. Even then it’s such a bet-the-farm risk that even “great, big company” SO only dared to deploy its “great big huge scale“ equipment with the regulatory capture triple-whammy of a stealth tax on Georgia Power bills, PSC approval of cost overruns, and an $8.33 billion federal loan guarantee:

  1. a legislated stealth tax in the form of a rate hike on Georgia Power customers for power they won’t get for years if ever. If you’re a Georgia Power customer, look on your bill for Nuclear Construct Cost Recovery Rider. You’ll find it adds about 5% on top of your Current Service Subtotal. Georgia is one of only a handful of states where such a Construction Work in Progress (CWIP) charge is legal thanks to our regulatory-captured legislature. Doubling down on bad energy bets, Southern Company is also trying to use CWIP to build a coal plant in Mississippi.
  2. A captive Public Service Commission that rubber-stamps costs for Plant Vogtle. In case there was any doubt as to the PSC’s role in legitimizing those new nukes, the very next day Fitch reaffirmed Southern Company’s bond ratings.

    Southern Company’s regulated utility subsidiaries derive predictable cash flows from low-risk utility businesses, enjoy relatively favorable regulatory framework in their service territories, and exhibit limited commodity price risks due to the ability to recover fuel and purchased power through separate cost trackers.

    Translation: Georgia Power customers subsidize SO’s bonds and SO shareholders’ stock dividends. The PSC also approved cost overruns being passed on to Georgia Power customers, and those nukes are already over $400 or $900 million, depending on who you ask. What do you expect when 4 out of 5 Public Service Commissioners apparently took 70% of their campaign contributions from utilities they regulate or their employees or their law firms, and the fifth commissioner took about 20% from such sources? Hm, there’s an election going on right now!
  3. An $8.33 billion federal loan guarantee. Even that’s not good enough for SO and Georgia Power: SO is asking for less down payment.

And what if even one of that three-legged regulatory capture stool’s legs went away? Continue reading →

Streetlights and Georgia Power @ Hahira 2012-10-01

To get a decent deal on streetlights, a small Georgia city may have to help change the Georgia Public Service Commission. Or, an energy concern in Hahira happened to coincide with a visit by PSC candidate Steve Oppenheimer.

Ralph Clendenin, City Council member, is looking into converting Hahira's streetlights to LEDs or maybe solar. He has discussed that with Georgia Power, which will do it for $250,000 up front. At a savings of $1,000 a month, that would take quite a while to pay back: more than 20 years.

Steve Oppenheimer, running for Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC), found the streetlight issue interesting:

Just like you're looking at options the city might do for better choices for lighting in terms of serving the people and meeting your budget, as Georgians we need that, too.

He indicated that there are more solutions than we're being told.

To me what's improtant are homeowners rights, and we get control over the power rates, because our residential rates and small business rates have gone up about 31% in five years.

He brought up Dublin's solar streetlights, and solar for energy and jobs. He indicated energy was a future source of jobs.

What it comes down to is people like you in this room in the small communities figuring out what pieces do we put together to make our community better for tomorrow.

Afterwards in the entranceway, Ralph Clendenin showed Steve Oppenheimer how he'd figured out that Georgia Power was charging about 73% maintenance above the electricity cost of the streetlights. Oppenheimer said there were many options. Clendenin suggested one:

The option I see right now is, the Commission somehow, has got to change the rules on how Georgia Power… structures payments.

Oppenheimer suggested a way to get there:

We need a commission with some new leadership, with some separation from industry, that doesn't have the apparent conflicts of interest.

Ralph summed it up pithily:

Ralph Clendenin: 73% is that forever payment to Georgia Power.

Steve Oppenheimer: It's a great deal, if you're on the right end of it.
[laughter]

What say we change the end of the stick we the taxpayers are getting from the PSC?

Here's a playlist.

Work Session, Hahira City Council, Hahira, Lowndes County, Georgia, 1 October 2012.
Videos by John S. Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE).

-jsq