Tag Archives: VLCIA

Col. Ricketts on Wiregrass Power, LLC

I received the appended message from Col. Ricketts, Project Manager for the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA). My response will follow. -jsq
From: “Allan Ricketts” <aricketts@industrialauthority.com>
To: “‘John S. Quarterman'”
Cc: “‘Michael Noll'”, “‘Susan Wehling'”, “‘Brad Lofton'” <blofton@industrialauthority.com>
Subject: Wiregrass Power, LLC
Date: Wed, 22 Dec 2010 12:48:28 -0500

Norman Bennett, Gary Minchew,
Mary Gooding, Jerry Jennett (Chair),
J. Stephen Gupton (Attorney),
Brad Lofton (Executive Director)
Hello John,

It was good to see you at the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority Board Meeting on Tuesday evening. I encourage you to attend more often.

I’ve attached copies of several recent press releases that we discussed during the meeting. I look forward to seeing these posted on your information exchange for folks to read.

Please let me know if you would like a copy of Dr. Christopher Teaf’s .ppt

Continue reading →

CCA private prisons and AZ immigration law

Kara Ramos reported in the VDT on 18 Aug 2010 that Private prison company picks Valdosta as potential site:

The Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA) and Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) announced an economic development partnership for future construction of a private prison.

Who is CCA? NPR’s Laura Sullivan reported on 28 Oct 2010 about Prison Economics Help Drive Ariz. Immigration Law:

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 →

VLCIA biomass event Q&A

Here are videos that illustrate the VDT’s point today in What We Think:
While officials continue to downplay local citizen anger about current projects, citizens are organizing in a variety of ways to affect change the next election cycle. When Sterling Chemical came to Lowndes County in the 1990s, citizens were told the project was a “done deal,” and so it was. Sterling is still here, but those in office at the time aren’t, and the director of the Industrial Authority at the time is no longer here either.

As has been shown worldwide, citizens are tired of being told what’s best for them, having no say so in how their tax dollars are spent, and having their concerns ignored.

Until officials understand that it is coming from all directions and not just led by a few malcontents, the swell will continue to grow. And those who continue to ignore the anger and frustration do so at their own peril.

Maybe the VDT is referring to this kind of response from the VLCIA panel on 6 Dec 2010:
“these things do prop up the local economy, period, end of discussion.”
A previous questioner who had a job in Vietnam notes he was lied to about Agent Orange and asks “can you assure me that I won’t be affected by this?” Continue reading →

Where’s the wood to come from and who will buy the electricity?

Here’s video of what I asked at the recent VLCIA biomass event (6 Dec 2010) and the answers from the panel.

So there’s actually not any new study of wood sourcing (Brad Lofton told me after the meeting that the study had been “completed” after we met in June), and the study that exists is not publicly available. Someone from Sterling promised me after the meeting to redact the private parts of the wood sourcing study and provide the rest for public distribution. We’ll see.

Regarding my question about who will buy the electricity and whether we’ll end up like Plant Scherer, selling electricity to Florida while keeping the pollution here, the answer was: Continue reading →

VLCIA Biomass “Forum” Tonight: Do they have a plan?

According to the VDT’s What We Think of yesterday:
All citizens of Lowndes County and any other interested parties are encouraged to attend the Biomass Forum Monday night, hosted by the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority, at 7:30 at the Conference Center.
Forum? As in people will get time to get real questions answered? And the VLCIA might be interested in real input?
The authority has invited a half-dozen individuals to speak, which will last approximately 60 to 90 minutes, followed by “ample” time for questions to be answered, at least 30 minutes, according to the Authority.
Hm, 3 to 1 they speak we listen. Interesting definition of “forum”. Also, despite VLCIA’s many complaints that people didn’t get involved early enough in their previous public meetings about this plant, if this event is listed on VLCIA’s own website, I can’t find it. It’s not on the VLCIA’s facebook page, either.

Although on November 10th there are two VLCIA facebook posts saying:

The Industrial Authority stands behind its decision for the construction of Wiregrass Power LLC and feels like this green project will be a win/win for the community.
So much for looking for input.

Anyway, back to the VDT:

The Times has presented several stories with facts concerning the $140 million project, which will generate 20 to 25 local jobs once the plant is up and running.
20 to 25 local jobs.

Meanwhile, in other places that have a plan:

What’s our plan, VLCIA? How about we plant trees instead of burn them?

And I agree with the VDT on this:

And to the Industrial Authority and invited speakers, you are urged to not insult the intelligence of those attending. They understand what the plant will do. What they want to know is how this will affect them in terms of health issues, air quality and safety, burning sewage, the number of trucks on the highway so close to several schools, etc.

The onus is on you, the Authority, to handle this in a much more professional manner than the last Sterling project.

More to the point, why is the VLCIA wasting its political capital (and our tax dollars) on this one polluting plant when it could be working to bring in real clean energy?

Does the VLCIA have a plan to raise the local metro area out of the bottom 10 for wages? Or is this 20-25-job polluting plant the best the VLCIA can do?

If you can’t come to tonight’s “forum”, or even if you can, here is contact information for your elected and appointed officials, including the VLCIA board.

-jsq

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

Due Diligence on Biomass Combustion, by Dr. William Sammons

Monday a week ago Dr. William Sammons, a pediatrician who has studied biomass plants nationwide, called them “a medical atrocity.” His slides from that talk are now available on the LAKE web pages.

For example, he demonstrated that burning wood is dirtier than burning coal:

This slide shows data taken from biomass plant permits. Also notice Continue reading →

VDT Elevates Biomass and Renewable Energy as Political Issues

The Valdosta Daily Times (VDT) has apparently decided biomass and real clean energy instead are political issues. As part of the VDT’s sudden turn against the VLCIA and its biomass plant, which was provoked by citizen and student activism, the VDT started a week of articles with the headline “Proposed plant said to be ‘medical atrocity'”, about Dr. William Sammons’ Monday talk about health problems of biomass and how solar is better.

The VDT then featured biomass in its reporting on the AAUW Candidate Forum: Continue reading →