Newspaper Page Text
“Green Bins” in the Future
for Downtown, Schools
y
/
Budget, NBiF News:
l Long Week at UGJ
Before long, Athens-Clarke County will
begin picking up food waste from downtown
restaurants and from local schools, and com
posting it—along with chipped yard waste
and sewage sludge—to create a rich soil
additive that will be sold to the public, ACC
Solid Waste Director Jim Corley tells Flagpole.
Sewage sludge ("biosolids") from county treat
ment plants is already being systematically
composted on landfill property, then buried
in the landfill, Corley says. "You put it out in
windrows, you have monitors—temperature
probes—in it, you have to turn it every three
days," he says, over a period of three weeks.
Composting kills pathogens and bacteria;
properly composted, it's also safe for home
use, he says. "The stuff is
incredible for plants," but is
so strong it must be mixed
with regular soil.
Picking up food waste
from schools and downtown
could be the first step in
a "green bin" recycling program—part of
Athens-Clarke's effort to keep recyclable mate
rials from filling up the landfill. And while
the county is the only trash collector allowed
downtown, private contractors will be allowed
to pick up food waste from downtown if they
plan to compost it—and if their trucks don't
leak—Corley says, just as they are already
allowed to pick up used restaurant grease to
recycle as fuel. Once the county receives per
mits to pick up food waste and begins com
posting it along with chipped yard waste and
sewage sludge, the resulting compost will be
sold to the public. In the past, the composted
Efforts to bring new jobs and businesses
should be regional—and not just county-
by-county—said a task force report earlier
this year that criticized existing economic
development efforts here as too "fragmented.'
Responding to the task force's recommenda
tion that Athens-Clarke combine its economic
development efforts with those of Oconee
County, Mayor Heidi
Davison and two ACC
Commissioners met last
week with two Oconee
County commissioners.
The group is laying the
groundwork for a com
bined effort by the two
counties, each of which has its own economic
development office at present. Athens-Clarke
spends $150,000 yearly for economic develop
ment, and proposes that Oconee will contrib
ute the same amount. The task force report
suggests that "a significant private-sector
fundraising effort" could double that budget.
A regional approach to economic develop
ment was a recommendation of the OneAthens
sludge has been in demand. "As soon as it
was ready, it was gone. Everybody and their
brother wanted it," Corley says.
Use of sewage sludge is controversial in
some quarters. The Sierra Club calls sludge a
"complex, unpredictable, biologically-active
mixture of organic material and human patho
gens" and warns against using it on vegetable
gardens; and a UGA scientist, David Lewis,
lost his EPA job after he published research
that questioned the agency's safety standards
for sewage sludge. Those are the standards
that Athens-Clarke follows, ACC Environmental
Coordinator Dick Field acknowledges. Serious
problems with sludge arose in Augusta, GA,
where a farmer was compensated by USDA "for
his dead cows and contami
nated land" after spreading
sewage sludge on pastures,
the Athens Banner-Herald has
reported.
But that was over 20 years
ago, Corley says: "Augusta
was land-applying untreated biosolids. And
there's a huge difference between what
Athens-Clarke County does with wastewa
ter, and what Augusta was doing when that
occurred." In Athens, Field says, "Public
Utilities is constantly working with local
industries to make sure that their waste meets
our standards before it goes into our system,"
and a lot of industrial wastewater doesn't
enter the municipal system without pre-treat
ment. Tests are conducted regularly for over
20 substances, including heavy metals.
antipoverty initiative, and also of citizens who
revised Athens-Clarke's comprehensive land-
use plan in 2007. Then, Mayor Davison and
Oconee County Commission Chairman Melvin
Davis appointed the present task force of
prominent leaders of local industries, banks,
utilities, Athens Tech and UGA. Last week
the elected officials asked the task force to
draw up specifics for a
50-50 split in funding
and decision-making
between Clarke and
Oconee counties, but
to defer any framework
for how other counties
might later be accom
modated. "Those issues would be dealt with
at a later time, when the current initiative
had experienced some success," Davison tells
Flagpole, adding that Clarke and Oconee are
"natural partners." The task force report envi
sions the effort growing to include four to six
counties within 15 years.
