Tag Archives: Valdosta State University

The right of students to breathe clean air –Erin Hurley of SAVE @ VCC 24 March 2011

Erin Hurley provided the very model of how to give a speech:
I’m the president of Students Against Violating the Environment at VSU. I’m here representing 200+ members of SAVE, that consists of students, faculty, community members. We are deeply concerned with environmental issues and we are networking together to make this city a more humane and sustainable community for future generations.

As a student, I feel I have the right to be able to breathe clean air at the college I attend. With this biomass plant possibly being built here, the future for generations to come are in jeopardy, and we want to protect our fellow and future students’ health.

Please take into consideration the future health of this university and its community, and don’t sell grey water to the proposed biomass plant.

Here’s the video:


Erin Hurley, President of SAVE, Students Against Violating the Environment, speaking at
Regular meeting of the Valdosta City Council, 24 March 2011,
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia.

Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

She said who she was, who she represented, how many, what they were for, what they wanted, quickly enough that attention didn’t waver, slowly and loudly enough to be heard, and briefly enough to transcribe, with pathos, logic, and politic. Even the mayor looked up at “As a student….”

-jsq

It’s an opportunity –John S. Quarterman

“Like a burned-over longleaf pine, we can come back from this recession greener than ever, if we choose wisely.”

Here is my response to James R. Wright’s questions about jobs and priorities. -jsq

It’s an opportunity for those of us who are not currently searching for our next meal to help those who need jobs, and thereby to help ourselves, so they don’t turn to crime. Like a burned-over longleaf pine, we can come back from this recession greener than ever, if we choose wisely.

Switchgrass seemed like a good idea five or ten years ago, but there is still no market for it.

Meanwhile, local and organic agriculture is booming, and continued to boom right through the recession.

Not just strictly organic by Georgia’s ridiculously restrictive standards for that, but also less pesticides for healthier foods, pioneered as nearby as Tifton. That’s two markets: one for farmers, stores, and farmers’ markets in growing and distributing healthy food, and one for local banks in financing farmers converting from their overlarge pesticide spraying machinery to plows and cultivators.

Similarly, biomass may have seemed like a good idea years ago, but with Adage backing out of both of its Florida biomass plants just across the state line, having never built any such plant ever, the biomass boom never happened.

Meanwhile, our own Wesley Langdale has demonstrated to the state that

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“So, why should you care?” –Erin Hurley

The VDT isn’t the only newspaper in town. This LTE appeared in the VSU newspaper, the Spectator, yesterday, 3 March 2011. And the Spectator even puts LTEs online. -jsq
SAVE says Biomass spells bad news for Valdosta and VSU

By: Erin Hurley

How many of y’all have heard of the Biomass Plant that has been proposed for Valdosta? Many of ya’ll probably don’t know what Biomass is; I know I didn’t until about two years ago when this project first started. The Biomass plant is an incinerator that will burn sewage, sludge and tree “debris” in order to create energy. What’s the big deal, right?

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“the citizenry has a right to scrutinise the state.” –Julian Assange

Some people compare LAKE to Wikileaks, so let’s go there. Julian Assange, like Wendell Berry, links the civil rights movement and the environmental movement. He then says:
“For the Internet generation this is our challenge and this is our time. We support a cause that is no more radical a proposition than that the citizenry has a right to scrutinise the state. The state has asserted its authority by surveilling, monitoring and regimenting all of us, all the while hiding behind cloaks of security and opaqueness. Surely it was only a matter of time before citizens pushed back and we asserted our rights.”

LAKE’s motto is:

Citizen dialog for transparent process
That makes Assange’s proposition
“the citizenry has a right to scrutinise the state”
sound very familiar to us.

Locally it’s more a matter of elected and appointed bodies ignoring their chartered responsibilities to the public good and the general welfare. Well, many people are also tired of the permit inspection brigade, but that’s another story.

Assange also adds: Continue reading →

Reporting on Valdosta without water

The talk of the town (and apparently all of south Georgia today) is the Lowndes County seat lost water. Both the Valdosta’s city government web pages (VLD) and the newspaper (VDT) have been reporting online, but it’s hard to tell exactly when, since both have only datestamps, not timestamps. What does “in the next hour” mean when you don’t know in what hour the notice was posted? Time notations appropriate for paper media issued once a day aren’t quite adequate for online posts multiple times a day.

