Want to control growth?
Let the people
vote!
Help put
HOMETOWN DEMOCRACY on the 2008 ballot
Please
download and SIGN THE PETITION !
http://www.FloridaHometownDemocracy.com
PO Box
636, New Smyrna Beach, FL 32170-0636.
______________++_____________
Dec. 6, 2006-
"Who Killed The Electric Car? A Lack of
Consumer Confidence or Conspiracy?"
"Who Killed the Electric Car?" Looks at the hopeful birth and
untimely death of the electric car, an environmentally-friendly,
cost-saving salvation to some, but a profit barrier to others.
It was among the fastest, most efficient production cars ever built.
It ran on electricity, produced no emissions and catapulted American
technology to the forefront of the automotive industry. The lucky few
who drove it never wanted to give it up. So just why did General Motors
crush its fleet of EV1 electric vehicles in the Arizona desert?
In a film that has all the elements of a murder mystery, Director Chris
Paine points the finger at car companies, the oil industry, bad ad
campaigns, consumer wariness, and a lack of commitment from the U.S.
government.
In 1996, General Motors launched the first modern-day commercially
available electric car, the EV1. The car required no fuel and could be
plugged in for recharging at home and at a number of so-called battery
parks.
Many of the people who leased the car, including a number of
celebrities, said the car drove like a dream.
"...the EV1 was a high performer. It could do a U-turn on a dime; it was
incredibly quiet and smooth. And it was fast. I could beat any Porsche
off the line at a stoplight. I loved it," said Actress, Alexandra Paul.
After California regulators saw G.M.s electric car in the late 1980s,
they launched a zero-emissions vehicle program in 1990 to clean up the
state's smoggy skies.
Under the program, two percent of all new cars sold had to be electric
by 1998 and 10 percent by 2003.
Actress Alexandra Paul in her EV1, G.M.'s electric car. |
 |
But it was not to be. A little over 1,000 EV1s were produced by G.M.
before the company pulled the plug on the project in 2002 due to what
they say was insufficient demand. Other major car makers also ceased
production of their electric vehicles.
In the wake of a legal challenge from G.M. and DaimlerChrysler,
California amended its regulations and abandoned its goals. Shortly
thereafter, automakers began reclaiming and dismantling their electric
vehicles as they came off lease.
Some suggest that G.M. -- which says it invested some $1 billion in the
EV1 -- never really wanted the cars to take off. They say G.M.
intentionally sabotaged their own marketing efforts because they feared
the car would cannibalize its existing business. G.M. disputes these
claims.
The film chronicles GM's efforts to demonstrate to California that
there was no demand for their product, and then to take back every EV1
and dispose of them. A few EV1's were disabled and given to museums and
universities, but almost all were found to have been crushed; GM never
responded to the EV drivers' offer to pay the residual lease value ($1.9
million was offered for the remaining 79 cars in Burbank before they
were crushed).
Who Killed The Electric Car is a fascinating documentary and one
that everyone should make sure they get to see. If you missed the
Sierra Club showing, make sure you rent it with friends and family
and find out why the only kind of cars that we can drive run on oil
even though for a while there was a terrific alternative, a pure
electric car.......... an eye- opening experience!
________________++_____________
“EGANS CREEK GREENWAY WORKSHOP”
Public
Meeting , March 15th
Doors open 4:30 for exhibit viewing and discussion
FDOT presentation at 6:00
MLK Center Auditorium
1200 Elm Street
Florida Dept of Transportation (FDOT)
will be sharing their findings and recommendations with the public. The topic will be the intrusion of salt water to
the south and its effect on the Greenway and whether or not the area
should be protected as a fresh water or salt water system.
FDOT
has published a “Preliminary Engineering Report-Evaluation of Jasmine
St. Tide Barrier Alternatives, Egans Creek Nassau County Florida.” This
report was created by Taylor Engineering, the company that was
responsible for the original project. The report evaluates the
alternatives for correcting the problems and it finds
some approaches
feasible.
To
read the report
Click here
To
be depressed by the photos
Click here
01 May 07 Editorial Response to a "one man"
salt marsh greyway plan
Amelia Island’s Egans Creek Greenway – a 238-acre passive park in the
island’s heart – is embroiled in controversy with environmentalists and
homeowners on one side, and special interests on the other.
