Today’s Patreon-fueled shout-out comes from an anonymous supporter who wants to say again - "We keep each other safe. Wear a mask, wash your hands, and keep your distance."
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The seven-day average for positive PCR tests is steadily increasing in Virginia with that metric at 5.8 percent today. That’s up from 4.5 percent on October 2 and 5 percent a week ago. The seven-day average for new daily cases statewide is 1,306. The number of new cases was 1,551 on Saturday, 1,202 on Sunday and 1,026 today. The total number of cases in Virginia since the pandemic began is 183,418.
Another metric that is increasing is the total number of cases per 100,000 population within the last 14 days. Today that figure is 194.8. On October 15 the number was 166.9.
In the Blue Ridge Health District, there are another nine cases today, with the seven-day average of new daily cases at 21. There have been no new fatalities reported since October 23. The seven-day average for positive PCR tests is at 2.4 percent today.
The Blue Ridge Health District is within the VDH’s Northwest Region. The pandemic metric page shows that cases in the region have been increasing for the last 11 days, but percent positivity has been decreasing.
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Since August, Albemarle County has been encouraging its residents to vote early in-person or by mail in order to avoid long lines at the polls tomorrow.
“And my goodness, did they respond,” said Jim Heilman, the secretary of the Albemarle Electoral Board. At a press briefing on Friday, he gave a snapshot of how many have voted.
“We have had 23,152 people vote in person at the county office building on 5th Street,” Heilman said. “We have processed 16,026 mail ballots that we received and that’s a total of 39,178 people have already voted.”
Heilman said that’s about half of the registered voters in the county. He projected an 80 percent total-turn-out, which would be a modern day record.
All thirty polling places in county will be fully staffed and operational from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. Heilman said all election officers will wear masks, surfaces will be cleaned on a regular basis, and face-shields will be in place. Voters will be asked to wear face masks. Mail-in ballots will be received through noon on Friday, but they must be postmarked by November 3 to be counted.
On election night, Albemarle will report out preliminary results.
“On election night as the results come in from the polling places we will be reporting those as we traditionally do,” Heilman said. “Starting probably about 7:30 p.m. we will be getting results from the polling places and we will be posting those and we’ll also at the same time be posting those on the state website. At some point in the evening, probably by 9:00 p.m. and possibly not before 11:00 p.m we will also be posting the results of the early in-person voting and the mail balloting. That’s going to be the big number.”
Heilman said the State Department of Elections will combine the early in-person and mail-in numbers combined as one. He said the county will likely not provide any updates on Wednesday, but will do so on Thursday and Friday. Heilman said there may not be a final report on Albemarle’s results until Monday, November 9.
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As the community seeks pathways to become more sustainable, one way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is to stop discarded materials from being trucked to landfills far away. Is it possible to find a way to manufacture new glass bottles from those consumed in this area?
A subcommittee of Albemarle County’s Solid Waste Alternatives Advisory Committee (SWAAC) has been reviewing the financial feasibility of such an idea.
“So the operations team is looking into how we can get glass from users to Ivy [Material Utilization Center] where it can be turned into more glass products,” said Jesse Warren is the sustainable program manager at UVA Sustainability and the head of the SWAAC Operations Team. “Ivy MUC is willing to take glass and they’re willing to take it for free.”
Warren is referring to a facility owned by the Rivanna Solid Waste Authority built at a now-closed landfill. He led a discussion last Thursday about how beverage producers in the area can come together to discuss ways to haul used glass to that location. The idea of making new bottles locally is more feasible if enough raw material can be brought together.
Several industry representatives said they would be willing to do so.
Rob Gustafson is the owner and director of operations at Harvest Moon Catering.
“A good outcome for us would be figuring out any way we could get rid of our glass without having massive piles of broken disgusting stuff laying around next to our dumpster and ending up in the trash and not in the recycling, unfortunately,” Gustafson said, adding he would be interested in having some way to have glass picked up from catering events.
Elizabeth Tuel is with Devil’s Backbone Brewing Company, one of several alcohol-related businesses in Nelson County.
“I know there’s a lot of interest just within our business community about glass recycling options,” Tuel said.
Kerry Woolard is the general manager of Trump Winery. She said she wanted to know more about what initiatives have been worked in the past and why they stopped.
“I recall a time where we did recycle glass and then I recall a time where we used a single-stream recycling and then went away so it feels like we’ve gone backwards a little bit here but I don’t have the context of why or how,” Woolard said.
Scott Elliff is with DuCard Winery and he said he’s never had recycling on site in Madison County.
“We used to take our bottles down to McIntire Road in the back of my pick-up truck but that’s gotten to be pretty impractical and we’d rather see things go in a much larger basis,” Elliff said. “We’re ready to be do anything anytime on this. By volume it’s by far the biggest part of our overall waste stream.”
Scott DeFife is the president of the Glass Packaging Institute. He said there are 45 glass manufacturing facilities scattered across the United States. There is a crusher in Fairfax, and container factories near Williamsburg and Danville.
“We have kind of a gap here in this area,” DeFife said. “That doesn’t mean that we can’t make it work right now. It just means that we have to do a little bit of extra work.”
DeFife said one solution could be greater use of rail to reduce vehicle miles traveled by hauling trucks. I’ll have more on this discussion coming up in a future story on infocville.com.
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In meetings today, the Albemarle Architectural Review Board meets at 1 p.m. and will review the design of a new car wash at the intersection of U.S. 29 and Woodbrook Road at the former Allen, Allen, Allen, and Allen building. (ARB meeting info)
Charlottesville City Council meets at 6:30 p.m. and among the items on the agenda is a discussion of unmarked graves at a family cemetery in Pen Park. The bodies are believed to be those of enslaved individuals. (meeting info)
Check out yesterday’s Week Ahead newsletter for more details about Monday’s meetings as well as the rest of this week.
November 2, 2020: Albemarle prepares to count votes; Regional glass manufacturing?