Tag Archives: Georgia Power

No WWALS booth at festivals rest of March 2020 due to virus

Due to the many health considerations of our volunteers and their families, WWALS, exercising an abundance of caution, will not send the information booth to festivals for the rest of March 2020.

Preparing for Community Mass Gatherings --GA-DPH

This means we are cancelling our appearances at:

While we are sorry to have to do that, the risk is beyond simple infection of our booth volunteers, which would be bad enough. The novel coronavirus is airborne, causes a disease that Continue reading →

Video: Earth Day Cleanup and Paddle –Suwannee Riverkeeper & Georgia Power on Scott James Radio 2020-03-12

Update 2020-03-19: Earth Day Cleanup Postponed due to pandemic: WWALS, Georgia Power, Valdosta, and Brooks County, GA, Madison County, FL.

Update 2020-03-14: Much better water quality: Withlacoochee River, Okapilco Creek 2020-03-11.

Joe Brownlee is bringing Georgia Power people and a grill to the Earth Day Cleanup, 8AM, Saturday, April 18, 2020, at Knights Ferry Boat Ramp. This WWALS cleanup is co-sponsored by Georgia Power, the City of Valdosta, and Brooks County, Georgia. Madison and Suwannee Counties, Florida, will be holding Earth Day cleanups that same day downstream on the Withlacoochee and Suwannee Rivers. The cleanups are free. The paddle is $10 per person, or free for WWALS members. No reservation necessary, but please check Going on the facebook event to encourage others to come.

[On Air]
On Air

We also discussed fecal bacteria in the river and the novel coronavirus. But first, we reminded people not to go on the Withlacoochee right now, because it’s Continue reading →

Earth Day Cleanup and BIG Little River Paddle Race on Scott James Talk 92.1 FM Radio 2020-03-12

Update 2020-03-13: Video.

8AM this Thursday morning, Georgia Power Southwest District Director Joe Brownlee and Suwannee Riverkeeper John S. Quarterman will visit Scott James on his Talk 92.1 FM radio, to talk about an Earth Day Cleanup on the Withlacoochee River co-sponsored by WWALS, Georgia Power, the City of Valdosta, and Brooks County, Georgia.

When: 8AM, Thursday, March 12, 2020

Where: Talk 92.1 FM Scott James drive-time radio show.
You can listen on the air, or through the radio show’s own website, or through several online listening services.

Event: facebook

[WWALS and Lowndes County]
WWALS and Lowndes County signs at Knights Ferry Boat Ramp.

All about the WWALS Earth Day Cleanup and optional paddle, which is co-hosted by Georgia Power, the City of Valdosta, and Brooks County, Georgia, at Knights Ferry Boat Ramp on the Withlacoochee River southwest of Clyattville, April 18, 2020.

And all about the Eighth Annual BIG Little River Paddle Race (BLRPR) at Reed Bingham State Park, between Adel and Moultrie, Georgia, April 25, 2020.

For more WWALS outings and events as they are posted, see the WWALS calendar or the WWALS outings and events web page. WWALS members also get an upcoming list in the Tannin Times newsletter.

 -jsq, John S. Quarterman, Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®

You can join this fun and work by becoming a WWALS member today!

WWALS, Georgia Power, and Valdosta: Knights Ferry Cleanup, optional Nankin Paddle, Withlacoochee River 2020-04-18

Update 2020-04-20: Livestream.

Update 2020-03-19: Earth Day Cleanup Postponed due to pandemic: WWALS, Georgia Power, Valdosta, and Brooks County, GA, Madison County, FL.

Update 2020-03-14: Radio TV, and unfortunately the novel Coronovirus may curtail the paddle, but the Cleanup is still on.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (PDF)

Earth Day Cleanup at Knights Ferry, Withlacoochee River: WWALS, Georgia Power, and Valdosta, April 18, 2020

Hahira, Georgia, March 4, 2020 — Celebrate the fiftieth Earth Day by helping clean up Knights Ferry Boat Ramp, Saturday morning, April 18, 2020. Afterwards, those who want to can paddle with us down the Withlacoochee River to Nankin Boat Ramp, cleaning up on the water and when we get to Nankin . This event is the first ever sponsored by WWALS, Georgia Power, the City of Valdosta, and Brooks County, Georgia.

[During Paddle Georgia 2019-06-16]
Photo: John S. Quarterman for WWALS, Knights Ferry Boat Ramp, During Paddle Georgia 2019-06-16.

“Through this clean up effort we think we’ve found a way to create synergy around environmental stewardship with groups such as Continue reading →

Georgia Power Rate Case this morning at PSC: no Hike, Solar instead 2019-11-25

Maybe you’d like to help stop Georgia Power’s connection rate hike. Hearings started 9AM this morning, all day today and tomorrow, Docket 42516 Georgia Power Company’s 2019 Rate Case (11/26/19).

There is a video livestream by GA-PSC.

