[Mpls] Park Board meeting highlights: NIMBYs v.Crown Hydro & the People

[Dyna Sluyter]

On Thursday, May 6, 2004, at 08:06 AM, Chris Johnson wrote:

> My view of the folks voicing support is that they fit into one of three
> categories:
> 1.  Ignorant of the facts.

	Chris, thank you for so nicely insulting our intelligence.

> 2.  In favor of hydro power at all costs, taxpayers be damned.

	Chris, have you heard any of us supporting Manitoba Hydro's invasion 
of sovereign First Nation's lands? Or any massive hydro project?

> 3.  Friends of, or paid lobbyists for, or people who owe favors to, or
> are getting kickbacks from this project.

	Well Chris, it's time for me to come clean: I and thousands of the 
other "little people" who work along the downtown Riverfront but could 
never afford to live there expect a kickback- clean air! We're the 
coughing and hacking middle aged non smokers and the children with 
asthma who want clean, non polluting power.

	Remember the diesel generator I told you about yesterday? Well, it's 
been running a lot lately, and it smokes. The smoke is blown by the 
prevaling winds on hot days right into our workplace. When the wind 
shifts before a storm it blows towards a day care center. That 
generator was buried in the bowels of the Post Office addition back 
about 1990. It was put there for good reasons, to supply backup power 
and take some load off the grid during the occasional 100 degree day. 
Technology wise, it's a diesel dinosaur, built before electronic 
controls and exhaust gas recirculation. So unlike the new diesels that 
you couldn't make smoke if you tried, it belches more than a bit of 
"particulate matter". Prolonged exposure to said particulate manner may 
make breathing difficult or impossible.

	That dirty old generator seems to run more every year. In fact, the 
other day it was running to take the Post Office offline when it was 
only 72 degrees out. Now as we are seeing it's near impossible to site 
new clean power here in the Mill City. Nuclear power is going nowhere 
and any new coal plant will be hundreds of miles away. Yet each year 
our population increases and demand for energy with it. Where is that 
energy going to come from?

	More dirty old diesels. A megawatt of solar power capacity costs about 
$10,000,000. Wind and small hydro are just as clean for a bit less 
investment. But a dirty thirty year old locomotive can be had for less 
than $100,000 and will put out a couple megawatts of dirty power. Said 
dirty old locomotive/generator is also scarcely regulated, being a 
grandfathered "mobile source". Where do you think the investor's money 
will go? Then there's the horde of aging "emergency" generators, 
similar to the Post Office's. With new clean power projects blocked 
they'll be belching away 24 hours a day.

	So Park Board members, let us have clean power to replace our dirty 
old diesels, and clean fresh air to breathe.

		Workin' on the Riverfront,

			Dyna Sluyter