Across Georgia

Health officials OK coal path through city

CHARLESTON, S.C. --- South Carolina health officials have approved an energy company's request to increase the amount of coal that passes through Charleston.

The state Department of Health and Environmental Control announced Friday it had approved the request from Kinder Morgan Energy Partners.

T he approval came after a three-year review of the Texas-based company's proposal, The Post & Courier of Charleston reported.

It allows Kinder Morgan to more than double the volume of coal transported through the Cooper River terminal on its way to power plants throughout the Southeast.

Workers treated after inhaling epoxy fumes

SPARTANBURG, S.C. --- Eight construction workers at the BMW Manufacturing Co. plant have been treated after they were overcome by fumes.

BMW Manufacturing spokesman Bobby Hitt told the Herald-Journal of Spartanburg that the workers were applying epoxy to the floor of a paint shop that is being built near the existing plant.

The workers were given oxygen at the scene Friday, he said. No one was taken to a hospital.

Lost citations cost DeKalb County, state

DECATUR, Ga. --- Internal court e-mails show the DeKalb County Recorders Court has lost track of hundreds of thousands of citations, costing the county and state possibly tens of millions of dollars in uncollected fines.

The e-mails, obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution through the Georgia Open Records Act, show a two-year communications failure in the computer system has caused citations to sit unresolved in case databases.