Board of Commissioners - Regular Meeting

if you would please rise I'm going to call on Commissioner Smith for the invocation and the pledge everybody please bow your head Lord we just come to you today thankful for another day you blessed us with Lord be with our staff and be with us as elected leaders as we make decisions for our county and our community Lord and we ask for grace and forgiveness because we all need it please we thank you for the rain that you blessed us with and please be with the Communities of Eccles, Clinch, and Brantley, the elected leaders and the families that were affected by the wildfires, especially Brantley, 140 homes lost as they worked to rebuild. Be with our soldiers serving overseas, our first responders protecting us at home, Lord. And we just thank you for the good days and help us get through the bad days and enjoy every day that you have blessed us with. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, Mr. Smith. Do we have any leadership lounge folks with us tonight? Anyone? Nobody? All right, well, thank you. All right, we'll move right on in then. Commissioners, inside your packets, you'll find your minutes of the work session of May the 11th, as well as your regular session minutes of May the 12th. If there are no additions, deletions, or corrections, I'll entertain a motion to approve the minutes.

Motion to approve.

We have a motion to approve. Do I have a second?

Second.

I have a second. Any discussion? Hearing none, I'll call the vote. All in favor signify by aye.

Aye.

Any opposed, like sign. Hearing none, the motion carries. Agenda item 5A is the Coleman Road Northwest Paving and Drainage Improvements. This is a supplemental agreement number two. Mr. McCloud.

Yes, sir. Thank you. Coleman Road Northwest is a paving project on T-Splice 2. That project has been completed. There is a remaining amount of $424,000 left to pay the contract out. We asked TIA to fund that amount, and they have, which is the supplemental agreement before you.

Okay. Any questions for Mr. McCloud? Hearing none, I'll entertain a motion.

Motion to approve the supplemental agreement number two and authorize the chairman to sign.

We have a motion to approve the supplemental agreement and authorize the chairman to sign. Do I have a second?

Second.

Do I have a second? Any discussion? Hearing none, I'll call the vote. All in favor, signify by aye.

Aye.

Any opposed, like, sign? Hearing none, motion carries. Agenda item 5B is the Lowndes County Animal Shelter Design Bill Amendment, Exhibit B. Mr. McLeod.

Yes, sir. The design-build contract with Kellerman Construction was approved in December by the board. Kellerman has finished the design of the project as well as all the bidding processes. They have presented a total budget of $5 million with a schedule of values with $32,880 in contingency. Staff is ready to move forward with Amendment A141-2024, Exhibit B, which will allow construction to begin.

Any questions for Mr. McCloud? One, Chad, in the event it's approved tonight, what's the estimated time that we'll be opening the doors?

So part of the next process is they plan to start mid-June, mid to late June. We're looking at about 12 months of construction of the new building, and then we're going to have two, three months of transition and demo of the old building. So 13 months roughly to get into the new building and then a few months of demo. Thanks. 15,360.

Any other questions?

Thank you, Mr. McCloud. All right, hearing none, I'll entertain a motion.

Mr. Chairman, I move we approve the design build agreement, Exhibit B, and authorize you to sign the documents.

Okay, we have a motion to approve the design-build agreement and authorize the chairman to sign the agreement. Do I have a second? I have a second. Any discussion? Hearing none, I'll call the vote. All in favor, signify by aye.

Aye.

Any opposed, like, sign? Hearing none, we are on our way to a new animal shelter, folks.

Congratulations.

Thank y'all. All right, agenda item six, county manager's report. Ms. Dukes?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good evening, Commissioners. I would like to start my report tonight on behalf of staff congratulating Commissioners Weisenbaker, Orenstein, and Marshall on beginning a new term with us in January. We're excited about four more years of your leadership and keeping the minimum of our county moving forward. So thank you for your willingness to serve and Commissioner Marshall for your campaign success. Congratulations.

Thank you.

