Politics Through A Rural Lens
The Friday Photo
A weekly photo inspired by art, community, and spontaneity
December 8, 2012
During the short days of early winter the seed catalogs begin to appear
among the Christmas offerings. The lush colors and ripe vegetables are
like the Three Sirens to avid gardeners.
The Friday Photo
A weekly photo inspired by art, community, and spontaneity
November 3o, 2012
Elvis has been living at Schwabe Motors in Swainsboro, GA for about 10 years. The dealership owner, Charles Schwabe, says Elvis attends lots of social functions in the area.
The Friday Photo
A weekly photo inspired by art, community, and spontaneity
November 16, 2012
Stay Left to reach the Promised Land.
The Friday Photo
A weekly photo inspired by art, community, and spontaneity
October 12, 2012
This tree shaded dirt road at our farm will be used by four generations in my family this weekend. Marshmallows will be skewered and roasted, fish will be caught and returned to the Ogeechee, targets will be sighted, stars will be watched under a clear sky, good food will be cooked and shared by friends and family, and there will be a lot of laughter. We are so lucky.
The Friday Photo
A weekly photo inspired by art, community, and spontaneity
October 5, 2012
This trickle of water is what is left of the Ogeechee River after months of drought. If anyone wonders why opponents of Plant Washington, sited about 15 miles from the bridge in Glascock County where this picture was taken, wonder why we are worried about a coal plant using 16 MILLION gallons of fresh water a day, now you have your answer.
Dementia is a cruel illness. My father-in-law, Frank, has done everything he can to protect his health in an effort to beat back the illness that robbed his father and brother of their keen minds and wit. I can’t imagine what we would do if he had developed dementia, because he is the constant companion to my mother-in-law, Jo, who, despite working at good health, developed the same disease which stalked her aunts.
Despite Frank’s best efforts, and those of a part-time caregiver, my mother-in-law has managed to slip away. The first time, during the night, the police returned her. Earlier in the summer a family friend, Mike Logue, and his co-worker at Washington EMC, James Brooks, also hunted to return her safely.
But last week’s escape illustrates just how special rural communities are. The alert was sounded by Joe Meeks, who saw her out on the courthouse square. He alerted Susan Lewis in her office there, who called me. (Susan seems to be our “go to” person. She played a critical role in helping Sterling Everett and Jack Schellenberg in Macon when they were heroes last spring).
Susan then set out to look anywhere she thought was a likely destination, like the Geneology Museum, where Jo spent many hours helping chronicle the history of Washington County residents. I ran into Queensborough National Bank and Trust, where Candy Edwards and Ashley Benfield said she had been, but left. My father-in-law checked at the George D. Warthen bank down the block. Geraldine White at the Washington EMC, still further down the street (but on the way to the house where my mother-in-law grew up), hadn’t seen her come in their building but would call me if she did.
As it is in a story with a happy ending, Jo made her way home on her own, but unable to tell us what she was doing except trying to “live her life” and run an errand. The errand had taken her to Queensborough Bank, located in what was the post office Jo knew in her youth. The young tellers don’t know my mother-in-law, but when she needed to buy a stamp to mail her letter, they kindly sold her one, and then assured her they would mail her letter.
I hope when these types of scary things happen in bigger cities that the lost folks find a kind and patient person to help guide them back to safety.
Fortunately for us, so far, her memory leads my mother-in-law down a small town sidewalk where people who know her will contact us and try to engage her while we race to get her. In the mean time, my father-in-law gets up every day and sets the bar a little higher for every spouse to reach.
Governor Deal has announced that General Biofuels will build a $60M facility in Washington County to manufacture wood pellets for fuel production in Europe. As European countries shutter both coal and nuclear and switch to renewable fuels sources, the demand of wood pellets continues to create business here in the United States. The plant will be located just blocks off Highway 15 on Waco Dr., and production is slated for early 2014 according to Deal’s office.
This plant will employ 35 people and also benefit other local businesses both during and 
after construction (i.e. work boots and clothing, meals out, all types of office and plant facility supplies, safety training). All of these jobs are the direct result of companies using renewable fuel sources.