[Livestream]

You can still send testimony, to Continue reading →

Please deny Georgia Power rate, signal get on with renewable energy –WWALS to GA-PSC 2019-11-05

Testimony sent as PDF yesterday, for the Georgia Power rate hike Public Hearings continuing today at GA-PSC.

[2016 Peak Day Marginal Costs]
2016 Peak Day Marginal Costs

November 5, 2019

To:

Jason Shaw, Commissioner, District 1

Georgia Public Service Commission

244 Washington Street, SW

Atlanta GA, 30334-9052

jshaw@psc.ga.gov

Re: Docket 42516 Georgia Power Company’s 2019 Rate Case

Commissioner Shaw,

It was good to meet with you Thursday.

I have not met anyone unaffiliated with the electric power industry who supports a rate hike for Georgia Power, especially not a mandatory connection fee. Many people around here are already struggling to balance electric bills, grocery bills, and gas bills. A mandatory connection fee would most greatly affect those least able to afford it. Despite Georgia Power’s arguments, the beneficiaries of such a rate hike would not be its customers, rather its investors, following a playbook spelled out by the electric utility industry think tank Edison Electricity Institute back in 2013.

I urge the Georgia Public Service Commission to reject Georgia Power’s request for a connection fee raise, or at the least to make it as minimal as possible. Georgia Power as a regulated public utility should be “A Citizen Wherever We Serve,” not an agent for its investors to get more profit at the expense of its customers.

[Urge reject connection fee raise]
Urge reject connection fee raise

It is not surprising that Georgia Power is in need of funds, due to Southern Company’s failing Big Bet on Continue reading →

Georgia Power proposes connection fee hike

Georgia Power is back with a proposed mandatory connection fee hike for everyone! This is after they tried a couple years ago to get a mandatory solar power connection fee, but Sierra Club fought that off with town halls around the state.

Bryan Jacob, Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, 29 August 2019, Georgia Power Wants You to Pay More For Using Less Energy,

fee hike graphic

In June, Georgia Power submitted a proposal to charge its customers for an additional $2.2 billion. A very troubling part of Georgia Power’s proposal: they propose to nearly double the mandatory monthly fee (which is hidden on most bills), from the current $10/month to $17.95/month for residential customers.

Customers must pay this fee no matter how much or how little energy is actually used, paying at least Continue reading →

Georgia PSC again increases solar power by Georgia Power 2019-07-16

The PSC required more than Georgia Power and Southern Company requested, although they still do not seem to understand that solar power is growing exponentially like compound interest.

[Vote]
See Stephen Fowler, GPB, July 16, 2019, Public Service Commission Adds More Solar To Georgia Power’s Energy Plan.

In 2013 Georgia only had some nominal solar energy online, less than 300 megawatts. In the 2013 IRP, the Commission added 525 megawatts of solar energy. Three years later, in the 2016 IRP, another 1,600 megawatts were added. By the end of 2019, Georgia should have a total of 2,400 megawatts of solar and other renewable energy on the grid. The 2,210 megawatts approved Tuesday will nearly double Georgia’s level of renewable energy by the end of 2022.

Doubling every two years is merely not falling farther behind. And what about after 2022? What’s the plan for more than doubling again by 2024, etc.? WWALS asked for Continue reading →

Renewable solar and wind power now, not coal, gas, or nuclear –WWALS to GA PSC 2019-06-10

Drawing from eight years of speaking at Southern Company Stockholder meetings, and from that Homerville, Georgia explosion that destroyed Coffee Corner and sent three women to the hospital with third-degree burns, here’s a summary of the comments we filed with the Georgia Public Service Commission today. If you can’t go to the GA-PSC hearings tomorrow and the next day about the Georgia Power Integrated Resource Plan, you can also send a comment letter asking the PSC to stop Georgia Power locking in fossil fuels and make them get on with sun and wind pwoer on a smart grid.

[AGL fines, more solar, coal ash disposal, and mercury]

  1. Yes, fine AGL more than $2 million for that Homerville, GA explosion.
  2. Require Georgia power to buy 12 gigawatts (GW) of solar power, not 1 GW.
  3. Make Georgia Power pay to dispose of the coal ash it produced, properly on its own property.
  4. How about make the companies that put mercury in the air to come down in our rivers pay for the costs to recreational fishing.
  5. Stop throwing money down the Plant Vogtle nuclear hole.
  6. Demand Georgia Power get on with wind power.

This about sums it up: Continue reading →

Solar grows in Georgia and Florida

Georgia Power, local electric cooperatives, Duke Energy, FPL: all are spending on solar power. However, Georgia and Florida remain behind New Jersey and Massachusetts in deployed solar megawatts. It’s an election year, and this should be an issue.

FPL is making a big show of solar power in Florida, but are it and sibling utilities actually moving ahead very fast? Jay Koziarz, miami.curbed.com, 30 July 2018, City vote clears path for retractable ‘solar halo’ atop Bayfront Amphitheater: The urban installation will be one of the largest of its kind in the country

Solar halo atop Bayfront Amphitheater
Bayfront Park Management Trust

Miami city commissioners have backed a move to construct a Continue reading →