Real quick, a SPLOST 9 update. So staff has sent the architect all the former CAD drawings for the Carnegie Library. So the architect and the staff completed a detailed site assessment on May the 19th. So that outlines the list. Commissioner Weisenbaker, the EU, and Commissioner Evans had worked on with that board. And then for the governmental building, staff has found all the formal drawings for the building. The architect is going through those plans now to incorporate them into a CAD file. And the detailed site assessment is scheduled for the first week in June. So Mr. McCloud and I have already gone over and kind of outlined a scope of work there based on that budget. And we turn that over to the architect and they'll go through and do a detailed assessment. One of the questions that we have is, you know, some of those windows don't look great. So can the windows be repaired or are we getting into a window replacement? That's that will kind of set the tone for the rest of the project, because if we have to replace windows, that's going to cost a lot more than if we can just reseal the current windows. So we're hoping that we've got some good options there. So then the architect will have a detailed schedule put together in June, and the goal is to bid before the end of 2026. and hopefully we will be starting construction shortly after that or the beginning of 2027. And, of course, we will expedite that timeline based on the architect's availability, and then the scope of work will somewhat determine that. But that's kind of a worst-case scenario and sort of where we are as far as our timeline goes.

And that architect is Glavin?

Yes, yes. uh... the burn restriction so as you know the lord has sent us some rain and we're very grateful where that's concerned uh... your questions related to that were very timely we had our workshop as we do every year beginning hurricane season with the national weather service and they started out with a drought update uh... so kelly godsey told us that we've gotten five to seven inches of rain recently but we're still below our annual average this is an inter interim improvement we are still dry overall if this keeps up though they will eventually look at downgrading us to a d3 category we are currently at a d4 we know especially moving into hurricane there's a lot of vegetation across the county that needs to be cleaned up that also helps reduce our fire load so staff plans to lift that band restriction with your your blessing beginning June 1. Remember this only impacts those in residential zoning areas. Those that are in agricultural areas fell under the governor's ban and that has been lifted. So June 1 is the first week, the first next week that we have where residents could burn on a saturday if you remember that residential burning for the unincorporated area is the first and third saturday so miss barr will begin putting that information out so that people can prepare not just those folks that are ready to burn but also those folks that may be inconvenienced by outdoor smoke we know that first weekend that there will be a lot because folks have been waiting to get cleaned up so we hope that everyone can make plans around that if they need to to be inside during that period or maybe need to take a day trip while their neighbor burns. And we hope that not everyone decides to burn on that Saturday, but we are also prepared where the fire department and 911 are concerned to be very busy. Also, the minute that the governor lifted the burn ban, we dropped back to just issuing warnings for people. We have not been issuing citations since the ban was lifted. unless someone was burning something other than vegetative debris, and that's a different category of citation.

When did the governor lift the ban on the state forestry?

I have to go back and look at the date. I think it was about two weeks ago. Yes, sir. We can get that specific day free. And then with regards to the hurricane season update, I'm going to say this in the beginning and say it in the end. Remember, it only takes one, and there are definitely several in the forecast. But we have a 90% chance of normal to below normal season, which is about what we had. this past year in 2025. But again, it only takes one. So our preparedness efforts are ongoing. Um, poet works and utilities and emergency management and fire department, the sheriff's office, all of our public safety folks, nine one one. And then as you know, all of our departments that don't respond directly have other responsibilities related to working with volunteers and answering phones and helping capture all the data that's required for a FEMA reimbursement. FEMA is still only funding at a critical need level, so I think we're a little fearful that if we would have a large storm come through, we may not have the same approval that we have had in the past, and for that reason internally, we have a second process that is set up for FEMA us to take a look at our finances before and track them a little differently during to make sure that we don't overextend ourselves in a way that we're not confident that's going to be reimbursed. I know that one of the big conversations related to hurricane response has been sheltering. Part of the conversation that Ashley, Ty, and I had today was some of the efforts that the city's doing related to shelters. The 903 opportunity that we used last time as far as prior to an event when people maybe needed to hide from some wind and hide from some rain until after the event whenever the Red Cross would come in and set up. And then also, as you can imagine, we had some miscommunication with those folks that are on oxygen and some of those things. And those details have been worked out with our healthcare providers. The plan was in place already. The plan was accurate already. There was just some miscommunication on some of their ends. So we've got some clarification there and feel like we're in good shape. That concludes my report, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you. Any questions? Comments? All right. We'll move on now into our citizens wishing to be heard. Our first citizen is Mr. Jimmy LaFiles. Please come forward and state your name and address for the record, please. Good evening. Good evening.