Business will increase for Sandersville Railroad and Norfolk Southern as these two rail lines will move the pellets to the Port of Savannah for shipping overseas. What I have said many times over bears repeating here: I am glad to see a business succeed, including the Tarbutton’s privately held railroad. I can’t support Plant Washington because the project will harm the air, water, and health of local residents near the plant as well as downwind and downstream. Plant Washington is a good example of putting personal profits ahead of a community.
Charles Lee with the Chamber of Commerce and Industrial Development Authority told me he can’t provide information on public facility bonds or tax abatements as those details are still in negotiation. Regardless of the project, I urge the County Commissioners to carefully consider all projects involving taxpayer dollars.
Local citizens need to pay attention as well. The county can issue bonds through the Public Facilities Authority without any taxpayer input except comments that citizens may make at a county commission meeting. Voter approval is not required for issuing these types of bonds.
There is still a lot to learn about General Biofuels. At face value it is certainly a much more progressive and promising economic option for Washington County and our neighbors than coal, for which local leaders should be commended.
There will be lots of blogs, news reports, and social media posts about hating terrorists and hate itself today, but until all of us (not the United States all of us, but the global all of us) are willing to accept other ways of life and believing, we are doomed to repeat the hard lessons over and over again.
The Friday Photo
A weekly photo inspired by art, community, and spontaneity
August 24, 2012
The Friday Photo
A weekly photo inspired by art, community, and spontaneity
August 10, 2012
When a Guilford College friend gave me a used kayak, I had to hustle and get my car outfitted for carrying the boat.
My 2010 Chevrolet Equinox (unpaid product placement here) had hooks in the front for securing a strap, but none in the back that are sturdy enough for regular use. The service manager, Jo Wren, asked Billy, a mechanic working on another vehicle, to make sure we weren’t missing it on the underside of the car.
We were stumped when there wasn’t one, but Billy said with an hour’s worth of work he would make one for me rather then installing a trailer hitch.
Yesterday I went back to Childre Chevrolet in Milledgeville (unpaid product placement again), and turned my car over to Billy.
About an hour later Billy took me out to the shop to show me the finished product. I knew it would be good, but I didn’t realize that I was really getting a craftsmanship quality product in addition to great service.
He seemed surprised when I said he was a craftsman in addition to being a mechanic. He replied, “Well I did this type of work at another job. I just wanted you to have something that would do the job but be out of the way and out of sight when you didn’t need it.”
Billy may not think he is a craftsman, but I do. Art is not only in museums where we expect it, but in the everyday things that make our lives richer.
Where are you making art and not realizing it?
Based on the announcement Dean Alford made last week about Plant Washington and Taylor Energy Fund, the questions just keep building about what obligations the remaining four EMCs have to the project or P4G, what Taylor actually brings to the long embattled proposed coal plant, any contracts that will provide the EMCs with a “preferred position” if the plant ever gets built, and how much, if any, money will be returned to the co-ops.
This much is known, or being asked:
1. Alford started with ten EMCs in January 2008 when he announced Plant Washington with much bravado. At the beginning of last week he was down to four: Snapping Shoals, Central Georgia, Washington, and Upson. Last Wednesday, following media coverage of opposition candidates for the Snapping Shoals EMC Board of Directors in the Rockdale Citizen, Alford announced that the EMCs are “released” from any other expenses. In their place retired executive Tim Taylor steps in with a newly registered company that has a P.O. Box in Colorado and a disconnected phone line in Georgia. There was no mention of exactly how, or how soon, the EMCs who have clung to this project will get their investment dollars back, if ever.
2. Now instead of ten co-ops Alford has one individual as a partner. His new partner has a history of expensive coal projects in Colorado and a recently registered company. No mention of any financial capacity has been announced to the public, and in fact in this latest round of interviews with the media, Alford refused even to provide contact information for Taylor (that’s fodder for another blog post)
3. Last week Dean Alford announced that the remaining four EMCs 
had signed a new agreement with P4G which releases them from any future financial investments, but which also provides them with a “preferred position” when the eventual (but to date unidentified or confirmed) owner of the plant begins to sell power. What type of back room deal has my co-op, Washington EMC (WEMC) agreed to? Have they agreed to buy power from Plant Washington, whose ultimate construction costs are unknown? What kind of rates have they been guaranteed, and how do those rates compare to other options?
