Steam Wells
This is regarding the recent Record-Bee article about the steam wells. For a long time I have tried to wake up the county to produce our own electrical project to supply our county taxpayers. The reason why they are shutting the plant down is because PG&E has its own electricity from other places so the plant has no choice but to shut down and go in a stand-by mode.
This is a major killer for the County of Lake, the 23 employees that basically live in our area and our PG&E bills are going up not down. We shut down our side of the Geysers, the Sonoma side is booming with Sonoma clean power in full operation. So therefore, Lake County could look at how they put it together and are making it work for the residents of Sonoma County without a lot of expense involved in research by Lake County. It is all laid out in a map basically all the county has to do is look at and do the same thing Sonoma County did.
It is not only our 23 employees it’s about other vendors, small local businesses that have survived with the support of the steam wells for many, many years. That is going to be a big hardship on the county and local businesses and local revenue as a whole. One major thing we also have to think of is that the county pumps all their sewer water produced in the County of Lake to the steam wells for steam rejuvenation. If that is on hold for any period of time, maybe the county will have to pipe their treated sewer water into Clear Lake. That is the only place big enough to handle that capacity of water.
This is a major problem for the County of Lake all the way around and it is time for smart thinking by our local supervisors to see what we can do to make all this work. Maybe even supplying some of this water to the local vineyards like they have done in Sonoma County to help save the water table for drinking…that way we can get two birds with one stone.
Ron Rose, Lakeport
Second (amendment) thoughts
The second amendment to the Constitution of the United States states, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” With so much controversy on this and all the arguments I hear about being able to overthrow tyrants, a thought came to me. What would you call a citizen who shoots the President of the United States? Many Republicans would say a patriot if it were Obama, but what about John Hinckley’s attempt to kill Ronald Reagan? I suspect all U.S. citizens would say he was an assassin. Now what would you call a state militia that fought back against government troops trying to oppress? This would be seen as an attempt to overthrow a tyrant. Makes me wonder what the Supreme Court was thinking when they decided (5-4) that this meant an individual’s right to keep and bear Arms.
Kevin Bracken, Kelseyville
For Sale: Invisible Car
“Would you like to buy my invisible car? It’s great, does everything better than what you’re driving now, as soon as you pay for it I’ll show it to you.” Would you go for that deal? This is not far from what our Lake County Board of Supervisors is asking at their Tuesday, April 21 meeting, where they are considering sending a letter of support to congressman Mike Thompson for the Trans Pacific Partnership trade agreement, or TPP.
The development of this agreement has taken place over the last five years in near total secrecy with only bits and pieces being leaked by whistleblowers, so as of today nobody outside of those secret meetings knows exactly what the details are — or even what all the major goals are. So our BOS is supposed to decide if they want to support this agreement before they could possibly know what exactly is in it and how it may impact citizens, city or county governments right here in Lake County.
Apparently board chairman Anthony Farrington has written a cover letter for the agenda item that blithely ignores all the concerns from labor groups, environmentalists, consumer and human rights advocates, and many others who oppose the agreement, and instead the chairman’s letter simply parrots the talking points of those actually drafting the agreement- large corporations. The entire reason for bundling so many different issues and countries into one agreement is simple — it makes changing laws corporations view as unfavorable easier, instead of numerous small battles they fight one big one where they can tar the opposition with the slurs of being against “free trade” or “fair trade”, or just being against economic prosperity.
The corporations leading this process want to disassemble all those pesky laws that get in their way of making money, you know, like laws that make your food safer to eat, your workplace safer to inhabit, or the air you breathe and water you drink cleaner. The possibilities of finding laws that could potentially somehow reduce a company’s profits are nearly endless, and it appears that they will be able to sue governments for future lost profits unless they lower their standards.
It could hurt in many other ways as well, including putting an end to local vendor or “buy American” preference, as that creates what could be called unfair competition. People should recall that all the same special interests pushing the TPP were behind NAFTA, which made all the very same claims-virtually none of which came true. If this agreement is so good for the common folk then why are they not allowed to see it until the deal is on it’s way to being “fast-tracked” through congress? But the even bigger question here for us today is why on earth is our BOS going to vote on an agreement they have not seen and have no understanding of?
I was one of the very first lake County pear and walnut growers to ever market to Japan and the EU, so I don’t need anyone to explain to me what trade barriers are or how international trade works, sometimes foreign markets are closed for good reasons, sometimes not — whatever the case issues need to be addressed individually instead of being lumped into a giant “take it or leave it” package.
Please email or call your BOS member and let them know you don’t want them to write a blank check that turns control of our laws over to foreigners and corporations, or come to the meeting and tell them yourself. I wish I could say when it will be discussed, but our BOS chairman Anthony Farrington thought this was so unimportant an issue that he put it on the untimed agenda, rather ironic since he is the sponsor.
Philip Murphy, Lakeport