I'm Jimmy LaFiles. I live at 3561 River Chase Drive. So what I want to talk about tonight, I was here a few weeks ago, you all probably remember. I'm a chemist. I've got probably 40 years and a little more of industrial experience all over the world doing chemical projects and taking care of chemicals. So I wanted to look into the chemical aspects of the data center, because you don't hear about it. You hear about electrical consumption, water consumption, heat, everything else, but I had to dig around a lot, but what I found out was really concerning, and I'm I'm really not trying to oversell this. I'm just laying it out, making sure you guys are up to speed on it. There are new EPA regulations that came out in November of last year under what they call the AIM Act. And part of what they require is for data centers and a lot of other big facilities that use a lot of refrigerants to move away from using water and other summer refrigerants and move towards refrigerants that have less of an impact on global warming. That's what they're trying to get at is reduce global warming, which sounds great, but the problem is of the remaining chemical refrigerants that they can pick from to use, from what I could find, eight out of nine of them are what we call PFAS chemicals. So I don't know if PFAS rings a bell. You guys, that's what they call forever chemicals, right? from a chemical standpoint, they're very dangerous because they're fully fluorinated hydrocarbons. And what that means is, that means is when they go into the environment, there's nothing in the environment that can break that bond. I mean, that chemical's gonna be around forever. And the only thing that it can degrade into is an even worse chemical called PFA, pyrophoric acid. And of course those chemicals are bad because they hang around forever. They're highly mobile in water. They accumulate in biological systems. And they're toxic and known to be carcinogenic and have effects on immune systems. I mean, they're bad news. They're so bad news that the federal drinking water standard is four parts per trillion. Not billion, not million, but trillion. I mean, it's the most restrictive water standard there is. These are highly volatile flammable gases that will be circulated all day and all night through the cooling ducts in the banks of the data center to cool the computers that are doing all these transactions. And the problem is if you have a leak, they're going to leak into the atmosphere and then they're usually returned back to ground by by either rain or snow, if you ever have any snow, or if it's in the case of a fire, if they're using some kind of fire retardant, then that pushes them back to the ground, and then you get contamination in the groundwater and in the ground, and these are called, circular chemicals, which means any ground contaminated with them has to be treated as a superfund site. I don't know if y'all ever dealt with a superfund site, but that means digging up a whole bunch of dirt, excavating it, replacing it with clean dirt is a big deal, big deal. Very expensive, very disruptive. So PFAS chemical on site, okay, how many PFAS chemicals are we going to have? From the information I got, for a small to a medium-sized center, it's gonna be in the neighborhood of probably eight to 10,000 pounds. To give you an idea of what a risk that is, 50 pounds of one of those chemicals, if it were to get into the Georgia-Florida aquifer, could contaminate a trillion gallons of water above that four ppm drinking water standard. A trillion gallons of water. which is about a year's worth of water that we pull out of that aquifer. So, I mean, we're talking very significant stuff here. So, I just wanted to bring all that up. I mean, I know the D.C. people, the data center people are going to try to control any kind of release like that, I'm sure they are, but I'm gonna tell you, I've got a lot of practical experience trying to work with chemicals like that, and you can't engineer something to safeguard something like that. So I just want y'all to be aware of it, take it into consideration. I would recommend that We wait, you guys wait on making any kind of decisions until you really understand what this really means. It's gonna be a year or two for it to play out. There's possible other ways that they can get around using these kind of chemicals that may work out. But in the meantime, man, I wouldn't touch this.