The
short story: the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) persuaded the
City of Fernandina Beach to permit it to turn some 100 acres of the
freshwater Greenway into salt marsh as mitigation for wetlands it destroyed
in Duval County. Faulty engineering caused the entire fresh water ecosystem
to become inundated with salt water. FDOT admits its mistake and,
responding to a virtually unanimous outcry from the public, and an
unequivocal demand from the city commission, has begun to correct the
error. But one individual, Clinch Kavanaugh, has thrown a wrench into the
works with a complaint to the St. Johns River Water Management District (SJWMD)
that was about to issue a permit for the FDOT fix-it plan thus delaying the
work while salt water continues to destroy trees in the Greenway and
threaten homes along its borders.
Egans Creek’s headwaters lie in the center of the island.
It originally was a meandering stream that wound northward, widening into a
delta that opened onto the Amelia River not far from the St. Mary’s River.
Salt water flowed on tides south into the Egans Creek basin, mixing with
fresh water coursing from the island’s interior. Beaver dams stabilized the
basin into a three-part ecosystem: salt, brackish and fresh. While
Amelia’s historic stands of maritime forest were reduced by development,
they flourished in the Egans Creek basin.
Seventy years ago decisions were made that permanently
altered the nature of the basin to accommodate it for development.
Fernandina installed floodgates under the Atlantic Avenue bridge near the
north end of the basin to stop the intrusion of saltwater under the
roadway. The creek was also channelized – turned from a meandering stream
to a straight north-south canal. In a failed effort to deal with
mosquitoes, the city dug east-west trenches throughout the basin, and dug a
secondary channel. Gradually fresh water vegetation took over the entire
basin south of Atlantic and the Greenway was established as a protected
park. Homes were built along both sides of the Greenway.
Otters, raccoons, deer, bobcats, alligators, many
ducks and other bird species thrived in the fresh water ecosystem.
In 2003, FDOT restored the flow of salt water from the north
side of Atlantic Avenue to the south with a new system of flood gates to
mitigate the destruction of four and one half acres of wetlands in two Duval
County projects.
The original mitigation involved only 30 acres, but FDOT
enlarged the acreage in the permitting process to include the 106 acres
between Atlantic Avenue and Jasmine Street. At a heated meeting in June of
‘03, citizens requested local officials keep the mitigation to the original
30 acres, but to no avail. There was also concern that salt water would
extend below Jasmine into the southern portion of the basin. FDOT engineers
promised that wouldn’t happen and the area below Jasmine would remain a
fresh water ecosystem.
The north end of the
Greenway now shows significant tidal changes and a succession to a salt
marsh system. However, salt water has flowed under Jasmine
and entered the southern Greenway. A 50-acre grove of red maple trees has
died, and the destruction to the fresh water ecosystem is spreading.
Further, the water level both above and below Jasmine has increased by about
18 inches and backyards of adjacent homes are being eaten away.
In response to the ensuing
outcry, FDOT held a “town hall” meeting on the
issue in March. Some 80 people who attended were unanimous in their
comments that the salt-water intrusion below Jasmine should be stopped
immediately. There was general agreement that there should be studies made
– at FDOT expense – to determine what to do next, but preventing further
salt water damage was an urgent priority.
FDOT
engineers accepted
responsibility and told city commissioners they will fix the damaged
Greenway south of Jasmine.
"We have damaged property
we didn't have any legal right to, and we will have to remedy that somehow,"
FDOT Environmental Management Engineer Don Dankert said.
An emergency gravity gate
at Jasmine to stop the flow of salt water southward, but permit fresh water
to flow north to prevent flooding, is the proposed solution to maintain the
status quo until studies can determine the next steps.
The Fernandina City Commission passed an
unequivocal resolution to require FDOT to stop salt-water intrusion now and
issued a permit to the agency to begin work immediately.
Despite all this the project has been put on hold because of a formal
complaint filed by one man, Kavanaugh. As a result, further destruction
will be allowed to continue until June when the SJWMD board will review the
proposed permit. (SJWMD staff would have issued the permit by now if it
wasn’t for the lone objection.)
Kavanaugh’s position is that Egans Creek should
be restored to its so-called "natural state” shown on a map he has dated
1769. That is a very strange position for Kavanaugh, who has represented
developers against environmental interests, to take because most of the
changes to his map are the result of residential, commercial and industrial
development. Amelia Island is far from its "natural state" anywhere. Egans
Creek has been so changed and reengineered by development, that the question
of "restoration" is moot.
Nature does
not allow us to go back and replicate a select portion of the past without
taking into consideration that the entire past would have to be replicated.
The mitigation destroyed a present day ecosystem, not a 200-year-old
environment.
All the
homes that line the Greenway are not going to be removed to conform to a
1769 map. The mosquito control drainage trenches and the canal are not
going to be filled to restore the original meandering creek.
