What Southwest Power has to say

Yesterday I sent the following email to Jessica Munoz, the contact person indicated on the Bowie Power Station's website.

Dear SouthWest Power,

I live in Bowie, and I have some questions I hope you can answer. I know lots of people here are really excited about the possibility of community revival due to the power plant you are building. On your website and in your publicity you do make it sound like a good thing. Still we all know that plants like this are notorious polluters of air and water, and can destroy the living standards of a community, so I don't believe that our community should rush headlong into agreement without determining the facts. And on a larger scale, there's the much more serious damage to the atmosphere from creating so much CO2, especially at a time when governments all over the world are trying create legislation to cut down CO2 emissions.

In discussion with some of my neighbors, we found that we still have some questions that have not yet been answered, and we were hoping you could help us out.

1) What are the actual benefits to the community and are these spelled out somewhere? Will there be any new jobs for Bowie residents? What kinds of jobs will be available?

2) You have stated that there is a plan to recycle the CO2 emissions by growing tomatoes. Are there any firm plans to do this or is it still speculative? Will these plans be be implemented before operations begin?

3) On your website you say that you will be releasing 3.6 million tons of CO2 annually and we are very concerned about global warming. It seems unrealistic to expect that you can dispose of that immense amount by growing tomatoes. Can you give us the actual figures for what percentage of the CO2 you will definitely be able to recycle and how much will go into the atmosphere to contribute to global warming?

4) Are there buyers already arranged for the ash, slag, mercury, and sulfur, etc? What will you do with these by-products if the buyer drops out?

5) Are there any statistics on the safety of storing mercury in railroad cars? What if they leak? It is our understanding that mercury is toxic in parts per million--what about the residue that will remain after the railroad cars have been emptied?

6) Have you done an environmental impact report, and is it available for public review? What are the Arizona state and federal regulations concerning monitoring your EPA and safety standards? In other words, how often is the plant being tested for compliance with environmental and safety standards? And who conducts those inspections?

7) Is the trucking route for transport of toxic by-products to the railroad going to be made public in case the public thinks the route is too close to schools, homes, wells, etc.?

8) It was stated by you that your presence in Bowie would bring about "spinoff businesses, services, and industries", and these would be very welcome by Bowie residents. We are concerned though that only outsiders would have the means to do this in a realistic way. Would you be open to creating a loan office to help the local residents with small loans they can use to start these spinoff industries? It would be a very real way of helping the community, it would create goodwill, and it would not cost anything in the long run.

Thank you for your consideration and we hope to hear from you soon.

With best wishes,
Elizabeth van der Pas


July 13--I got a response from Martin Bailey:

Dear Ms. van der Pas:
Thank you for your recent inquiry about the Bowie Power Station. I would invite you to review the various articles at the BowiePower.com website for more details about our facility. I am usually in the Bowie community very two weeks, so if you would like to meet and discuss our project I would pleased to meet with you. My email address is mbailey@southwesternpower.com

Respectfully,

R. Martin Bailey
Real Estate Manager
Southwestern Power Group
3610 N 44th Street, Suite 250
Phoenix, AZ 85018
Office 602-808-2004
Fax 602-808-2099

cc: David Getts (DGetts@southwesternpower.com), and Tom Wray (TWray@southwesternpower.com)