Powering NBAF

Not a Deal-breaker, Officials Say

originally published March 26, 2008

If - as appears generally to be the case - high-level politicians in Kansas, like Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, have been lobbying harder in Washington to snag the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF) than have their counterparts in Georgia, it also became clear in mid-March that the Kansans are no more organized as a consortium than any other short-listed state’s NBAF consortium is. As of press time last week, ripples were still being felt across the far-flung potential NBAF sites from Sebelius’s statement the week before that a new “wrinkle” had come into NBAF planning along with a late-February letter from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to all the consortia across the country. In that statement, as in last week's City Dope in Flagpole, the “wrinkle” had the words “power plant” attached to it, but officials in Athens and elsewhere have sought to play down the significance of the utilities-providing issue, saying that initial reactions (by officials, that is - in Kansas and elsewhere - not to mention a crew of feisty Republican Kansas bloggers) got the import of the DHS communiqué wrong.

“I think we all have a better perspective this week, as we’ve had time to think about it a little bit,” says UGA Vice President for Research (and NBAF point man) Dr. David Lee. What he understands, he says, is that the DHS letter - apparently not a public document, at least as of Flagpole’s press time - provided refined information on an aspect of the facility that candidate sites have long known they’d need to provide: a “central utility node,” in Lee’s words, “through which the utilities come: water, power, gas….”

Tweaks to the needs of that “node” are the result of the fact that DHS has had a consultant design team working on conceptual design aspects of NBAF in parallel to the site selection process; new information has then been relayed to the prospective sites. And although Lee says he was already well-informed about the needs of that central utilities plant, there was a bit of a surprise in the costs associated with it: roughly $65 million, or three times the projected cost of developing the Athens NBAF site. “I hadn’t anticipated that cost,” he says, “but in retrospect there’s nothing terribly surprising about it.”

And although after-effects of the Sebelius statement continued to produce confusing media reports throughout last week - for instance, a Morris News Service story ran in the Mar. 18 Rome News-Tribune indicating concern at Gov. Perdue’s office in Atlanta, while in the Athens Banner-Herald that day the issue seemed settled - Dr. Lee reiterated to Flagpole (the next day) that the Georgia NBAF team is all on the same page. “I think they - the Governor’s office - understand that we’re not talking about a power plant, we’re not talking about capabilities that haven’t been on the table all along,” Lee said.

Ben Emanuel

ben@flagpole.com

“Corridor Management”

On the Shelf or Off?

originally published March 26, 2008

It may just be a consultant’s study, but to some Athens-Clarke County (ACC) Commissioners, the county’s “corridor management strategy” needs to sketch a broad vision of attractive streets that will accommodate more than just automobiles. County staffers, represented by Manager Alan Reddish, have had a narrower view of the glossy report - which suggests amenities like landscaping, sidewalk widths, “curb cuts” and bike lanes (or not) for a dozen categories of streets which it describes. A “suburban mixed use” street like Jefferson Road, for example, should have seven-foot-wide sidewalks, brick crosswalks, and grass and street trees between the sidewalk and road. (And since the county’s “bicycle master plan” says bike lanes are planned eventually for that road, it should include bike lanes. But like other street projects suggested in the study, there are as yet no plans or funding for building such amenities.)

Commissioners accepted the report last year with a promise to broaden its scope - perhaps to include policies on signs, overhead utility wires, bus access, lighting, and ways to slow down vehicle traffic. “We definitely need the traffic engineers to look at things like mass transit accommodation, speed limits, traffic calming,” said Commissioner Alice Kinman at last week’s meeting of the commission’s Government Operations Committee. Reddish has resisted revising the $42,000 study, saying no proposed streetscape projects (other than now-completed Baxter Street) have actually been funded yet. But he agreed at the Mar. 18 meeting to devise some broader “standards that ought to be considered” on the various categories of streets whenever streetscape projects are initiated. With some tweaking, the study may soon return to the full commission.

Center medians - controversial with business owners, who feel they limit customer access - should be considered only “where acceptable to adjacent businesses,” the study says. Curb cuts - driveways entering businesses - are to be limited to one per business. The study initially recommended outlawing billboards, but the final version recommends banning them only along “scenic” roads, with “strict limits” elsewhere. (Athens’ 1994 sign ordinance limits the size and height of new signs in various zoning districts - to eight feet tall in office districts, and 20 feet in commercial ones - but existing signs were “grandfathered in” and can be maintained indefinitely. Electronic signs that change more than once every 10 minutes are illegal under the ordinance.)

