During the dark years of the Bush/Cheney Presidency, I began to think that one outcome would be a fundamental social and economic revolution in our country. I think, and hope, the whispers are getting louder.
Category: rural
First peak at fall
The Friday Photo
September 27, 2013
This gorgeous Apalachicola River Cyprus was photographed by the Apalachicola Riverkeeper and shared by the Flint Riverkeeper, Gordon Rogers.
Is this the beginning of the Blame Game?
Today’s EPA ruling isn’t the reason Plant Washington won’t ever be built. It will, however, serve to drive home the fact that this project has always been an exercise in bad business decisions in addition to the environmental and health impacts it would have on our area.
Supporters will say the EPA’s carbon control rules killed the plant. That will hardly be the case. The plant has never had a demonstrated need, and at every turn plant supporters have seen their weak arguments only grow weaker.
I’ve made plenty of mistakes in my 52 years, and I’ll make plenty more in the future. Opposing Plant Washington isn’t one of them.
So many lessons to be learned
A recent article in The Chicago Tribune is one cautionary tale after another for supporters (and any Power Purchase Agreement signers) of Plant Washington.
The Tribune and other news outlets have reported on the cost overruns, rates, and decades-long contracts that the cities and municipal power providers contracted with Prairie State Energy Campus now find themselves drowning in. The Tribune’s article provides several current examples that communities and power purchasing agents of any size would be wise to consider.
Prairie State Energy Campus was announced with a $2B price tag. By the time construction began late in 2007, the Prairie State price was already $2.9B to construct. Plant Washington was announced in January 2008 with a $2.1B construction cost. In 2011 conservative independent estimates put Plant Washington construction costs at $3.9B.
Peabody Energy, the company behind Prairie State, shifted their financial risk to the contract holders. Peabody only has a five (5) percent stake in the plant because, according to the Tribune, Peabody “shifted most of the costs-and nearly all of the financial risks-to towns as small as 1,200 people.” Municipal leaders signed 28 year contracts for power purchases.
Most of the discussions and decisions about Prairie State were made behind closed doors the developer insisted upon. The Tribune reports, “Homeowners and other ratepayers have largely been kept in the dark about the higher costs. Municipal contracts with the coal plant’s operator require ‘any information of a technical, commercial or business nature’ be kept confidential from all but a few officials. Meeting minutes show that discussions about the plant mostly take place in closed-door executive sessions.” (emphasis added)
Washington EMC (WEMC) does not have open contract review for the co-op member/owners or any policies prohibiting no-bid contracts for any length of time. The WEMC Board of Directors refuse to hold open meetings, even where the members could just listen to the discussions, despite repeated requests from the member/owners. The owner/members don’t know about contracts until their co-op Board has already signed them.
The small town leaders making decisions in the Prairie State area are much like those in Washington County: hard-working plant employees, farmers, business owners, bankers, and retirees. Betsy Zinser, a former commercial banker who raised questions about paying for Prairie State said, “These people are car mechanics and insurance salesmen, not energy experts.” She added, “They were bamboozled by Peabody and the municipal power agencies.” (emphasis added)
We’ve heard a lot of promises locally about how low our power bills could be if we support Plant Washington. My WEMC Board Representative, Billy Helton, told me over two years ago it would be “great” if we could get rates of less than 10 cents an hour with Plant Washington . That would be great. The problem is there isn’t one pro forma review or independent analysis of Plant Washington in existence that makes the case for such low numbers. Hanging your hopes on a low number that sounds good isn’t sound business. Instead it is “cross your fingers” decision making.
Prairie State supporters sure did that, including leaders in St Charles. They’ve seen their power costs go up 51 percent as a result of contracts with Prairie State.
Prairie State Energy ratepayers know all too well how their story is unfolding: local leaders making decisions beyond their scope of knowledge, local dollars tied up for decades in an outdated investment, and power bills that have soared beyond even the most outlandish expectations. The only person not wringing their hands over Prairie State is the developer. Peabody made sure their monthly power bills and money weren’t tied to their new project.
Following in the path of Prairie State Energy is just like reading the same book over and over again hoping for a different ending each time. We already know how the story will end.
Hot doughnuts now
The Friday Photo
A weekly photo celebrating art, spontaneity, and community
August 30, 2013
No static at all (to quote Steely Dan)
The Friday Photo
A weekly photo celebrating art, spontaneity, and community
August 2, 2013
We live in an old country farm house. There aren’t any columns in Classical style, or a sweeping view from a gated driveway. We bought the house 26 years ago, rewired and replumbed it, and moved in while we continued to renovate. The old lightning rods are still up on the tin roof, as well as a flattened Prince Albert can that covers a hole in a wood ceiling we uncovered.