4. Alford told the Rockdale County paper, “The co-ops have always said their desire was the permitting of the plant and to find a strategic partner to own and operate the plant.”
Hmmm. In January 2008 he told the Marietta Daily Journal, “These 10 cooperatives … are building this facility — 100 percent used by them, for them, — to keep energy rates affordable.”
And then under oath in court Alford said in response to an attorney’s question, “Now, when this facility is built, will Power4Georgians actually own the physical — the real property? Will they actually own the power plant?” Dean Alford, “That is the plan at this time.” Testimony by Dean Alford, Fall-Line Alliance et al v. Georgia EPD September 9, 2010.
So was Dean Alford lying then or is he lying now?
5. When Plant Washington was announced, P4G touted job numbers of 1,400 during construction. That number has increased to 1,600. With no engineering designs secured, how has the number of projected construction period jobs increased? Magic?
6. Alford and P4G continue to trot out a projected cost of $2.1B for the plant. That figure is 
over four years old, and construction costs have risen in that time. An independent report released by GeorgiaWatch, a consumer advocacy group, projects costs to be $3.9B, and that number doesn’t include the added expense of required mercury pollution and carbon pollution controls. If the number of workers goes up, then wouldn’t the payroll expenses go up too? What kind of math is this?
7. As pointed out in a recent edition of the Sandersville Progress, Alford has discussed the complex modeling P4G has done on the water demands and stress that Plant Washington will place on the aquifer. However, P4G has failed to file reports and information as required by the Georgia Environmental Protection Division (EPD) water permit, and the EPD has not enforced these required filings. FOR TWO YEARS. (Why bother with a permit at all? But I digress.)
8. And in the Macon Telegraph’s coverage, Alford is quoted as saying that Plant Washington will be exempt from new carbon limits because it received its final permit before the new carbon regulations were proposed. This isn’t accurate, as a recent legal filing by the Environmental Protection Agency makes clear. Plant Washington’s permit was, at that time, still under legal challenge and still being amended to make Plant Washington subject to new EPA regulations governing mercury and other toxic pollutants.
Alford has in the past referred to statements he disagrees with as “dishonest or intellectually naive.”
If P4G and WEMC leaders think that their owner/members and the public don’t see through their assertions, who is intellectually naive? And who is being honest about the facts?
The Friday Photo
A weekly photo inspired by art, community, and spontaneity
July 13, 2012
The Ogeechee Riverkeeper staff, Board of Directors, and the members have stood with us shoulder to shoulder, led when we needed direction, and watch our back for over four years since Plant Washington was announced.
They have worked late nights, through weekends, interrupted vacations, and never failed to do the work of protecting the river.
I was honored and humbled to be chosen as their Big Cypress Volunteer of the Year. There is so much work to be done for the Ogeechee. Get your feet wet and help them.
I don’t need to recount the way P4G got a water permit, but we all know, plant supporters and opponents alike, that appeals were filed and the permit requirements were significantly increased due to those appeals.
And friends, the Oconee was too low for withdrawals in May. Period. The data on water levels came from the USGS. No one rigged up questionable data for the recent press release on exceptional drought conditions or the careful research carried out by the Union of Concerned Scientists used in their report.
I know the only day we will all agree on Plant Washington is when the Washington EMC Board of Directors announce a decision that Plant Washington isn’t tenable and is cancelled.
In the mean time, WEMC Board Members, and in particular my Board Representative, Billy Helton, please tell your spokesman and “no bid” contractor to stop calling your members “dishonest.”
As a result YOU are also calling us, your owner/members, friends, and neighbors, well, liars.
And you can’t hide behind some thin “excuse” like, “I can’t control what anyone says.” You are paying your spokesman and you can put a stop to the inaccurate things he is saying about your owner/members by cutting him off at the checkbook.
Please remember, we are the same people who have held you up while you grieved, brought you food when there was an illness in your family, prayed with you in church, and cheered your children on to victories on the ball field. We are leaders in our shared community of churches, civic groups, businesses, and schools.