WCTV does include timestamps, and Dontaye Carter did some reporting for her story posted 6:48 PM: Continue reading →

“we got off on the wrong foot.” –Russell Anderson

See also his letter to LAKE. -jsq
From: Russ Anderson
Date: Wed, Jan 19, 2011 at 10:11 AM
Subject: Mr. Paulk. My apologies and clarifications
To: apaulk@lowndescounty.com

Dear Commissioner Paulk,

It seems that we got off on the wrong foot. I have recently been notified that some of the content within the email I sent to you and other commissioners January 3rd 2011 regarding the biomass Plant were taken as a personal attack towards you and perceived as having “veiled threats”. I’m sorry about that and I apologize for the perceived hostility.

I was also told that in a private conversation, after the {1/11/11} commission meeting, you referred to me by name as a threat similar to the “Virginia Tech Shooter.” That is a very personal (and misinformed) attack and I would appreciate/request a retraction of that statement. Like everyone, I was absolutely appalled when that tragedy occurred as I am anytime I see senseless violence committed against anyone.

My motives are to simply attempt to help support the health of Lowndes County residents and our environment. To compare me to the person that committed this atrocious crime is slanderous and a defamation of my character. Such words and perceptions

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LAKE visits Blazer Gardens at VSU

Students growing local food on the roof at VSU? A local chef cooking it for fresh student meals? LAKE had to see this, so Bobbi Anne Hancock showed us where Blazer Gardens will be, on top of the Hugh C. Bailey Science Center.

Greenhouse A will have squash, peppers, and tomatoes, and already has some citrus growing in it; jsq gets a taste:

It all starts with composting. Bobbi and Erin Hurley of SAVE help raise awareness about clean local foods.

Bobbi and Jim Parker discuss how it’s good for you and tastes good, too! Continue reading →

Seth Gunning LTE in the VDT

This is the text of Seth Gunning’s letter to the editor that the Valdosta Daily Times printed on 20 Dec 2010. Here’s video of the referenced air quality permit hearing. -jsq
Recently on Thursday December 16th, State Judge Ronit Walker denied air quality permits for a proposed coal plant in Sandersville, Georgia. Judge Walker cited the Georgia Environmental Protection Divisions failure to properly review permits, and their lack of enforcement of basic Clean Air Act standards for several hazardous emissions.

Flashback to April 27th in Valdosta Georgia when Environmental Protection Division Air Branch Manager Eric Cornwell openly admitted to having NOT READ the air permit application for Wiregrass Biomass LLC’s proposal to build a hotly contested 40mw power plant&emdash; during a Valdosta EPD hearing meant to evaluate those permits.

Today, the Valdosta Industrial Authority is hazardously entrenched

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Brad Lofton’s Selective Memory

I see by yesterday’s VDT story about the Lowndes County Board of Education (LCBOE) meeting that Brad Lofton, executive directory of the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA), is reported as saying:
The people … that are opposing the plant … have yet to agree to sit down and talk with the authority directly about the plant.
He said somehing similar at the 29 Sep 2010 meeting of the Valdosta Board of Education (VBOE). Except then he at least admitted that I had gotten the VLCIA presentation. Yet even then he forgot about the other people in this picture of that 10 June 2010 meeting at the VLCIA offices:


Pictured: Natasha Fast, Angela Manning, Allan Ricketts (Project Manager), Geraldine Fairell, Ken Klanicki, Brad Lofton (Executive Director)

Even earlier, Dr. Brad Bergstrom and Seth Gunning got a presentation from the VLCIA.

I pointed all this out a month ago, after the VBOE incident.

Why does Brad Lofton, a public employee, keep standing up before elected bodies and saying something that is not true?

-jsq

Video of Dr. Sammons’ talk at VSU

Here is a video of most of Dr. William Sammons’ presentation at the SAVE Biomass Forum at VSU. His slides from that talk are available on the LAKE web pages, so you can follow along.

Instead of dirty biomass we could have clean efficiency and conservation (retrofitting produces twice as many jobs as biomass) and solar power, which is booming nationwide, burns no trees, and emits no pollutants.

You can also contact your local elected or appointed officials.

-jsq