Did you know that you can keep your car in pristine condition by combining some basic ingredients that may be in your kitchen cupboards? You won’t spend lots of money on specialized cleaners, and you’ll help reduce water pollution as well. Your driveway may contribute to the toxic runoff that is a major cause of water pollution. The detergents, tar removers, waxes and soaps you use flow into storm drains and often directly into rivers, streams and lakes.
If you don't have a car, you can use these recipes to keep your bike in tip-top shape.
Sudsy Soap: To wash your car, combine a half cup of liquid detergent with one gallon of warm water. Use a sponge, soft cotton rag, or chamois to scrub.
Detergents can be toxic to fish and wildlife. Look for a brand that is made with renewable materials instead of petroleum-based ingredients — such as Seventh Generation, Earth Friendly Cleaner, or Ecover. Also be sure the detergent you choose is free of dyes, synthetic fragrances, optical brighteners, and phosphates. (Liquid laundry detergents are all phosphate free.) Rinse, and then dry the car with a soft cotton rag or chamois.
Tar Remover: Combine one cup white distilled vinegar and a half teaspoon of linseed oil. Dab some of the mixture on a cloth and rub on the tar spots. Polish with a soft cloth. Store the leftover mixture in a glass jar with a screw top.
Wash your car in a grassy area, if possible, so the ground can filter the water naturally. Use a hose that is high-pressure, low-volume, and has a trigger nozzle to save water.
Wash one section of the car at a time, and rinse it quickly.
When you are done, empty your bucket of soapy water down the sink, not in the street.
OR Take your car to a professional car wash. Many car washes recycle 100% of their wash water several times before sending it to a sewage treatment plant. OR take your own non-toxic cleaning products with you to a do-it-yourself car wash - if they recycle the water.
— Real Money, Sept. 2001, Co-op America
The proposed Nacoochee Village development in White County is getting plenty of attention, as reported in the White County News-Telegraph.
The first round of comments from agencies and organizations was largely negative, centering on water and waste treatment needs and transportation difficulties. Only the Board of Directors of the Georgia Mountain Regional Development Center (GMRDC) approved the proposed plan.
In this round, the use of roads came under closer inspection. A representative of the DOT criticized the use of Bean Creek Road as a residential and construction access road. During the first part of the proposed project, sixty single family homes would be built on 150 acres. All the materials and vehicles needed for the construction would travel along narrow, winding, two-lane Bean Creek Road. Even after construction, subdivision residents would have to use this same road as their entrance for years.
GMRDC Transportation Planner Jerry Presley pointed out that the pavement would crumble under the heavy usage. He said, “There’s not room for a heavy truck and car to pass. In my assessment, Bean Creek Road is not suitable. The comissioners should require development of the project from the southern portion of Highway 17 going north.”
New homes are already increasing traffic load. Rabun Road is congested, its gravelled surface has deteriorated, and there is no current plan to pave it. It is a narrow road, as is Bean Creek Road, and at significant risk is the safety of children and current residents, as traffic often travels too fast.
The next commission meeting on April 12 could be a contentious one.
Drive
Your Electric Truck!
Winter
2004/05
Two electricity-powered Ford Ranger pickups were about to be repossessed and scrapped by their maker but a protest began to save them. The two drivers say they are ready to purchase the vehicles, which cost very little to maintain, require no gasoline, and have no direct emissions. But Ford is ready to pull the plug (!) on these Rangers because “we’ve moved on from electric vehicles and our focus is more on hybrids,” said a Ford representative.
One driver understands that cars are sometimes discontinued, but why can’t the company sell it to him? “How about the Excursion — it’s being discontinued. It gets 12 miles to the gallon. Why not go back and crush all of those?” There was no answer.
— Eric Bailey, Los Angeles Times, 18 Jan 2005, http://grist.org/cgi—bin/forward.pl?forward_id=4063.
Nukes
on the Road
Fall
2000
After 50 years producing the world’s most destructive weapon, the hydrogen bomb, the Savannah River Site (SRS) is still in business, still an environmental disaster. It is also on the National Register of Historical Places ‹ perhaps to protect it from investigation into worker exposure.
Its new assignment is to reprocess plutonium, a man-made toxin, into commercial nuclear fuel, called MOX for Mixed Oxide Fuel. Supposedly, this will divert weapons grade plutonium into a “useful” product. The Russian part of the program alone is estimated to cost $1.7 billion.
Compared to the uranium fuel used in US nuclear power plants, MOX will accelerate the aging of the plant through embrittlement, reduce the margin of error for safe operation, and result in more cancer deaths from accidents. Worst of all, MOX does not get rid of plutonium. Burning nuclear fuel in a reactor produces more plutonium - a vicious circle.
Both Duke Power and the Southern Company are interested in using MOX fuel, and Plant Vogtle, across the river from SRS near Augusta, could participate.