Thank you, sir. Thank you. All right, our next citizen is Mr. Gene Fisher, George Fisher. I apologize, I couldn't, can't hardly make out.

We were delayed by a funeral. We were delayed by a funeral, and I wrote really quick. Oh, okay.

So, straighten me out, is it George or Gene? George.

George, okay. My name is George Fisher. I live at 5278 Hall Road, Hayhira, Georgia, 31632. I want to thank you for the opportunity to come in here and speak with you and to share my concerns. I've been studying this aquifer for a while. It's kind of reinvigorated part of me that's been dormant since I retired from the oil and gas business. There's so much written on our aquifer. I've got all the way up to 1992 now, so I'm still behind the times. But what my concern is is everything that's been written about our water here. From Hill's first report in 1944 up through the 60s, through Krause's reports in 78, say the same thing. Our aquifer is fragile. It is easily contaminated because it is a karst topography. Sometimes I'd like to bring in some karst rock to show you what it looks like. It looks like a honeycomb. This was a good example of this. We've been in this drought. And there's a well, a USGS monitoring well here in Lowndes County. It's 19R009. It's real time, shows you the level of the aquifer. Earlier this month, it was at a nearly, from what I could tell, a all-time low of 142 and a half feet below ground level. This well is right over here. It's located very close to us. The second it started to rain, Well, no, that's an exaggeration. About an hour after it started to rain, that aquifer started to rise. So the rain came down. The charge zone is listed over below Cherry Creek, the sinkholes there. All these things document the same thing. Our water is over there. So that water started to rise in the river. The water in the test well started to rise almost at the same time. Now I think it's about 133 feet below ground level. So it's come up 10 feet since we had five inches of rain. What does that tell you? This aquifer is transmissive. It's porous and permeable. Water scoots through it. And that is what is a concern I have is the speed at which the contamination occurs. It's basically a hollow rock like a sponge. I've been also reading some things quite a lot on South Florida, and they are having lots of problems now with their water. They've taken too much water out for agriculture, for other things, and they're having a real problem now where they're actually starting to suck in seawater. The sea level's rising. And we don't want that to happen. My concern is it is so easily contaminated that any spill at the data center, a hurricane, a tornado, an accident, a disgruntled employee, who knows what, is going to put that water right in to the river. As I said last time I spoke, the data center's at 190 feet above sea level. The water is at those, with the Coochie River is at 115 feet above sea level. So there's a 75, 80 foot drop. It all goes in there. And that's my big concern, is a contamination of our drinking water. As you heard from Mr. LaFiles, this stuff is strong stuff. And if there's a fire, the fire retardant goes on it, the foam goes on it. If it's raining, all of that comes right down. I want to end with this. In April 10th, 1912, the Titanic set sail from Southampton to New York. It stopped at Ireland, dropped off some mail, dropped off some passengers, then steamed ahead. Between April 12th and April 14th, the Titanic received seven messages about icebergs ahead. Icebergs, large bergs, growlers, flow ice, pack ice. Seven times, Captain John, Edward John Smith, was the most experienced captain with White Star Lines. He acknowledged those messages. Just before midnight on Friday, that april fourteenth they hit the iceberg four hours later they found her seven times they were warned i think we need to take what these people are saying about our offer for seriously thank you thank you commissioners any questions comments

I'll entertain a motion.

I just say, Paige, can y'all follow up with the whale and the information like he expressed about that?

Yeah, we'll follow up on all that. Part of what you're doing right now is gathering all the information that you can about the entire issue. So that's a work in progress. Any other questions or comments? I'll entertain a motion to adjourn.

Motion.