Quit stooping to name calling and inaccurate statements about what we all know didn’t happen and the veracity of data.
Those tactics will not be forgotten long after Plant Washington’s pursuit is just a bad memory for our community and co-op.
You know better. Would your mother be proud?
When the Effingham County EMA stepped up and advised citizens to stay out of the Ogeechee River downstream from King America Finishing (KAF) for the second Memorial Day weekend in a row, I started mulling over a suggestion on how the Georgia Environmental Protection Division (EPD) of the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) could save taxpayers significant money and streamline protection of our natural resources. On the heels of yet another advisory issued this week due to blistered catfish downstream from KAF, I think the time is ripe for my suggestion.
Based on the fact that the EPD doesn’t find unpermitted dumping when it does site inspections (the dumping went on for five years at KAF), negotiates paltry consent agreements, and then issues a draft permit which essentially says, “Go ahead and pollute but this time you will have a permit” I suggest that at the least the water program be closed except for one staff person.
My guess is that with the willingness to issue lax permits to repeat polluters, one staffer could readily handle the issuing of permits because it seems issuing permits to dump chemicals and wastes into our rivers and streams is what the EPD thinks it is supposed to do. A small desk with a large “PERMIT APPROVED” stamp is all they would need.
With all the chatter in Georgia about smaller government, the elimination of at least the water program in the EPD could not only serve as a savings to taxpayers, but could also be used for economic development. I can see the advertising now, “Bring your business to Georgia. No restrictions or penalties on polluters! Hurry down for prime river access sites!”
The General Assembly could then take some of those savings on department operations and direct it toward the county agencies who do respond promptly to protect the health of all those who love to fish, swim, and boat in Georgia’s rivers.
Effingham County’s EMA Director, Ed Myrick is a real bargain. Following the second fish kill and two tropical storms in May, Myrick told me in a phone conversation that he is the first full-time EMA Director they have had, and he is the only person on staff.
Myrick isn’t afraid to do whatever it takes to protect the citizens in Effingham County. He told the Atlanta Journal Constitution what we already know, “it is apparent that the pollutants in the Ogeechee River are continuing to be an ongoing problem and may always be until the Northern portions of the river are reclassified. I sympathize with the businesses that depend on the Ogeechee River for income, but we must look after the health and safety of everyone involved.”
One person speaking up when an entire state agency won’t. Because it is the right thing to do.
Riverkeeper suit scheduled in Superior Court Monday, July 9.
The Ogeechee Riverkeeper (ORK) filed a suit against the EPD when an administrative judge in Atlanta ruled that citizens who live on the river, fish and swim in it, rely on it for their livelihood, or simply enjoy watching the wildlife, have no standing in court. The legal challenge will be heard this Monday, July 9 at 2:00 p.m. in Superior Court in Statesboro. in Judge Turner’s Courtroom, Judicial Annex Building, 20 Siebald St. Statesboro, Georgia. This is not an opportunity to comment or speak, but rather to support the Riverkeeper and demonstrate your concern by being there. Please remember to adhere to proper courtroom attire and conduct.
The Friday Photo
A weekly photo inspired by spontaneity, art, and community.
July 6, 2012
Live bluegrass music played by a beaming grandfather and granddaughter
Old friends, new friends, great food
An African doctor, educated in Communist Russian, returning home to use years of experience working in war torn Eastern Europe to open a women’s health clinic
Politics, religion, books, health care, retirement, tales about travel, history, family
Cool breezes after dinner stirred with a soft British accent
And so much laughter
The Friday Photo
A weekly photo inspired by spontaneity, art, and community.
June 29, 2012
Alan Sorkin and Jeff Daniels have nailed it with this script and performance.
We have work to do in America, and the first thing in doing that is accepting the facts for what they are and go forward together. Since 2001 too many people who say they wanted to make our country “great” instead gave up or bargained away our freedoms based on narrow-minded, Conservative, faith-driven, and dehumanizing policies and laws based on little more than what they think is right. Just look at Michele Bachmann, an attorney and former candidate for President, who thought that the authors of our country’s founding documents “worked tirelessly until slavery was no more in the United States.”