We’ve never succeeded in having a radio in the kitchen. 26 years. Sometimes we listened to A Prairie Home Companion or All Things Considered blaring from a stereo in the den (that equipment gave up not long after our daughters could reach the buttons and dials).
In a last-ditch effort I tried the radio in today’s photo. It isn’t new and it has no iPod auxiliary jac. It works without static in just one of the kitchen outlets. I could only get public radio and a station in Louisville (Georgia) that carries the Braves.
Those two stations were as clear as a bell as long as the power cord is in a jumble.
We’ve waited years for something as simple as a radio in the kitchen. We’ll have to overlook the fact we are giving up precious counter space because the kitchen is small. Fortunately we could make enough room for the entire Braves lineup against the Rockies and the production staff at NPR.
Don’t underestimate a dirt road
The Friday Photo
A weekly photo celebrating art, spontaneity, and community
My friends John and Paula Swint, and neighbors, by country folks definition, have more organic green beans than they can eat or want to can for the winter. I arrived to get the fresh picked beans they offered and got to hear a teen brother and sister duo perform a song they were rehearsing with John for church this Sunday.
The dirt road in today’s photo may be just another dirt road to most people. For me, and many others in rural communities, dirt roads take us to fresh food that is gladly shared and a peek at young talent encouraged by parents and neighbors.
When a tax credit becomes a poll tax
The North Carolina Legislature’s slash and burn budget includes eliminating a $2,500 tax credit for families with college students by tying it to voter registration. SB 667 will require college students to vote at home if their parents claim them as a dependent and receive a $2,500 state tax credit. Students who register to vote where they attend college will also be required to move their vehicle registration 60 days prior to voting.
Connecting college tuition tax credits to where a college student votes and pays taxes on their vehicle sure does seem like a poll tax to me. Why would the Republican controlled North Carolina Legislature want to do this? Could it be because counties with heavy student populations where students traditionally vote Democratic (think Appalachian and Chapel Hill) could see students turn out in heavy numbers and threaten Republican control of state and Congressional seats? Is this a back door effort for legislators to add tax dollars to some counties via car taxes while taking it from others? Nope. It is a poorly veiled effort to control what would be legal student voting via a family’s checkbook.
Fortunately thousands have packed Halifax Mall outside the state legislature on Mondays to shine a bright light on the efforts to roll the clock back decades, if not centuries. Doctors in their white coats, faith leaders in vestments, teachers, retirees, attorneys, and hundreds of other tax paying, voting citizens have come forward to be arrested.
Wake County law enforcement officials went to work today knowing today is Moral Monday 12. Come rain or shine, the citizens will be there to peacefully demonstrate for a state that values equality, fair pay for teachers, Voting Rights, clean water and air, and a woman’s right to make her own health decisions.
Checking in at mid-year
This year I decided to be physically present in my beliefs by showing up. I started 2013 with wise and funny women at the North Carolina coast. Being Present has led me to stand silently while same-sex couples requested, and were denied, marriage licenses in Decatur. Being Present has taken me to a TEDx conference, the nation’s largest Climate Change action in DC, and a ribbon-cutting for the Dublin High School solar energy installation.
Next week I’ll Be Present with Guilford College alums at an unofficial Guilford College Reunion organized by alum Tom Dawson. We’ll come together in Raleigh, North Carolina at Moral Monday outside the state Capitol. Tom’s call to gather includes:
Why: This is not an official college reunion. Our truest reunion will always be in the field helping others.
We’ve seen so many Guilford friends representing their communities and the highest principles of their education and selves. Let’s meet up for a common purpose and represent together. This is a good way to connect across communities and bring out people who haven’t come to a Moral Monday yet, but are concerned about North Carolina.
When: 5:00, July 22 rain or shine
Where: Come to the word “Awed.” You can find it under the you are “a child suitable to be awed” inscription on the Public Instruction Department building on the left side of the commons facing the general assembly. Closest streets are the North Wilmington and East Lane Streets.
Who: Guilford alumni, students, faculty, kids, partners, friends, it’s complicateds, Quakers, strangers you meet on the street who have that certain “glow” about them. It’s a big field. Let’s fill it.
What: Wear Guilford colors if you like. If the spirit moves us, lets form a “Silent Bloc.”
My sister, Guilford College ’88, and her sons will go with me to Raleigh. She’s already working on a sign to carry. I’ll probably make mine with my nephews after I arrive.
It is important to me that I stand with my family for them, for my friends in North Carolina, for my high school and college alma maters, and for the millions who call the Old North State their home. I’ll be in the best of company.
