As the recession continues, South Carolina House subcommittees are garnering information from various state agencies about the status of their budgets and areas they may be able to trim in anticipation of another round of budget cuts that could be as much as 15 percent. Department of Corrections Director Jon Ozmint says his agency’s budget has already been cut to the bone. The Department of Corrections reportedly operates on a budget of $12,170 per inmate, per year. That budget is reported to be the lowest per inmate cost in the nation. In comparison, the neighboring state of Georgia spends approximately $18,500 per inmate, North Carolina approximately $23,000 per inmate and the Federal Bureau of Prisons close to $30,000 per inmate. Ozmint adds that state corrections employees experienced massive furloughs in 2009. [Read more...]
Clyburn: President’s budget “puts forth big ideas”
President Obama sent Congress his $3.8 trillion budget calling for billions of dollars in new spending to fight high unemployment.
South Carolina’s Congressman James Clyburn, the House Majority Whip, has been on the media front lines for the Democrats lately and fielded budget questions Monday on Fox News: ”I think the President is putting forth some big, big ideas. Let’s take for instance, this budget on nuclear energy. We have been talking about our investments on nuclear energy, what that will do to create new jobs. Going from $18-billion investment up to $54-billion in investments. That’s a pretty big deal to me and I think it’s a pretty big deal to the American people.” [Read more...]
Santee Cooper dedicates solar array to SC college
In a partnership between Santee Cooper, Palmetto Electric, and Technical College of the Lowcountry in Bluffton, a 20-kilowatt solar array was dedicated to the college’s campus. Santee Cooper spokeswoman Mollie Gore says the demonstration project is the largest solar installation in the Lowcountry.
“The project was financed or funded through our green-power sales. We have green-power generation across the state with our landfill generating stations, primarily. Our customers and the customers of the state’s electric cooperatives, including Palmetto Electric, have the option to pay a little extra in their bill each month to support green-power generation, and all that money is reinvested in new renewable generation,” says Gore. [Read more...]
NRC dispatches inspection team to Midlands nuclear plant
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission reports that is has dispatched a “Special Inspection Team” to the Westinghouse commercial nuclear fuel plant near Columbia, S.C., to review the circumstances associated with a January 24, 2010 event involving a spill of about 200 gallons of wastewater containing ammonia and low levels of uranium.
The NRC, in a statement says the spill was the result of a pump failure and operators shut down the process after a few minutes. Plant employees cleaned the area, no workers were exposed to significant concentrations and no medical attention was needed. Westinghouse reported the event to the NRC on January 25 and the NRC staff decided that a special inspection to review the facts surrounding the event, assess the Westinghouse response and evaluate the company’s corrective actions was the appropriate course of action.
The NRC special inspection team, begins its work at Westinghouse today to determine the safety implications and adequacy of the corrective actions for the equipment design and chemical safety issues which led to the event. The NRC inspectors will issue a publicly available report within 30 days of the inspection’s completion.
Cervical cancer still ranks high in SC (Audio)
Worldwide, cervical cancer is the second-most common type of cancer that strikes women -behind only breast cancer.
While the incidence of cases has improved in South Carolina, Dr. Lisa Spiryda, OB-GYN, says the state could do better. “Just a few years ago we were ninth in incidence in mortality and now we brought it down to fourteenth in incidence in mortality so a lot of the outreach programs and encouraging women -particularly in rural areas, have brought women in for PAP tests that haven’t gotten them in the past. But fourteenth really isn’t good enough.”
The American Cancer Society tells us that cervical cancer kills 288,000 women worldwide. Spiryda says that one of the goals is to encourage women of all ethnicities to see their doctor for exams. “We do know that minority populations, in particular African Americans and Hispanics continue to have very high rates of incidence of cervical cancers compared to Caucasian population. Specifically it’s a 30 to 40 percent higher incidence, and over 50 percent higher mortality in these populations. This is why it’s really important to encourage women of all ethnicities to be up to date on their PAP test and to see a doctor for their pelvic exams.”
(Dr. Spiryda on cervical cancer MP3 6:47) Dr. Lisa Spiryda on Cervical Cancer