John Huie jphuie@athens.net
"I don't do this with any glee," UGA
President Michael Adams said by way of
introducing his extensive comments to the
University's "cabinet" at its full-house meet
ing Thursday, Dec. 4. The twin major topics of
the day—the state of the University System
of Georgia budget and the U.S. Department
of Homeland Security's decision to site the
National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF)
in Kansas—made for a somber tone at the
meeting. On the matter of the budget, Adams
repeated several times his belief that advance
planning and "conservative management" by
top UGA officials has—so far—prevented the
economic downturn and state-level budgetary
scramble from severely impacting jobs at UGA.
In other words, Adams argued that he and
his staff have tried to stay a step ahead of
the increasingly bad fiscal news coming from
Atlanta—the 6 percent budget cut ordered
by the University System Board of Regents in
October, and the 8 percent cut anticipated as
of last week (increasing
the reduction to UGA's
state-appropriated funds
from $29.7 million to
about $39.7 million).
Adams told reporters after
the meeting that UGA's
response thus far has
been stronger, he thinks, than it was in 2003
(when a bad budget year came on faster than
it has in the current downturn).
"If we don't have more cuts than we now
know about, I believe we'll get through '09
without layoffs or furloughs," he said, admit
ting that there's no telling what fiscal year
2010 will bring. Sound management so far, he
said, has "protected a lot of people's jobs"—
including those of some who've complained
about "tight-fisted" policies in upper manage
ment so far. And he acknowledged that many
new hires are not being made: "In total, the
budget reductions are forcing UGA to defer fill
ing 167 faculty positions, 183 staff positions,
47 graduate assistant positions, and 52 stu
dent worker positions across the institution."
But Adams made clear that he understands
the degree to which a 5 percent reduction in
the employer contribution to full-time UGA
employees' health-insurance plans will hurt
those who do have jobs. "That's the one I
regret the most because of the hardship it
will work on some of our employees," he told
reporters. When asked if he anticipates further
cuts to benefits should the situation worsen,
Adams had this to say: "There are limits to
which you can reasonably go, and we're prob
ably nearing them, particularly for low-and
mid-wage employees." He argued, though,
that low-wage employees are helped by sev
eral years' "concerted attempts" to move up
the minimum hiring wage, and that employ
ees' benefit cuts are cushioned by intact merit
raises they'll receive in January—though,
again, he couldn't predict whether those
would exist in 2010.
In addition to the cuts in benefits, the
other fiscal decision to make waves last week
was the Board of Regents' decision—after
waiving a rule requiring student input in
changes to fees—to levy a special student
fee in the upcoming spring semester of $100
at research schools like UGA, $75 at the state
system's smaller comprehensive universi
ties, and $50 at two-year colleges. Adams
said he'd lobbied long for the fee increase
in order to maintain "quality" of service in
the system. But it was
the matter of procedure
that hit a nerve with
students across the state.
As UGA Graduate Student
Association President
Hank Clay told Flagpole,
the key for all students is
"the ability to plan—that's when it becomes
difficult." Students were upset with the
Regents, Clay said, "because we completely
understand the situation we're all in. We're all
in this together, and what's hard is not being
involved in the process."
On the matter of NBAF, Adams said, "We're
disappointed, but we're not forlorn. The same
strengths that existed here yesterday exist
here today." He added, "I bear no ill will to
my friends in the community who took a dif
ferent view on these matters," and said "there
were days... when I became concerned about
what I considered to be somewhat hysterical
charges." And in contrast to Georgia Governor
Sonny Perdue's statement later in the week
blaming local opponents for the loss of NBAF,
Adams said: "I don't know to what extent that
level of opposition proved to be a negative."
In response to a student journalist's ques
tion about down-the-road plans for the South
Milledge Avenue site offered up for NBAF,
Adams said: "That land, I have no doubt, will
ultimately be used."
Ben Emanuel ben@flagpole.com
Use of sewage sludge
is controversial in
some quarters.
John Huie jphuie@athens.net
Regional Economic
Development Effort on Track
The task force report
envisions the effort
growing to include four to
six counties within 15 years.
“We’re all in this together,
and what’s hard is not
being involved in the
process.”
6 FLAGPOLE.COM • DECEMBER 10, 2008