Letters for Saturday, July 21, 2012
• Gas costly • Substitute/part-time teacher’s future? • Bush blame game? • In defense of KIUC
Gas costly
In recent TGI Forum commentaries, both Mr. Lewis and Mr. Rachap recently promoted the purchase of natural gas by KIUC. Digging deeper, one learns that there’s a sinister side to the promise of cheap energy from this source.
It’s been well documented that those living in the areas where natural gas is being extracted are paying a life-threatening price.
Fracking, the process that removes methane (mostly) from rock shale in the earth, is creating health problems as well as degrading the lifestyle in communities where it’s being extracted.
In southwest Pennsylvania, huge tanker trucks filled with fracking fluid roar though once sleepy towns; towering methane flaming stacks disrupt a former tranquil countryside with flares and jet engine noise. Fracking fluid, injected into wells to flush out the gas, contains several toxic chemicals that have contaminated drinking water and let off a strong odor. And breaking the rock shale emits high amounts of radon and possibly other radioactive substances.
“Pennsylvania’s residents are paying a heavy price for the state’s natural gas boom: undrinkable water, respiratory ailments, and dead pets.” Sierra Magazine, July/August (www.sierraclub.org/sierra/201207/pennsylvania-fracking-shale-gas-199.aspx)
The kicker in this scary scheme is that the greenhouse gas emissions from burning the natural gas for energy are said to be as toxic as those of coal or oil.
Let’s do the right thing on Kaua’i: focus on clean renewable energy to replace oil and not even consider profiting from the misery of others.
Gabriela Taylor, Keapana Valley
Substitute/part-time teacher’s future?
DOE’s actions of withholding portions of subsitute/partime teacher’s pay for 9 years has placed substitute teachers in a very precarious position: a potential position of driving the State of Hawaii into bankruptcy.
After substitutes won court decisions (through the State Supreme Court) it’s been determined that the Department of Education withheld, embezzled, millions of dollars from temporary hires for the DOE’s own agendas. Thank you BOA/DOE.
Witnessing the growing numbers of cities in California filing bankruptcy as a result of government incompetence and union pressures, the State of Hawaii cannot be far behind in taking those very same bankrupt footsteps.
Salaries owed to temporary teachers, many single moms and seniors trying to make ends meet, hovers between $50 to $90 million and not one penny has been reimbursed.
Adding this to a state deficit of $600,000,000, what are the chances of subs/part time teachers being reimbursed?
The question needing to be asked is: Is this the leadership you want shaping your children’s futures?
Why aren’t criminal charges being implemented? If your employer “withheld” portions of your salaries for “misinterpreting the law”, would you demand prosecution? Would you call it “misinterpreting” or embezzlement?
Aloha.
John Hoff, Substitute teacher, Lawai
Bush blame game?
Once again John Zwiebel (“Thank Bush, GOP for money mess” July 15 letter) can’t help but fall for the “don’t confuse me with the trees, there is no forest” syndrome. It seems the far left just can’t admit the obvious reality that we have a failed president. Probably because they voted for him!
Bush was handed a presidency that could not have been more difficult. Saddam Hussein, 9/11 and entering a cyclical recession all at the same time was a difficult period of time for our country. He made mistakes for sure, but they were not as ridiculous as throwing our future generations money away to prop up businesses that should have been allowed to go bankrupt, restructure and re-emerge in a stronger position for the future. Contrary to left leaning pap, companies who go bankrupt do not fire all their workers! The only ones who lose their jobs are those who are a drag on the company instead of a force for growth! You can look at just about every airline flying today and they’ve all been in bankruptcy. No stupid president threw billions of your dollars at them, and how are they doing now?
George W. Bush did not order 241 drone strikes, launch FBI raids on antiwar activists, expand the Patriot Act, authorize the assassination of U.S. citizens abroad, appoint Monsanto executives to the FDA, expand the Iraq war, bow to the Arabian king, ram a complicated and economy-killing health care fiasco down our throats, or throw away trillions of hard earned taxpayer dollars in his failed attempt to stop the recession! Barack Obama did!
Barack Hussein Obama wants to force everyone to prove they have health insurance, but people don’t have to prove they’re citizens! Why? Because those who are uneducated illegal immigrants will vote for him because he offers them “free stuff” paid for with other peoples money! That’s the true core of Obama’s campaign agenda! Offer the voters “free stuff” while at the same time scaring the uneducated about the other guy!
Obama is all about class warfare. He proliferates a poor against rich, man against woman, gay against straight, and illegal citizens against legal as his re-election agenda. Better than talking about the economy, right Mr. Obama? Instead of his campaign proving he’s been a successful president, they’re focusing on dogs kenneled on top of a car, overseas bank accounts that make excellent business diversification sense for the wealthy, and Bain Capital. That’s all he’s got against Romney?
