Tag Archives: Valdosta

Better chance of upward mobility from Valdosta MSA than Atlanta

A child born in the bottom fifth by income around here has a better chance of reaching the top fifth than in Atlanta. But that’s not saying much. And we can change this.

David Leonhardt wrote for NY Times 22 July 2013, In Climbing Income Ladder, Location Matters: A study finds the odds of rising to another income level are notably low in certain cities, like Atlanta and Charlotte, and much higher in New York and Boston. 4.3% Valdosta MSA vs. 4.0% Atlanta MSA. But 5.9% Brunswick, 6.0% Vidalia, and 8.8% Elijay. That’s the highest in Georgia.

Pretty much anywhere in Florida is higher than 4.3%.

Then there’s 11.2% San Francisco, Continue reading

Which first to get more solar: fight big money or new technology?

In Georgia we’re still below 1% electric power generation from solar, and we can get to 20-30% with no new technology whatever. Georgia Power’s nuke overruns are already causing a reaction of still more distributed solar. Yet even that good news gets the usual reaction: “This is necessary but not sufficient: a breakthrough in energy storage technology is required.” Which just ain’t so; distributed rooftop solar alone is plenty to move Georgia way ahead. That’s why Edison Electric Institute calls distributed solar a massively disruptive influence on the utilities’ century-old cozy baseload model. What’s holding solar back is those same big utilities, who understandably don’t want to change their long-time cash cow. But they’re going to change, and pretty quickly.

People unfamiliar with the sunny south (which is most of the world south of, oh, Germany), still say things like this: Continue reading

Pipeline opposition growing

Why should Georgia landowners have to cede property rights to benefit nobody in Georgia, and at risk of our aquifer and environment? But Dougherty County residents are still playing NIMBY instead of trying to stop it entirely.

Carlton Fletcher wrote for the Albany Herald 7 September 2013, Local opposition to natural gas pipeline growing,

Dougherty County landowners who’ve been contacted by representatives of a group planning the 465-mile Sabal Trail natural gas pipeline projected to run underneath their property say they’re not convinced by assurances that the $3 billion project is safe.

And they’re preparing to challenge the pipeline even as project surveyors seek access to their land.

“This is not just a threat to my land, to our region’s water, Continue reading

Nuke overruns already causing distributed solar in south Georgia

People are tired of irresponsible trash government at the state level colluding with monopoly utilities to hold Georgia back in distributed solar power, and some of us are doing something about it; you can, too.

Jigar Shah wrote for SaportReport 15 September 2013 Solar more viable as Georgia’s new nuclear power plants face overruns,

I am seeing Georgia’s nuclear financial woes starting to prompt a boon for distributed energy including solar, wind, biomass, geothermal, low-impact hydro, high efficiency cogeneration, and other sources of electricity.

Biomass? Let’s not go back to that carbon-polluting forest-destroying factory-exploding waste of time and resources. Solar, wind, efficiency, and conservation are the main events, with solar increasingly leading the pack. And those nuke cost overruns are already driving solar up even faster: Continue reading

Japan or south Georgia?

How is our local landfill like Fukushima? No, not radiation: nobody seems to be responsible.

Colin P. A. Jones wrote for The Japan Times 16 September 2013, Fukushima and the right to responsible government,

Rather, the means of holding a member responsible for bad judgments are internalized as part of the rules and discipline governing the hierarchy to which they belong, with mechanisms for outsiders to assert responsibility — to assert rights — being minimized and neutralized whenever possible.

Sure, it’s not exactly the same. Our local governments live in fear they’ll get sued (or so they claim), and even sheriffs and judges occasionally get convicted around here. But it’s quite difficult to get local elected officials to take their responsibility to the people as seriously as “we’ve invested too much in that to stop now” where “we” means the local government or more frequently a developer.

And privatizing the landfills and now trash collection is not that dissimilar to the Japanese government keeping TEPCO afloat so they have an unaccountable scapegoat for Fukushima. Locally, nobody seems to even know, much less care, that the landfill is Continue reading

CCA in contempt of court for understaffing Gladiator School in Idaho

CCA wouldn’t even turn in a correct count of its guards at its most notorious prison.

Rebecca Boone wrote for AP today, Judge: CCA in contempt for prison understaffing,

“For CCA staff to lie on so basic a point — whether an officer is actually at a post — leaves the Court with serious concerns about compliance in other respects, such as whether every violent incident is reported.”

More here from George Prentice in Boise Weekly, including the actual court decision and order.

Remember, this is the company our Industrial Authority wanted to build a prison in Lowndes County. Let’s insist on real due diligence.

-jsq

Cancelled: Valdosta City Council this week @ VCC 2013-09-19

According to In the City this Week, Sept. 16-21

The Valdosta City Council meeting = scheduled for Thursday, Sept. 19 has been canceled. The next City Council meeting is scheduled for Oct. 10. The Mayor and Council look forward to seeing you there. Click here for information about Mayor and Council meetings.

I guess you’ll have to get your entertainment elsewhere downtown this week. From that same newsletter: Continue reading

Waste from Superfund site in Waycross went to Lowndes County landfill

What was in that waste water that went into landfill in an aquifer recharge zone, with surface runoff into the Withlacoochee River? The 44 shipments from the toxic waste site in Waycross to the Pecan Row landfill in Lowndes County were “Non RCRA Regulated Liquids”, but “PCBs are not defined as hazardous wastes” and according to the U.S. Department of Energy, “To be a hazardous waste, a material must first be a solid waste.” So “Non RCRA Regulated Liquids” apparently says nothing about hazard or toxicity.