Last year, this year
The Friday Photo
A weekly photo inspired by art, community and spontaneity
July 5, 2013
The photo on the left is all that remained of the Ogeechee River last fall.
The photo on the right is the same view taken late yesterday.
Coming full circle
President Obama’s announcement about carbon pollution controls Tuesday at Georgetown University closed the circle in some ways on the future of Plant Washington. It won’t matter whether Plant Washington belches carbon into the air as a new source or an existing source, it will have to reduce and control the amount of Greenhouse Gases (GHG, or most commonly called carbon) it emits.
And that won’t be cheap.
Plant Washington has never modeled for carbon control, so the already doubled price tag 
just to construct it won’t be going down.
We have a surplus supply of cheap electricity on the market. Power generated from Plant Washington won’t be any “better” than what we can get today. All we’ve heard about buying power from this plant is a lot of talk about getting a “preferred position” for future power contracts.
I am willing to bet that anyone who might consider financing this carbon fueled project will not just prefer a sound business plan with realistic returns on their investment, they will require it.
When that happens, Plant Washington will be nothing more than a failed hot air project in an economy and country already moving away coal.
Put out to dry
The Friday Photo
A weekly photo inspired by art, community and spontaneity
June 14, 2013
We paddled with our grandson (who turns five today!) last weekend.
Hooks that held up a porch swing long-ago make a perfect drying rack.
Work outside your job description
My husband works in a lab developing products for companies who use a white clay called kaolin to coat paper. That’s the best I can describe it. He’s been there 26 years and I still don’t understand what he does.
Our end of the day discussions are like those between many couples, “How was your day? Anything interesting happen?” Yesterday when I got home and called out while I put my stuff down, David’s response from the den was unusual.
“I got bitten by a snake.”
In addition to all the controls required for product development, safety is an important part of daily operations in the labs. I am betting there are no protocols for reptile removal.
Yesterday a lab staffer who Does. Not. Like. Snakes. saw the resident black snake sunning itself at the lab’s back door. David was summoned. He grew up identifying snakes and picking up the harmless ones so he has the skill set to catch a black snake.
He had to reach around a shrub and he didn’t get his hand quite as close to the snake’s head as he would have preferred. The snake made its unhappiness clear by reaching around and biting him just past his index finger. The bites will probably require a tetanus shot but they look no worse than scratches he has gotten in the garden.
David’s lab mate who Does. Not. Like. Snakes. can rest assured that the next time a snake is enjoying the sun at the lab’s back door (and there will be others, the lab has woods on two side of the building), it won’t be the one that was captured yesterday. That snake took a 15 mile ride out to the country inside a bucket with a tight-fitting lid with holes punched in it for fresh air. Lab Snake was released in our yard. Hopefully it will live out its life reducing our mouse population.
I can’t wait to get home tonight and ask how David’s day was.
Both oars in the water
The Friday Photo
A weekly photo inspired by art, community and spontaneity
May 31, 2013
Late last summer my friend Jenny Craigie Riffe gave me a kayak she no longer uses and my adventures as a beginner paddler began. I missed the Georgia River Network (GRN) 12 in 2012 Challenge to paddle 12 rivers in Georgia, but this year I have decided to do last year’s challenge (this is not the first time I have been late to the starting line).
Last weekend we got out on the Ogeechee and Oconee Rivers, in addition to the lake at Hamburg State Park. We saw carp bedding down in a shallow cove, along with longnose gar, on the Oconee where Putnam and Hancock Counties meet on Hwy 16. We also learned that anyone and everyone can get out on a noisy, gasoline smelling jet ski by late in the morning on a Saturday holiday weekend.
The Savannah and Ocmulgee are at the top of our list now, plus the Augusta canal. This year GRN’s challenge is to get 13 people out to paddle who wouldn’t have been out on one of Georgia’s rivers or streams. Since I convinced my husband to buy a boat so we could paddle together. I think my work is done for the 2013 challenge. Two down, ten to go.
Disenchantment spreads to Conservatives, last call for King America permit comments
Displeasure with the state’s “protection’ of our natural resources, specifically the Ogeechee River, has found strong voices among leading Conservatives in the last few weeks. Now State Senator Buddy Carter has joined the choir.
Yesterday the Albany Journal ran a letter from Carter in which he said the EPD has “earned a vote of no confidence” from the public and from him as well.
This week the volume was turned up by the Statesboro Herald in a strongly worded editorial. The paper spared no criticism for the EPD or King America Finishing, closing with, “We believe the EPD rightfully has earned a ton of distrust for its handling of King America’s role in the 2011 fish kill. The state agency can begin to regain its credibility as a responsible steward of the environment by demonstrating the health of the Ogeechee River is more important than the sustainability of the King America plant.”