But then if we had to compare Obama the far left activist, Rev. Wright, free taxpayer supplied education, failed lawyer, community organizer, absent nonvoting U.S. senator, and his tax-evader executive staff, to Mitt Romney’s senior class president, Eagle Scout, worked his own way through college, creator of a business that made his family half a billion dollars, successful husband of 40 years with many beautiful successful children, donation of two years of his life to serve a church mission, gifts of over $4 million dollars every year to charity, speaks three languages, saved the winter Olympics for America, a successful governor and admired leader in every circle he’s touched; I wonder who is better qualified?
Give us a break Mr. Zwiebel. Your Bush blame game is over!
Gordon Oswald, Kapaa
In defense of KIUC
In his commentaries published in the April 28 and July 8 editions of The Garden Island, Walter Lewis offers critiques of the management of the Kaua’i Island Utility Cooperative that rely on inaccurate information and wishful assumptions.
Mr. Lewis incorrectly asserts that Kaua’i residents pay the highest electric rates in the country, that customers derive no financial benefit from being in a cooperative, that the utility is a pushover for solar developers and that running power plants on natural gas is a quick and easy way to lower electric bills.
Here’s what’s actually happening:
Rates: Mr. Lewis complains that the “cost of service to KIUC members” has risen 50 percent since the cooperative was formed. It’s not clear what he’s specifically referring to, but considering that oil prices have risen 264 percent over the same time it’s obvious that KIUC has done more than simply pass through the costs.
O’ahu energy customers have seen their bills increase nearly 100 percent since 2007, while KIUC customers are paying about 24 percent more.
At one time, Kaua’i consumers were paying roughly double O’ahu’s energy cost. The difference is now down to about 11 percent.
Mr. Lewis is also wrong in saying that Kaua’i has the “highest electric costs in the country.” This month, our rates are lower than those on the Big Island, Moloka’i and Lana’I and only a penny more per kilowatt hour than Maui.
If Mr. Lewis had checked our website, he’d find that customers are paying 38 cents per kilowatt hour, not the 45 cents he cites. If you want to see for yourself how KIUC’s charges compare with other Hawai’i utilities, go to the Public Utilities Commission’s website.
Benefits: Over the past 10 years, this cooperative has gone from zero percent ownership equity to 23 percent, a stake that’s now worth about $70 million. KIUC doesn’t send profits off to corporate owners in Connecticut, as was done in the Kauai Electric days. The cooperative returns money to the members in the form of patronage capital and other credits that have totaled nearly $25 million in 10 years.
A cooperative can borrow money on more favorable payment terms than an investor-owned utility and can develop renewable energy projects more cheaply. Less than 5 percent of KIUC’s budget goes to pay interest expense.
And while KIUC’s nonprofit status exempts it from some tax obligations, the cooperative paid more than $15 million in local, state and federal taxes in 2011.
Natural gas: Mr. Lewis is correct about one thing: natural gas is cheap and in abundant supply. But that’s on the Mainland. The trick is getting it here without it becoming as expensive as oil.
We’re open to exploring options and in fact KIUC is already in discussions with The Gas Company about the potential for liquefied natural gas.
But switching to natural gas wouldn’t be cheap, easy or quick. For Mr. Lewis to confidently assert that KIUC customers could see their bills cut by 25 percent ignores the huge transportation, storage and infrastructure costs associated with shipping and handling natural gas.
The community impact of piping or trucking large quantities of LNG, which would then have to be converted back to fuel in a re-gasification plant, would be significant. Permit approvals would take years.
In that time, who knows where the price of natural gas will be, especially in light of growing environmental concerns about the methods for extracting it from the ground.
KIUC is more confident in its plan to develop renewable energy and bring it in at about 10 cents a kilowatt hour than it is in gambling on yet another non-renewable fossil fuel imported from abroad.
Solar: With the financial markets still woozy, developers of renewable energy projects are challenged by money and Hawai’i’s cumbersome permitting process. In addition to 20 megawatts of hydropower and 22 megawatts of solar KIUC is developing on its own, we are relying on a number of privately financed projects to help us hit our aggressive renewable energy targets.
While it’s easy for Mr. Lewis to talk tough about refusing to grant deadline extensions to developers unless they lower their prices, that approach would simply guarantee their failure. And then the process starts from scratch with a new project and a new round of permits and planning.
We know what a huge burden high electric bills place on family budgets and our island’s economy. That’s why the KIUC board of directors is working so urgently to reach the goal of generating at least 50 percent of our power from renewable sources by 2023.
Jim Kelly, Communications manager, Kaua’i Island Utility Cooperative