I’m voting for President Obama. I’m proud of our President. No one is going to get it right all the time, and I have certainly had my days of absolute frustration with some of his policies and decisions. We’re a lot better off than we were at the end of 2008, and I for one am not willing to go backwards.
Dear Senators Chambliss and Isakson,
I have had the pleasure of meeting both of you when you have met with constituents in Sandersville. I haven’t had the opportunity to bring any of my family with me so I hope you will allow me to tell you a little bit about them.
My husband and I moved back to his home county 25 years ago because we wanted to live in a rural community and be near family. We raised two daughters outside tiny Warthen, in an old farm house we restored with considerable sweat equity. We are fortunate to have two incredibly energetic grandchildren Ella, 5 1/2 years old, and Chase, 4 1/2 years old, who live nearby.
Now that you have met my two grandchildren, I hope you will consider my concerns on behalf of Ella and Chase, the five grandchildren you have Senator Chambliss, and your nine grandchildren Senator Isakson.
The other day both of you voted to prohibit the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) ability to enforce the Mercury and Air Toxins Rule, known as MATS. These emission standards weren’t the result of fly-by-night or stealth regulatory work by the EPA. Instead, they were announced in 1990 as additions to the Clean Air Act.
Twenty two years is a long time for citizens to wait on cleaner air and the cleaner water which results from less pollution in the air. It was long enough for me to give birth to my younger daughter and raise her to the age of 22. Her entire lifetime has been spent breathing air that could have been cleaner a long time ago.
I just can’t figure out why, after all the medical, scientific, and financial research done by numerous respected institutions and individuals which shows just how harmful mercury and heavy metals emissions are to fetuses, growing children, and anyone with asthma or cardiopulmonary disease, that anyone would agree it should go on any longer. Or the research that demonstrates that the tougher standards would actually create approximately 8,000 permanent jobs and up to 45,000 temporary ones.
Yet both of you chose to stand up and say with your votes, “Yes, I support the continuation of dirty air and water for American citizens, including my grandchildren.”
I did a little research so that I might understand why you voted as you did. The Southern Company’s Georgia Power, which owns and operates Plant Scherer near Juliette, and emits the most carbon pollution in the country, was the second largest donor with a total of $102,650 in the 2011-2012 election cycle, to your campaign committee Senator Chambliss (that ought to be helpful if you run for re-election in 2014).
Senator Isakson, the Southern Company was third on your donor list with $28,050 to your campaign in the 2011-2012 election cycle (on the heels of the $38, 350 donation for your re-election in 2010).
Where you trying to help your donors who are burning an awful lot of coal with your vote opposing tougher mercury rules?
Or maybe that vote would help clients using the law firm King and Spalding (K&S). Those attorneys represent a group called Power4Georgians that wants to build a coal fired power plant in Washington County. Senator Chambliss, K&S helped your campaign with $58,000 in donations, putting them at a respectable sixth on your list. Senator Isakson, they didn’t ignore you either. K&S is eighth on your donor list with $31,250.
It goes to figure that some local folks in Washington County would support your respective campaigns. I found out some of the neighbors at my farm have done exactly that. Ben Tarbutton (no middle initial or other identifier) has donated $3,000 so far to the Chambliss campaign in the 2010-2012 cycle. Several Tarbuttons have donated $9,300 to the Isakson campaign since 2009. Those family members include Ben Jr., Benji, Charles, Betsy, Gena, and Hugh.
It’s no secret since Plant Washington was announced over four years ago that the Tarbuttons have been vigorous supporters of Plant Washington. It’s also public knowledge that Charles Tarbutton, who personally donated $1,000 to the Isakson campaign in 2009, is a member of the Georgia Power Board of Directors.
There are 10 directors on the Georgia Power Board. There are seven members of the Tarbutton family who have donated to your respective campaigns since 2009. If we consider corporations to be people (per the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling), then the number of interested parties in these two groups plummets from 17 to 8. A single digit.
Almost 24 percent of the 21,187 people living in Washington County are under the age of 18. In the state of Georgia, there are over 2,500,000 children under the age of 18. The math should work out in favor of the children and votes in favor of upholding the MATS rule.