One aim of the “corridor management” study is to give adjacent business owners an idea of what to expect when the county does a streetscape project. Although commissioners regard the Baxter Street improvements as a success, those did require some businesses to sell additional right-of-way width to the county. Some didn’t want to sell. “They dug in their heels at every step,” one commissioner tells Flagpole. County staffers - who must negotiate with such businesspeople - appear to be shy of complicating such negotiations by adding controversial (to some business owners, anyway) proposals like center medians and bus stops. Many commissioners, on the other hand, think those amenities are only reasonable, and want to make sure they are considered when future streetscape projects are being planned.

John Huie

jphuie@athens.net

Commish Not Unanimous on New Water Rate Structure

originally published March 26, 2008

Several ACC Commissioners voiced reservations at their Mar. 20 agenda-setting session about a new water rate structure that’s intended to reduce summertime demand for water by charging more for it. (Customers will be charged up to two-and-a-half times more for using water above an average amount which varies according to the customer’s past usage.) The “conservation rate structure” - developed by county staffers and a 13-member committee of citizens - will be up for commission approval Apr. 1, and could go into effect in July. But the higher charges apply only to “spikes” of usage - not to the actual amounts of water used by a customer - and that means two customers could get very different bills for using the same amount of water, Commissioner Carl Jordan pointed out.

“If the objective is to make it expensive for water ‘wasters,’ we haven’t really done that,” he said of the proposed new structure. But ACC Deputy Manager Bob Snipes defended the plan as being fairer to large families - who would pay the same per-gallon rate as smaller households, so long as they didn’t use more water in summertime (or any other month, though summer is when most people use more water). Under the plan, every water customer will be automatically assigned a “winter average” of water demand, based on how much water that customer used in the four-month period beginning in December of 2005 (for industrial customers, a 12-month average from fiscal-year 2006 will be used instead). Then if the customer uses over 25 percent more than his assigned average, he will be charged 250 percent of the normal rate for the extra water. Snipes has explained that the county must supply over 25 percent more water on some summer days than it does on average days - and somebody has to pay for that additional capacity in the water system. At present, those costs are spread among all water customers. But it would be fairer, Snipes says, for customers who use more water in some months to pay higher rates for that extra water - rather than spread the costs of expensive system capacity among all water customers.

For a typical water customer whose winter water bill runs perhaps $25, doubling water usage during one month - perhaps from watering outdoor plants - would increase his bill by about $55 under the new system. At present rates, that extra water would cost only an extra $25, according to an example from the ACC’s Public Utilities Department.

The irony of such a rate structure is that - while it discourages “spikes” in water demand - it may not encourage overall water conservation. Large industrial users will pay less per gallon - if their water use doesn’t spike - than some homeowners who use much less water. And customers who used less water during the time period used to determine their average use will pay more (if their water use goes up) than other customers who didn’t conserve in the first place. Commissioner George Maxwell asked, what if a customer were out of town or in the hospital during that period? Their water bills would then be much higher, and “that’s unfair,” he said. Snipes responded that appeals to the billing office could be made in such cases.

Commissioner Kelly Girtz said he couldn’t fully support the plan either. “The costs aren’t related to supply,” he said. Also, he said, “past profligate users are going to benefit from this plan, and past conservation - because of hospitalization, or vacation, or simply day-to-day conservation - those folks are going to be disproportionately punished for their low use.” But two members of the county’s water conservation committee spoke in favor of the pricing plan - no citizens spoke against it - and no detailed alternatives were discussed.

Commissioners also prepared at the meeting to purchase 100 specialized laptop computers for police cars at a cost of some $9,000 apiece (plus $2,500 in annual operating expenses). Information requests that are now handled over police radio can often be more efficiently answered through such mobile computers, ACC Manager Alan Reddish told commissioners. “There are times when officers cannot communicate through our voice system, because it is overtaxed,” he said. A panel chaired by Superior Court Judge David Sweat has said the computers are a “high priority” need. Officers will also be able to file reports from them. But, Commissioner David Lynn wanted to know, why do they cost so much?

So did Flagpole. “We have tested some of them,” says ACC Police Captain Mike Shockley. “They’re extremely rugged. They’re waterproof, spill-proof,” and have bright touch-screens that can be read in daylight, he says. And the state of Georgia has purchased the same “industry standard” computers at a similar price, he adds.

John Huie

jphuie@athens.net