LOCATION/TYPE

NEWS HOME


[ exact phrase in "" • results by date ]

[ Google-powered • results by relevance ]

Archive
RSS

Add NWW headlines to your site (click here)

WHAT TO DO
when your community is targeted

Get weekly updates
RSS

RSS feeds and more

Keep Wind Watch online and independent!

Donate via Stripe

Donate via Paypal

Selected Documents

All Documents

Research Links

Alerts

Press Releases

FAQs

Campaign Material

Photos & Graphics

Videos

Allied Groups

Wind Watch is a registered educational charity, founded in 2005.

News Watch Home

Opponents speak against SunZia at first day of hearings 

Credit:  By Tony Davis | Arizona Daily Star | February 2, 2016 | tucson.com ~~

PHOENIX – An outpouring of passion against the proposed 515-mile SunZia power line project greeted the Arizona Corporation Commission Tuesday, with about 25 speakers arguing that it was environmentally destructive and economically unjustified.

“This is a poorly thought out project and I haven’t seen need for it,” said Robert McClure, a Scottsdale resident and longtime property owner in the unincorporated community of Cascabel, which the project’s two power lines would pass near in the lower San Pedro River valley. “It’s clear that without government mandates and subsidies for wind power, this project would be totally uneconomical.”

“I have a lot of problems with long transmission lines,” McClure added. “It’s much better to have power generation close to consumption. I’d much prefer to see solar thermal plants built close to Phoenix.”

McClure was one of many speakers who criticized both the Obama administration, for giving the project fast-track approval, and SunZia for pushing the project through the remote lower San Pedro valley, where little development now exists save for a few hundred homes and an underground natural gas pipeline.

About 75 people packed the commission hearing room. The commission will most likely vote on the project Wednesday, Feb. 3, after hearing from the transmission company proposing it, and from intervenors opposing it, as they debate various conditions aimed at making the power lines more environmentally friendly.

A handful of speakers Tuesday endorsed or at least didn’t oppose the project, including three county supervisors, a state legislator and officials of two local natural resource conservation districts operating in the San Pedro area.

The Arizona Game and Fish Department, which has not taken a stand on the pipeline, just signed an agreement with the power line company in which SunZia Transmission LLC agreed to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on various mitigation efforts and to protect far more acreage than the power line construction destroys.

The state’s Residential Utility Conservation Office, which represents electricity consumers, endorsed the project. David Tenney, the utility office’s director, told commissioners that the power lines would allow utilities to purchase power on the open market at lower costs, ensure reliability of electricity service and be built without its cost being passed on to ratepayers.

“It’s been through a lot of study and time and been through an extensive state and federal process,” said Tenney of the project.

SunZia Transmission wants to build the twin, 135-foot-tall, 500 KV pipelines from Lincoln County, N.M., through southern Arizona en route to the Pinal Central substation south of Coolidge. It has said the power lines will allow renewable wind energy now “stranded” in less populous New Mexico to be sold in far more populated Arizona and California, and will help Arizona utilities meet tough new federal air quality rules.

But Karen McKelvey, a hospice nurse living in Cascabel, said that as the rest of the world becomes more crowded, complex and fast-paced, “I think we need more than ever the beauty and power that nature can give us in the San Pedro Valley. … It’s less than 50 miles from a metro area of 1 million, but it’s remarkably empty of man-made intrusions.”

Source:  By Tony Davis | Arizona Daily Star | February 2, 2016 | tucson.com

This article is the work of the source indicated. Any opinions expressed in it are not necessarily those of National Wind Watch.

The copyright of this article resides with the author or publisher indicated. As part of its noncommercial educational effort to present the environmental, social, scientific, and economic issues of large-scale wind power development to a global audience seeking such information, National Wind Watch endeavors to observe “fair use” as provided for in section 107 of U.S. Copyright Law and similar “fair dealing” provisions of the copyright laws of other nations. Send requests to excerpt, general inquiries, and comments via e-mail.

Wind Watch relies entirely
on User Contributions
   Donate via Stripe
(via Stripe)
Donate via Paypal
(via Paypal)

Share:

e-mail X FB LI M TG TS G Share


News Watch Home

Get the Facts
CONTACT DONATE PRIVACY ABOUT SEARCH
© National Wind Watch, Inc.
Use of copyrighted material adheres to Fair Use.
"Wind Watch" is a registered trademark.

 Follow:

Wind Watch on X Wind Watch on Facebook Wind Watch on Linked In

Wind Watch on Mastodon Wind Watch on Truth Social

Wind Watch on Gab Wind Watch on Bluesky