Letters to editor of the Pahrump Valley Times

Another disguised program being promoted by VEA

Last week I was selected to attend a Liaison Committee, to which I was then appointed, as

opposed to the Policy Committee for which I applied online at VEA. This committee was headed by one of the new women directors in our conference center. I posed the question to the staff and the new director as to why I was chosen for the Liaison Committee instead. I took a headcount of those present and counted 15 and was told that many had to be placed on this committee because the others were full up. Okay then, I said, and asked how many are on the Policy Committee. The answer was eight to 10. Since that answer left me completely puzzled, I then asked if the main purpose for being on the Liaison Committee was by-law revisions for the co-op. “Affirmative,” said the new director.

A couple of other hands went up to ask about the revisions that were submitted to the board of directors, as in who actually approves the revisions? We were told that only the directors will make the final decision — regardless of revisions submitted by this Liaison Committee and then forwarded on to members for a vote. Why have a Liaison Committee with no member input?

Shortly after I made that comment about what our new director was going to do about that, she declined to the power of the board. So even with new blood going in and the old blood going out through resignations, the same policies and by-laws remain controlled by the board, not the members!

The Ambassadors Program was scrapped by our Interim CEO, to be replaced by four committees. That change prompted me to sign up. But not on a committee that had no weight, a committee that was instead just another PR program to fake us out again.

As I stormed out of the meeting, right behind me was the local paper, coming in to do a story on the VEA’s committees. Until we members can take back our rural co-op and replace those directors that are not in tune with our interests, we will continue to call out the ducks. If you continue to look like a duck, walk like a duck, and quack like a duck…nothing will change.

Larry Blatchford

New Mexico not good alternative to Nevada’s Yucca Mountain location

In response to advocating New Mexico’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant as an alternative to Yucca Mountain (PV Times – 6/21/19) concerns about degradation of underground salt formations from long-term exposure to heat and radiation have never been addressed. The behavior of salt was to have been determined by a pilot repository in an abandoned Kansas salt mine. But that facility had to be closed due to intrusion by nearby mining and drilling activities before studies could be carried out. Having been the site of the first above-ground atomic tests and other hazardous nuclear activities, New Mexico felt that hosting all of the nation’s transuranic waste at the WIPP would fulfill its obligations to the nation. The suitability of high-level spent fuels in salt formation such as the WIPP had not been established.

The “$400 billion” to build Yucca is most likely being confused with a rough estimate for cleaning up Department of Defense’s sites, whereas the $100 billion now estimated for the repository allows for reasonable inflation of 20% from the original $80 billion Insofar as seismic concerns raised by the recent earthquake, I have experienced more violent shaking from 4.0-range tremors in areas where spent fuels are now stored awaiting transfer to a centralized repository. Exposure of radioactive material at nearly 100 sites around the country to earthquakes, fires, flooding and even theft remains the overriding environmental and national security risk. Utilities are now demanding refunds from the Nuclear Waste Fund which stood at $44.5 billion at the end of FY17, and will soon be claiming damages from the Department of Energy (that means taxpayers) if they must continue to safeguard the spent fuels at their own generating plants due the federal government’s failure to accept them in to centralized storage.

The “best available science” will never be known so long as opponents stymie the final $120 million appropriation for DOE to complete studies prerequisite to the licensing process. If Yucca is shelved it will be a Pyrrhic victory. Weapons-grade plutonium moved into “temporary” storage at the NNSS without any consultation with the state is a bitter fruit of the futility of Nevada’s adversarial approach to the federal government’s ultimate prerogative over its vast landholdings here, whereas there could be some infrastructure “plums” like I-11 by working with DOE.

Inevitably, at least a portion of the nation’s spent nuclear fuels will likewise end up above ground at the test site, joining the ever-growing inventory there, which already includes high-level waste. How will Yucca opponents spin THAT?

Sincerely,

Bill Stremmel

Maine net metering issue problematic, not good idea

I’d lived in Maine prior to coming to Nevada many years ago. Maine’s PUC had put net metering in force and they’ve had nothing but bad issues.

Before going too far, we should look at other’s states … Not a good idea I think???

https://www.mainepublic.org/post/maine-regulators-partially-undo-controversial-solar-metering-rule

Pam Crawford

Reader says conservative news media full of baloney

Would someone of national stature (preferably one of the Democratic Party candidates for president) please tell the American people how full of baloney that the national conservative news media is?

The part that I find to be the most pathetic, amusing, and laughable is how they play all of us as if we are all fools, and have the sheer nerve and gall to pretend that their right-wing “think-tanks” produce “scholarly”, “objective”, “unbiased” and “scientific” research when almost all of them are actually phony and fake right-wing propaganda factories/mills primarily funded by corporate billionaires and deca-millionaires who want to abolish all of the social safety-net federal government programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

Sincerely,

Stewart B. Epstein

New York trip compared to Vegas air ambulance ride

Granted, it is only 16 miles from JFK International Airport to the center of Manhattan, and six people can be flown for $1,800 as is advertised, so how can one justify $60,000 for a trip to Vegas from Pahrump for one person, flown about three times as far?

It is far more expensive for everything in New York. Why the aircraft New York uses is $12,300,000 and the aircraft flown here can’t be more than $2M. Are the pilots and medics making more than New York pilots? I doubt it, this is just another scam taking advantage of their fellow human beings in their time of need!

Mike Straub

Is Congress be doing the job they were elected to do?

Looking everywhere to find a crime – that is not the job of Congress, but law enforcement. There is none so pure they can’t be found guilty of something that’s against some or one of the many thousands of man-made laws somewhere. But that is not Congress’ job to search for them. Their job is to help make laws and appropriate funds to benefit all of the American citizens of this country, not to serve themselves.

If Congress (House and Senate progressives) continue to search for the president of the United States’ perceived crimes then they are not performing the job they were elected to do. Shouldn’t the law enforcement officials and judges as well as the citizens have the right to prosecute them?

Darlene Nix is correct in calling for the investigation of those who only want to investigate our president, as their jobs go unfulfilled.

Henry Hurlbut