Friday, September 26, 2014

Colorado water to be given to Kansas, are you really that stoned?

Tri-state (a utility) plans to dodge the environmental plans of Colorado by buying dirty electricity from Kansas.  Together with coal interest, and Kansas anti-environmental politicians they plan on making it with smokey coal.  The partner in this plan to pollute is Sunflower Electric's Holcomb plant.  Sunflower got a $534 million loan from taxpayers in the 1980's to build the plant, never paid it back, the unpaid debt ran to over $900 million when in 2009 the agricultural department stepped in and forgave the loan.  Ha, don't bitch about Solyndra, a smaller loan v 1980's $'s, and we did recover some of it, no body told you that did they?  You my dear citizen paid for the plant dusting Kansas with lead and mercury while all these years Sunflower raised rates and paid share holders handsome dividends.  Sunflower reportedly flirted with bankruptcy a number of times over the years, and this my friends is the poorly managed corporation that both Tri-State, along with the Kansas and Colorado legislature in the state houses and in DC are pushing pushing pushing to be given a 2 to 3 BILLION $ loan for a hugh new coal fired plant.  So, lined up the money, political muscle, fuel, oh how about water?  Coal needs rivers, but Holcomb has very little water, years of boiling it off for the current plant  and local irrigation has plunged the water table nearly dry.   No fear, Tri-state has found a few farmers in Colorado stupid enough to sell the water to Tri-state, who will flush it to Kansas.  As that water is sent to Kansas to be boiled off, eastern Colorado farms, towns and industry are doomed as the acquifer is mined out.

In the last 35 years businesses have seen (by region) 300 to 600% increase in their energy costs. Natural gas, gasoline, diesel, electricity, all of these sources are subsidized by tax payers.  While we pay these guys to overcharge us and yank the market prices around, they use their hired legislators to block wind and solar, block battery research, community sourcing, net metering.  We're paying for this?

Colorado should be making these welfare corporations build a wind or solar farm in your own state, you get the jobs, the royalties, and Kansas won't be boiling off the water needed for Rocky Ford watermelons.

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