AJC on the
EPA hearings this week:
they didn’t print my proposed second step for natural gas,
but they did quote Sierra Club on efficiency.
Kristina Torres wrote for the AJC today, EPA brings ‘clean power’ plan to Atlanta. Will it hurt Georgia? Continue reading
High noon rally Tuesday and 9AM to 8PM hearings Monday and Tuesday 29-30 July 2014
at the
Sam Nunn Atlanta Federal Center, Main Tower Bridge Conference Area, Conference Room B, 61 Forsyth Street, SW, Atlanta, GA.
Plus you can comment online, maybe about
mercury from coal Plant Scherer
in the Alapaha River and how shifting to “natural” gas just promotes
more fracked methane pipelines like that
Sabal Trail boondoggle.
EPA could take a second step on methane, and we can get on with
faster, cheaper, cleaner, and far more environmentally beneficial
solar power in the sunny southeast.
For details see the
Sierra Club
or
WWALS
or
SpectraBusters postings.
-jsq
Six years in the making!
Finally VLCIA meets in its new office near the hospital.
Georgia Power VP Terri Lupo
was just appointed to VLCIA by the Lowndes County Commission
(without ever showing up and speaking).
On this VLCIA agenda is the annually expected officer nominating committee report.
Plus “Proposed VLCIA Name Change”.
How about SolarTown?
Hm, this move uptown leaves their old building to Sabal Trail and its proposed fracked methane pipeline. Has VLCIA ever developed an opinion on that boondoggle?
Here’s the agenda. Continue reading
According to Sabal Trail’s own numbers, twice as much land for
the entire three-pipeline Spectra -> Sabal -> FSC proposed gouge
through three states
as would be required to produce as much solar power.
STT’s solar acreage estimates from their Draft Resource Report 10: Alternatives (RR10) of November 2013, Continue reading
A major big city daily?
A local newspaper of record along the proposed pipeline path?
Nope: the Valdosta State University student newspaper, The Spectator,
has done what its bigger newspaper colleagues have not dared:
oppose the Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline and demand renewable
energy instead.
Where students lead, maybe their elders will follow.
Editorial in The Spectator 1 May 2014 (I added the links and images), Pipeline a risk to Valdosta, Continue reading
Yet another sinkhole in Florida. And guess what goes within 20 miles of that Florida retirement community? The proposed Sabal Trail Transmission methane pipeline. Does poking holes in the already-fragile karst limestone that holds up houses and contains our drinking water, anywhere in Florida or south Georgia, sound like a good idea to you?
Susan Jacobson wrote for Orlando Sentinel, 19 April 2014, Sinkhole in The Villages threatens 2 homes,
This sinkhole was growing April 19, 2014 near 2 houses in The Villages. (Helicon Property Restoration)
A large sinkhole has opened under two houses in The Villages.
A picture provided by Helicon Property Restoration, which is working to stabilize the hole, shows a house teetering at the edge.
Video in report by Lisa McDonald for WKMG, Orlando, 19 April 2014, Crews fill sinkhole that threatened 2 homes in The Villages:
Continue readingColquitt, Brooks, next Lowndes?
Matthew Woody wrote for the VDT yesterday, Brooks urges deep-dug pipeline,
Brooks County commissioners unanimously passed a resolution earlier this month encouraging Sabal Trail to bury its proposed natural gas pipeline two feet deeper than the three-feet requirements.
“We do a lot of farming over here, and that was the loudest concern was making sure we try to encourage Sabal Trail to make sure they went the extra mile to make sure their investment, and our citizens were protected,” said Justin DeVane, Brooks County administrator. “The pipeline itself is only traversing three of our five districts and all five of our commissioners were receiving concerns about it. So we wanted to make sure that Continue reading
$78,892.56 for an unbid change order for Val Del Road.
The Board of Tax Assessors’
appeal to a Board of Equalizations
decision to grand PCA an unusual depreciation was approved
by the Lowndes County Commission
by a rare split decision, 2 to 1.
Greg Powell of Langdale Industries
appointed to KLVB.
And
Citizen Noll recommended the Commission pass a resolution
or ordinance about the proposed Sabal Trail pipeline.
Three voting Commissioners (Raines was absent and Page vacated his seat) unanimously approved three rezonings with nobody speaking for or against. They granted permission to the Sheriff’s office and to Emergency Management to apply for equipment grants. There was a weather report, and a report on an animal adoption event the previous weekend.
Here’s the agenda, with links to the videos and a few notes. See also the videos of the previous morning’s Work Session.
LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERSContinue reading
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, APRIL 7, 2014, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, APRIL 8, 2014, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street — 2nd Floor
Maybe Lowndes County Commissioners can ask Rep. Austin Scott (GA-08) to do what Dougherty County Commissioners have successfully asked Rep. Bishop (GA-02) to do: those two Congressional districts cover the entire Georgia part of the proposed path of that methane pipeline. And maybe they could help Greenlaw get the FERC scoping period extended and get the GIS data from Sabal Trail.
Carlton Fletcher wrote for the Albany Herald yesterday,
U.S. Congressman Sanford Bishop to take part in pipeline listening session:
Metting called to address safety, other concerns surrounding controversial natural gas pipeline,
Two Dougherty County Commissioners and one of their former colleagues who is running to rejoin them have scheduled a listening session at 10 a.m. Thursday with U.S. House District 2 Congressman Sanford Bishop to discuss the proposed Sabal Trail Transmission Gas Pipeline project and a planned accompanying Continue reading
To the VDT the county government always smells like azaleas
and the city of Valdosta government always smells like sewage.
The local newspaper of record doesn’t seem to smell sewage
or landfill problems from Lowndes County.
Today’s VDT editorial complains about
environmental groups paying attention to “theoretical disasters”
(presumably referring to the Sabal Trail pipeline),
yet the VDT has never covered the group that has
most consistently followed the watershed-wide
flooding issues that cause Valdosta’s flooding problems:
WWALS Watershed Coalition.
The VDT recommends citizens get more involved
in sniffing out Valdosta’s sewage problems, yet it doesn’t seem
to cover Citizens Wishing To Be Heard anymore, nor has the VDT called
for the citizen participation sessions promised by
the local governments for the Army Corps of Engineers flooding studies.
Maybe the VDT could encourage citizen participation, rather than ignore it.
VDT editorial today, It just plain stinks, Continue reading