Governor Nathan Deal took his head out of the sand long enough to tell the Statesboro paper that, “We know that we don’t want anything that’s going to pollute our waterways. We don’t want anything that’s going to make our state a worse place from the standpoint of environmental degradation.”
Make our state worse from the standpoint of environmental degradation? We are competing for the bottom of the list. I am afraid to say we can’t get any worse, but with the track record in the last few years, ineptitude among state leaders seems to rise to the challenge every time.
Tuesday the Peach Pundit weighed in with this, “Given the recent history, I find it difficult to be anything but cynical about the state’s ability to protect life in and along the river. My guess is that many who are calling now for stricter oversight will soon be demanding that King America Finishing be forced to shut down.”
Wednesday, May 15 is last call for comments on KAF permit!
Citizens can comment on the latest King America permit through today at 5:00 p.m. Email your comments to: [email protected], with the words “NPDES permit reissuance King America Finishing (Dover Screven County)” in the subject line.
You don’t have to make it fancy, you just need to speak up. “Deny the NPDES permit reissuance for King America Finishing in Dover, Screven County, GA” is just fine. Make sure you get your name and contact info on the email.
After the rains
The Friday Photo
A weekly photo inspired by art, community and spontaneity
May 10, 2013
Rivers and streams are full, and the grass is green again.
Why the Georgia EPD is toothless
This week started with Mary Landers at the Savannah Morning News reporting that employees at King American Finishing (KAF) were told to drink bottled water at work for the past six months. Tests of two wells at the company’s textile and chemical plant in Screven County found unacceptable levels of cadmium and phenanthrene (known to cause cancer, cardiovascular disease and other serious health problems). An attorney for KAF told Landers in an email that Georgia’s Environmental Protection Division (EPD) ordered the company to switch to bottled water.
Landers contacted EPD Director Jud Turner, who said that the EPD had not issued that requirement.
Someone isn’t telling the truth.
Both the state and the Chicago based company keep telling concerned citizens that everything is okey dokey. But it isn’t.
Last night the Statesboro Herald reported that King America now says the initial water test results were wrong. Why should we believe KAF or, for that matter, the EPD? Both have talked in circles for two years when tens of thousands of fish died in the Ogeechee, and people ended up in the hospital after swimming in polluted water.
What did the EPD tell 200 citizens during Tuesday night’s public comment session on a proposed permit for the plant? The Savannah Morning News reports that EPD official Jane Hendricks said, “Please understand that under the law EPD has a very limited ability to deny the permit.” The paper goes on to say that Hendricks said that the special conditions that can trigger a denial don’t apply in this case.
Based on newspaper and television coverage, that didn’t quell citizen outrage. They went ahead and took the EPD and King America to task for polluting the river, setting unreasonable discharge limits, failing to respond quickly to citizen complaints, making a mess of the water and wildlife, driving down property values, and hurting businesses based on river activities like boating and fishing.
But Ms. Hendricks’ statement that the EPD can’t easily deny a permit is telling on both EPD and state leaders. If the EPD was really in the business of proactively protecting our natural resources, they would be all over state legislators each session asking them to put some teeth in their enforcement abilities.
And if state legislators wanted the EPD to protect our water and air, wildlife, drinking water, land, and swimming holes, they’d pass some laws that would empower the EPD to do just that.
In the end, they continue to do nothing. It doesn’t seem to matter how many fish die, how many citizens end up in the hospital after swimming in polluted water, how many people continue to boil water from their wells out of fear of the poisons that may be in it, or how many small businesses are crippled due to boaters, fishermen, and families who just don’t want to chance getting sick from whatever is lurking in our rivers and streams.
It does matter to the citizens and taxpayers. And we are tired of hearing, and feeding, a toothless guard dog barking on our porch.
‘Tis but a scratch
Five years ago there were 10 EMCs backing Dean Alford’s Plant Washington coal project. Now Alford has announced that there aren’t any EMCs left in the group, EMCs that had originally announced that they would own, operate, and buy power from the plant.
The little that we do know about Alford’s plans is that he still has Colorado based Taylor Energy Fund, LLC as a partner, but he won’t name any others. Nor has he announced any completed Power Purchase Agreements, which are critical to financing the project. Yet Alford continues to believe this project is viable.
I am reminded of the limbless Black Knight, who says to the sword yielding King Arthur,” ‘Tis but a scratch.”
Parade prep
The Friday Photo
A weekly photo inspired by art, community and spontaneity
May 3, 2013
Parade preparations underway in Swainsboro, GA
Who will you sign for?
The deadline for comments to the State Department on Keystone XL’s tar sands pipeline is today. I signed for them. Who will you sign for?
