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About The Advocate-Democrat. (Crawfordville, Ga.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (March 1, 2024)
cmcraike Volume 150 Sfvotndmm GPcyitfi life Mvocate-Vemcmt » CRAWFORD VILLE, GA 30631 TALIAFERRO COUNTY, MARCH 1, 2024 NUMBER 9 pfcERUCK Astronomy V„ A Distinctive Dark Sky Commcniiy AviN'w.tlccrlickgi oup.com | rmv.vrt rtwntn No TAXUkSUKC MiwiiikONU PAIUOUO L»c*m0*ir BitohoTio» fcuri Deerlick Astronomy Village will host an Open House on March 16, between the hours of 5-11PM. This is a family-friendly, free event. Bring a snack or supper and enjoy gazing into the night skies with beautiful and very large telescopes for viewing the moon, plantets, and other celestial objects. Car lights off after entering the gates to keep the skies truly the dark skies for which Deerlick is known. Directions to DAV are available at deerlickgroup.com. In the event of cloud cover or rain, the event will be held April 13, 2024. Women’s Margaret’s Grove Baptist Church invites all women to its Women’s Ministry. The next Ladies Meeting will be on Saturday, March 2, at 1:00 pm. Lunch will be served and there will be a guest speaker. PLEASE share this with your friends & family!! This is open to all ladies in the community! Please join us-you will certainly be blessed. Sharon Shenanigans Tree potting 100 trees of different varieties were potted last Friday by some of the Sharon Shenanigans committee members. Georgia Power donated the trees, for which the committee is grateful. Pictured are Paula Atchison, Elaine Rivera, Buddy Patterson, Jane Kuehn, and Renee Brown. The trees will be given away at Sharon Shenanigans in April. Besides the tree giveaway, there will be entertainment all day, as well as arts and crafts, lots of food, and treats for the kiddos. The University of Georgia and Taliaferro 4-H club members with fun stuff for the kids to do and learn. To be a vendor or entertainer, pleasegotosharonshenanigans. com for more information and a vendor application. Multiple churches worship with New Hope Baptist Church A blessing was had at New Hope Baptist Church, Crawfordville, on Sunday, February 25. Multiple churches, amazing singing, and more importantly the House of Lord was filled with the Spirit of God helping celebrate New Hope’s Men and Women’s Day. Fourchurchfamilies, including New Hope Baptist, celebrated the Lord together. Rev. Neal Parks also commented that history was made on Sunday. Wesley Chapel Wesleyan Church, of Greensboro, also was attendance. When Pastor Josh Lindsey shared his love of Christ with the congregation, it was the first time in 150 years that a Caucasian had preached in the church. This is the way barriers are broken. Company fined for dumping ‘chicken sludge’ in northeast Georgia creek Proposed legislation would make it illegal for an entity cited for fouling a waterway to continue to do so on the same property afterward By Doug Richards, 11 Alive Ne SHARON, GA—The Georgia Environmental Protection Division has issued a fine to a company for fouling a northeast Georgia creek. Yet residents say the dumping that fouled the creek has continued. Critics describe the stuff being dumped as chicken sludge. A bill introduced in the Georgia House of Representatives last week would make it illegal for an entity cited for fouling a waterway to continue to do so on the same property afterward. The northeast Georgia town of Sharon is unhurried and seemingly untroubled - until the trucks show up. They’re loud and big and typically fast and always smell pretty terrible. “It smells like you’ve just come out of a restroom,” said Betsy Orr, a business owner. “You can smell them distinctly as soon as they’ve gone by.” Their destination is a large piece of land down a dirt road, which includes a creek. The state EPD said the trucks use this site to dump what neighbors describe as a ghastly sludge that mostly comes from chicken processing plants. Tonya Bonitatibus, the Savannah Riverkeeper, has seen this unlikely product turn into an industry growing across northeast Georgia and said that when one processes a chicken, there’s stuff left over on the floor. “All of a sudden, these trucks show up, like 30, 35 of them a week on one piece of property that are putting pieces and parts of animals, with this stench, that makes flies and all of these buzzards show up. It sounds biblical, right? It doesn’t sound real,” Bonitatibus told 11 Alive News. “It seems almost too crazy to be true.” Farmers and landowners apply it as nourishment to fields - as we saw last fall across from Oconee High School. In the case of this field near the town of Sharon, residents say it gets dumped for reuse. State regulators fined a man named Justin Echols for letting the sludge dumped here to foul a creek that runs nearby. 11 Alive was unable to reach Echols for comment. Investigators documented the spill and fined Echols’ company, called Ag Green, $5,000. Yet even after that, residents say the trucks still came. “That seems outrageous. Why in the world would they be able to continue to dump when they’re being ordered to clean up and have a corrective action on a site,” Bonitatibus asked. The substance is actually very well known to Georgia regulators and politicians. Except they don’t call it chicken sludge. Their sanitized term for it is “soil amendment.” The state agriculture department approves its use routinely. State records obtained by 11 Alive News show the ingredients include “industrial wastewater” or “DAF sludge” from the “animal slaughtering industry” or “pet food processing industry,” injected into the soil. Backers say it’s an effective way to recycle such waste. The records also show numerous complaints from neighbors. Residents of Walton County howled when it got applied to fields there last summer, describing it as “horrific” with a “literal sickening smell” that “causes headaches and nausea.” A state inspector who showed up two days later closed the case, finding “flies and odors were found to be minimum” and “compliance is met.” Betsy Orr has been behind the upkeep of a historic church in Sharon. It has a cemetery more than 200 years old. There’s a camp nearby, and she said there’s potential to draw historic and visitor interest. Except, she said, when the place stinks of animal sludge. Note: The dumping address is 4020 Locust Grove Road, Sharon, GA. T. C. Senior Center 119 Commerce St. Crawfordville, GA 50651 TALIAFERRO COUflTV Invites) ou TO ATTEND 4TH ANNUAL WOMEN’S DAY Union Point to celebrate 120 Years with Community-Wide Birthday Party On Saturday, March 23, 2024, the City of Union Point, GA, is celebrating its 120th birthday in conjunction with the 13th Annual Firefly Trail Ticket to Ride event. It will be an exciting day for Greene County residents and visitors to enjoy the city’s past, present and future, from the completion of the Firefly Trail between Union Point and Woodville to revitalization efforts for the historic Union Theatre. The event will showcase local artists and businesses and some of the homesteading practices upon which this rural area is rooted. From 10am - 4pm, historic downtown will be buzzing with festivities, with live music from Tim Cadiere and Washboard Road Band and Chris Jon & Scott, food trucks, craft vendors, a bouncy house and train rides for kids as well as tours of the Historic Museum. Starting at 11am, Piedmont Healthcare is offering wellness checks on site, and at 3pm all ages are invited to participate in the 5K race on the Firefly Trail, reviving a town favorite, the “Sock Trot.” DOCK 103.9 will be streaming live, and sports broadcaster Tony Barnhart will be signing copies of his new book, The 19 of Greene. And, of course, there will be plenty of birthday cake at 1 pm! For more information, visit www.unionpointga.org or call 706-486-4102.