My grandchildren are among those 2.5M children who deserve cleaner air to breathe. Your grandchildren deserve the same, in whatever state they live in. My children deserved cleaner air when they were growing up. Yours did too.
So please tell me, when does the health of the children come first ahead of the money and influence of donors?
There are lots of good people in North Carolina on both sides of the voting booth and the aisles in their churches. As if North Carolina didn’t get enough national media attention with passage of Amendment One by voters earlier this month, now Pastor Charles L. Worley and his followers at Providence Road Baptist Church in Maiden have shifted the spotlight back to rural North Carolina.
Pastor Worley preached that the “solution” for lesbians, queers, AND homosexuals (reduntant? Worley doesn’t care or even know) is to build huge fenced-in areas, put the women in one and the men in the other, air drop food to them, and just wait from them to die off because they can’t reproduce.
If it sounds unbelievable, see and hear it yourself:
When Anderson Cooper asked church member Stacey Pritchard about Worley’s sermon and the intent of Worley’s message, Prichard couldn’t explain her way through it. In fact, if she had had a shovel in her hands, she couldn’t have dug the hole she put herself in any faster or deeper (and she also seems to have a problem with understanding the facts of the Holocaust and current events).
Citizens in the area are organized and have planned a peaceful demonstration against the hate speech spewed by Worley and supported by his followers. This Sunday beginning at 11:00 people from across the country will be in Maiden to peacefully demonstrate opposition to the hate-filled message preached at Providence Road Baptist Church.
Want to go? Follow the Catawba Valley Citizens Against Hate on Facebook for details. Would you like to support their grassroots work to stop hate speech in their community? You can donate to Catawba Valley Pride to help pay for flyers, office supplies, and all the other things that must be bought to make grassroots outreach successful.
You’ll be in good company if you get to Maiden because I know several of my friends (including one who is a minister) will be there. You should join them.
I can’t get to Maiden because I have to help aging parents this weekend. Unfortunately I am afraid there will be other opportunities to demonstrate against hate speech. What a shame.
May 15, 2012
To: Georgia Environmental Protection Division
RE: Amendment 4911-303-0051-P-01-2
When Plant Washington was announced over four years ago the plant was expected to pump 122 lbs of mercury per year into the local airshed. The EPD approved that amount of toxins in a permit which local residents and organizations across the state challenged. The result was a second permit reducing the mercury emissions to 55.6 lbs per year.
The developer of Plant Washington, Dean Alford, acquiesced on meeting the MATS rules at start up. The much needed and long awaited MATS regulations reduce the allowable mercury emissions to 1.69 lbs per year.
Please allow me to pat myself and other plant opponents on the back for standing firm on lower emissions in a community which already teeters on non-attainment, and whose citizens suffer the health ramifications of poor air quality. If your agency is truly committed to protecting the health of Georgia’s citizens and our natural resources permits with such high emission levels should never have been issued.
Now that Mr. Alford has agreed to meet the MATS emissions sooner rather than later, he seems to have had a change of heart. In interviews with Politico Pro and The Sandersville Progress, Alford said he can meet the emissions standards at start up. That is what the amended permit requires. Period.
I hope you can appreciate my concern about Alford’s ability to meet these standards when he joined a filing with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit stating that the emission regulations are unattainable.
The EPD permit amendment makes no mention of any technical or engineering requirements, or fuel mix, to assure that the emission standards will be met.
Is your agency in the business of issuing permits to companies who announce, before they have secured a final permit, that they can’t meet the requirements of the permit?
Rightly so, the confidence of local citizens in Alford’s ability to meet the standards has been deflated.
The taxpayers and citizens of Georgia expect, deserve, and demand that all companies issued a permit for emissions of any type, are able to meet those standards and maintain them in demonstrable and measurable ways.
Alford’s assurances that Plant Washington can meet the MATS rule are now hollow. I urge and request that the EPD do its duty to protect the health of my community as it is described in your mission and vision statements, and require Alford and Power4Georgians to demonstrate their ability to meet the MATS standards before a final permit is issued.
Sincerely,
Katherine Helms Cummings