Cover 44 shipments went from the “7 Out Site” to “Pecan Row, Valdosta, GA” for $59,495.00 total of your federal tax dollars paid to Veolia, according to pages 12 and 13 of Final Report, Task Order # F-0032, Seven Out LLC Tank Site, Waycross, Georgia, Contract No. 68S4-02-06 for Emergency and Rapid Response Services, EPA Region 4, Prepared By WRS Infrastructure & Environment, Inc., 5555 Oakbrook Pkwy, Suite 175, Norcross, Georgia 30093, May 2, 2006.

Is this where those PCBs in the landfill came from? EPA itself says, Are polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) regulated under RCRA as a hazardous waste?

PCBs are not defined as hazardous wastes (Memo, Weddle to Verde; May 18, 1984 (RCRA Online #12235)). However, it is possible that PCBs may be incidental contaminants in listed hazardous waste (e.g., solvent used to remove PCBs from transformers) or may be present in wastes that are characteristically hazardous. In these cases, wastes that otherwise meet a listing criteria or are characteristically hazardous are still subject to RCRA regulation regardless of PCB content.

Pecan Row, Valdosta, GA page 1 However, to avoid duplicative regulation with Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), certain PCB containing wastes that exhibit the toxicity characteristic are exempt from regulation under RCRA (Monthly Call Center Report Question; September 1996 (RCRA Online #14014)). Section 261.8 exempts from RCRA Subtitle C regulation PCB-containing dielectric fluid and the electric equipment which holds such fluid if they satisfy two criteria. First, these PCB wastes must be regulated under the TSCA standards of Part 761. Second, only the PCB wastes which exhibit the toxicity characteristic for an organic constituent (waste codes D018-43) may qualify for the exemption (§261.8).

Apparently any liquid wastes from a Superfund site would be “Non RCRA Regulated Liquids”, according to U.S. DoE EH-231-034/0593 (May 1993), Exclusions and Exemptions from RCRA Hazardous Waste Regulation,

Pecan Row, Valdosta, GA page 2
  • any solid or dissolved material introduced by a source into a federally owned treatment work (FOTW) if certain conditions, described in Sect. 108 of the FFCA of 1992, are met;
  • industrial wastewater discharges that are point source discharges regulated under section 402 of the Clean Water Act [§261.4(a)(2)]

If a Superfund site is not a federally owned treatment work, what is? And if the Seven Out site was not an industrial wastewater point source, what is?

Sample waste manifest, Onyx Pecan Row, Valdosta, GA The Onyx Waste Manifests on pages 75-120 say the materials were “Non-Hazardous Non-Regulated Waste water”. (Onyx became Veolia Environmental Services in 2005, according to Veolia.) As we’ve seen, “Non-Regulated” apparently means little. We don’t know what was in that waste water that went into a landfill in a recharge zone for the Floridan Aquifer, the source of our drinking water, and with surface runoff into the Withlacoochee River.

-jsq

Videos: SPLOST VII Resolution, child proclamation, and appointment @ LCC 2013-09-10

They voted to put the SPLOST VII Resolution on the ballot in November, “to reimpose the tax”, with not even a hint of those town halls that never happened. They reappointed Mac McCall to ZBOA. The Proclamation was for a boy who called 911 to help an old neighbor who was trapped under a refrigerator (nope, not for South Georgia Pride). And we learned that nobody has to fear arrest or threat and everybody can speak their mind in the Commission chambers; nevermind recent history to the contrary.

Here’s the agenda, with links to the videos and a few notes. See also videos of the previous morning’s Work Session.

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 2013, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2013, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor
Continue reading

Gaines Lane into county road system? Little chance for ordinary citizens @ LCC 2013-09-10

Citizen Anita L. Armstrong wants help with Gaines Lane, but it’s a private road, and it would have to be paved to state highway standards to get accepted into the county’s road system. She spoke at the Lowndes County Commission Regular Session 10 September 2013.

I come before you again asking to see if we can get some help with our road. It is so bad and we don’t have the money. If we could get just a little help, maybe we could get it kind of straightened out so we could get in and out. The last bad weather that we had, we had to be pulled out of the road for at least five times. And each time that we pulled out, we have to pay someone to do it…. And we are asking your help.

Her problem is that Gaines Lane is a private road, not county maintained. To get it into the county road system, right of way would have to be donated to the county, because some years ago the county made a policy (try to find it in writing) that it would no longer pay for rights of way. Some of the landowners on Gaines Road have not agreed to donate. And even if they do, the county also has a policy (try to find that one in writing, while you’re at it) that it only accepts roads that are up to county standards, which means already paved to state highway standards. So basically unless you’re a developer, you’re not going to get a road into the county road system.

Ms. Armstrong spoke in the previous session, 13 August 2013, about garbage trucks damaging her road.

A Bess Armstrong 11 May 2010 according to the minutes:

Bess Armstrong, Gaines Lane, thanked the Commission for their help in assisting with road improvements made on Gaines Lane. Mr. Armstrong added that he needed some guidance on how to maintain the road in the future. Chairman Paulk stated that the credit should be given to Reames Construction, since the county was unable to work on the private road.

There was extensive discussion in the 23 February 2010 meeting, according to the minutes: Continue reading