With Atlanta a major cross roads when nuclear waste shipments begin, and with the Oconee nuclear plant just across the South Carolina line from Toccoa, high level waste could be traveling Georgia highways and rail lines.
The nuclear industry is desperate for relief from the waste piling up, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) wants to help industry along by easing, not tightening, regulations at the expense of our health and environment.
Thankfully, the Yucca Mountain depository is not yet approved. It is in a seismic zone with many small earthquakes recorded all over that part of Nevada. Senator Frank Murkowski (R-Alaska), chair of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, is pushing to open the repository. “If we don’t solve the problem of our spent fuel soon, the American taxpayer will bear the costs of the financial liability,” he lamented. The Dept. of Energy (DOE) collects fees from nuclear utilities to fund construction of the repository, and recently a utility in Pennsylvania reached a settlement to reduce the fees they pay DOE by some $80 million over ten years. Could that be a trend that will stop construction of the depository?
With reprocessing at SRS a real possibility, NRC held a public meeting in Atlanta on Sept. 20, one of only three across the nation. The NRC website was too complicated to maneuver, the printed matter was highly technical, but the discussion was clear, if discouraging. Transporting nuclear waste to the SRS was definitely in the plan.
NRC and DOT (US Dept. of Transportation) claim it is necessary to “harmonize” US regulations with international standards set by IAEA (International Atomic Energy Commission). What they don’t say is that NRC helped to develop the IAEA standards which are less restrictive than US standards.
The proposed changes mostly relax what protection the public has now. The role of IAEA is both to promote nuclear technology and to provide security for “the peaceful atom” so public protection is not stressed. Furthermore, IAEA revisions are not open to public knowledge, comment, or participation until they are already in force. Even to get a copy of the regulations is expensive and takes time.
Some key issues now on a fast track for approval include increasing the regulated release of radioactivity in transit, lowering requirements for nuclear container testing, lowering the assessed impact of radiation on the body, and dropping the double wall requirement for pluton- ium containers.
All of these impact the health and safety of people and the environment, and should have thorough evaluation, not the fast track process under way.
The final shock was hearing that when reactors need fresh fuel quickly it is shipped in by plane. Now we have to worry about trucks, trains and planes.
MOX has received little attention in Congress, despite the fact that Congress is supposed to provide oversight of MOX funding. You could tell your representatives to stop making plutonium bomb fuel or shipping the unsafe radioactive material. Call them at home during the recess, or in Congress at 202-224-3121.
South Georgia has its own nuclear problems with the Southern Company. The spent fuel pool at Plant Hatch in Baxley is nearly full, so the company removed some of the highly radioactive rods and put them in a giant cask on a cement pad outside. This cask, the HI-STAR 100, had never been tested or used before. In fact, the state of Utah urged that it not be approved for safety reasons.
NRC documents confirm that the plant has had repeated worker radiation exposures and serious accidents -- 1,200 in 1997.
Though the company claims it intends to store only its own waste outside, it takes only a license amendment to accept waste from other facilities. So nuclear waste dumping could happen at Baxley. Obviously the industry has too few checks and balances and is free to make its own rules -- or mistakes.
To halt a radioactive dump now, before cask expansion takes hold, contact Governor Roy Barnes, 203 State Capitol Building, Atlanta 30334, phone 404-656-1776, fax 404-657-7332, and Chairman Meserve, NRC 016C1, Washington DC 20535, phone 301-415-1750, fax 301-415-1672.
Europe too has nuclear problems. Germany is to permit international shipments of spent nuclear fuel for the first time in more than two years. Environmental groups immediately promised massive protests, and 2,000 demonstrators quickly gathered near the “temporary” nuclear waste storage facility of Gorleben. The group included members of nature protection federations and doctors from International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War.
All rail movements of spent fuel were banned in Germany in 1998 after discovery of widespread surface contamination.
France and Switzerland initially acted similarly but both have since allowed transports to start again. The French company, Cogema, which is to help manage reprocessing at SRS, was responsible for contaminating a wide swath of the French coast with nuclear waste near its reprocessing plant, according to Greenpeace.
Thousands of Austrian environmental activists blocked border crossings between their country and the Czech republic to protest a new Czech nuclear power plant just 40 miles from the border that is scheduled to start up soon. Austria decided to be nuke-free in 1978.
Controversy is brewing in Taiwan as newly elected President Chen Shui-bian decides whether to call for a halt to construction of the country’s fourth nuclear power plant. Many Taiwanese object, noting that the country doesn’t know what to do with the nuclear waste it already has.
They aren’t the only ones.
-- nirsnet@nirs.org, www.nirs.org, phone 202-324-0002; Georgians for Clean Energy, phone 404-659-5675, fax 770-234-3909, georgia@cleanenergy.ws; http://ens-news.com/ens/sep2000/2000L-09-27-01.html; Ladka Bauerova, New York Times, 9/24/00.