Nassau Sierra Group met with environmental engineers who say "restoration"
is not relevant. What needs to be done, the experts say, is to determine
what the community wants the Greenway to be and then determine how best to
make it so. FDOT has agreed to conduct such a study with aid from a state
engineering program. The city is creating a committee to compile a Greenway
management plan. Nassau Sierra has helped form a separate citizens committee
and has been awarded a grant to conduct its own research. This is the way
it should be done; the public has been heard and action is being taken.
Once the salt water intrusion south of Jasmine is stopped we must focus on
an ecological perspective of the Greenway,
including the desires and needs of its recreational human users -- and the
animals that they cherish.
Amelia Island
and Nassau County have many salt marshes and many creatures that thrive
there such as wood storks, roseate spoonbills, herons and egrets. But we
need ecologic diversity and without a fresh water ecosystem in the southern
Greenway, we will not have it.
With a freshwater habitat in the
Greenway, birdwatchers will continue to travel here to expand their life
list of freshwater bird species; photographers will continue to come for
rare shots of otters and bobcats. Hikers, joggers, bikers and dog-walkers
will retain the variety of sightings that this freshwater habitat has long
afforded them. Freshwater fishermen on our island value the fish they catch
here. If we lose it to salt-marsh the loss is insurmountable for many
residents and visitors.
The "let
nature take its course" path of continuing to allow conversion of this
habitat to salt marsh is the wrong course.
Robert M.
Weintraub
Fernandina
Beach
Robert Weintraub is a member of the Nassau Sierra Group's executive
committee.
____________**_________________
Damaging
Transportation Legislation Now on Gov. Crist's Desk
Please Ask Gov. Crist to Veto HB 985!
The damaging transportation bill,
HB 985, has now been transmitted to the
Governor and is awaiting his signature.
Please contact him as soon as possible and ask him to
veto this outrageous legislation. He can be
reached at Phone: 850-488-7146, Fax: 850-487-0801, or
email.
1000 Friends is joining the The Nature Conservancy, Audubon of
Florida, Defenders of Wildlife, the Florida Wildlife Federation,
and the Sierra Club in calling for this veto.
Among other things, this legislation:
-
Perpetuates the status quo of large-scale road-building
as the solution to Florida's transportation needs.
-
Allows FDOT to lease existing toll facilities to private
entities for up to 75 years, lessening state oversight
for the planning, construction and operation of our
public transportation system.
-
Changes existing law to allow projects to be advanced
outside of FDOT's 5-year work program if the project
increases capacity and is greater than $500 million
dollars in the 10-year strategic plan.
-
Amends Florida statutes so that expressway, bridge,
transportation and toll road authorities can enter
public-private agreements for any project that increases
capacity without being limited to a planning horizon.
With this new unbridled authority, such an entity could
potentially build a project identified on a future
corridor plan that does not satisfy any current capacity
need.
-
Weakens the linkage between growth management and
transportation planning by letting landowners provide
right-of-way for construction of facilities as a means
of securing future concurrency credits before future
road projects are identified within the capital
improvement element of local government comprehensive
plans. This language encourages what we perceive to be a
chronic problem within Florida whereby roads--rather
than planning--drive growth.
-
(Please note: a highly controversial provision in the
bill that would double the bonding authority for
Turnpike projects was included in the State Budget and
has been signed into law).
|
______________**_________________
VOLUNTEERS NEEDED!
We need help collecting signatures on the Hometown Democracy petition.
We are planning to canvass a different location in Nassau County every
Saturday until the end of the year. If you could donate just one
Saturday this year we could get it done. I will be doing it each
Saturday and would really appreciate the company. If you are interested
please call Joan Altman 277-2274
CITY
CHARTER RE-WRITE
The City Commission has
appointed a citizens committee to make some changes to the charter for a
referendum in 2008. Unfortunately no citizens attended the first
meeting. It is very important that we each stay on top of the proposed
changes so we understand what will be on the ballot. Now is the time to
participate and be a part of the process. Don’t miss the next meeting.
We are planning a get together at a local restaurant after each meeting,
so try and be there. For time and place, please call Julie 583-4388 or
Joan 277-2274
"Irreplaceable"
Creatures
Suing
in Defense of Sea
Turtles
Top
Prize to Mountaintop
Removal Foe
In
The Win Column
Major
EPA Ruling on Greenhouse
Gases
Island
Water Policy: No Longer
"Lolo?"
Coal
Veto Fight Looms in
Kansas
Phosphate
Mine Stalled Near
Yellowstone
One
Good Thing Leads to
Another in Florida
Court
Squashes Kane County
Mutiny
Law
of the Wild Land is
Signed
Greenhouse
Gas Curbs Survive
Congressional Action
Video | South Florida's tire reef