Airport
Extension
Spring
2000
Just when you think wetlands are safe from damage, here comes another proposal. This one is by the Army Corps of Engineers to extend the runway at the Habersham County Airport.
Of course the county wants to make the airport accessible to larger airplanes. Unfortunately, the 1300 foot runway extension would cross 900 feet of the South Fork of Little Mud Creek which would then be placed in a concrete culvert not a favorable environment for living things. Then a smaller stream, 800 feet long, would have to be moved outside the filled area.
Filling is required because of the drop-off at the end of the present runway. The only mitigation would take place upstream of the project.
Many questions remain to be answered beginning with the effect on the wildlife in the area. The upstream mitigation, involving planting a buffer around the relocated stream, would not solve the downstream problem of the culvert and the inevitable sedimentation and siltation. In addition, it could attract birds not what any pilot wants to see on landing and takeoff.
Bigger planes mean more gasoline spills and hydraulic fluids running off the pavement and into the streams. Bigger planes also mean more noise and more impact on neighbors and workers in the area.
Only a short time was allowed for comments. The original notice was dated April 26. It was in the Northeast Georgian May 5, and the deadline for comments was May 26.
We’ll be looking for a response to the few requests for a deadline extension and public hearing there was time to generate.
For more information, contact engineer Gary Craig of the Army Corps at 404-763-7886, or call ACE at 778-3661.
Travelling
Nukes
Winter
2000/1
Radioactive waste is coming sooner than we expected. The Savannah River Site near Augusta plans to ship its first load of plutonium waste to a New Mexico repository some time this month, with eight to twelve shipments by next January.
More than 55,000 barrels of the stuff will be sent to the WIPP site in new Mexico and buried in a mine 2,100 feet below the desert. Supposedly it won’t threaten the public there, although the site is in a seismic area with rivers below the surface.
Critics say the plutonium transfer is risky and useless, needlessly endangering thousands of people who live along I-20 in Georgia and points west. “The wastes that are being sent to WIPP are relatively safely stored where they are,” said Arjun Makhijani, president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research in Maryland and a long-time critic of the shipments.
To prepare for the shipments, Westinghouse Waste Isolation Division, which runs WIPP, has been training workers along the route since 1961. If you want to ask questions of your Congressperson concerning the safety of such shipments, call 202-224-3121.
Self-Sufficient
Transit
Fall
1999
Can public transportation ever be self-sufficient? Yes -- even when moderate fares cover only operations and maintenance.
The major cost of construction of subways, surface trains, and bus systems can be paid for by a tax on the increase in land values resulting from these desirable public improvements. Some examples:
New York state taxpayers spent more than $400 million to build the New York Thruway, but land values along the route increased by much more than $400 million. (Perry Prentice in Architectural Forum).
Since the Toronto subway was built the neighborhoods around the stations have experienced a small construction boom and land values have skyrocketed. A 100 sq. ft. plot purchased in 1947 for $22,000 sold ten years later for $257,000. (Life editorial 1965)
The landowners on Staten Island in New York City pocketed a $700 million windfall because other taxpayers put up $350 million for the Verrazano Narrows Bridge; now their land is much more accessible than before. (Prentice, The Commercial and Financial Chronicle, Aug. 22, 1968)
-- Steven Cord, Editor, Incentive Taxation, 580 N. Sixth St., Indiana, PA 15701.
Homer
Bypass (1)
Fall
1999
Ignore the talk that transportation construction funds will be reallocated by the legislature. The $50 million Homer Bypass is going ahead as planned, with construction to start in late February or early March. It will lead off from 441 at State Route 61 and rejoin 441 at Route 105.
The most expensive part of the job will be the bridges over the Hudson River, Webb Creek and any other wetlands.
The Broad River Watershed Association is looking for volunteers to visit the construction site from time to time to check for sediment going into the streams, falling silt fences, and other problems. A consultant is available to instruct us on what to look for.
Please call ACE if you are interested, or the Broad River Association at 706-542-3197 or susan@cinnamon.fanning.uga.edu. Road plans can be seen at the DOT office in Atlanta, 2 Capitol Square, room 444, e-mail Brent.Story@dot.ga.state.us or call 404-656-5386.
Homer
Bypass (2)
Winter
1999/2000
The 6.2 mile $40 million project is almost ready to go. The Department of Transportation has selected a contractor and the contract could be signed by the time you read this. The cost is actually $10 million less than last yearıs estimate a rare event.
This time around DOT is taking no chances. They say they have a committee of non-DOT outsiders to keep tabs, including a biologist.
ACE and the Broad River Watershed Association are looking for volunteers to visit the construction from time to time to check for sediment seeping into the wetlands or streams, falling silt fences, etc.
