Musings: Complete Insanity

A wedge of gold moon hung in a soft sky that appeared to have been colored with crayons when the dogs and I went walking this still morning. Rosy wisps and swirls brushed elbows with towering cumulus that took the shape of dragon, fox head, heart, bunny ears, as meanwhile a rain-bearing block of gray approached steadily from the east, rising just enough to allow a white sun to slide in.

Now that KIUC has allowed Free Flow Power (FFP) slide in and stake its claims to Kauai waters — supposedly on our behalf — some folks are likening the Massachusetts-based FFP to pirates. As Dr. Adam Asquith writes:

They have NO interest in our history or our future. They can read public information and see what our electrical rates are. They understand FERC completely and understand that FERC allows for, even encourages, predatory claims to water development anywhere in the U.S. They understand that if they can keep everything within the FERC process, then if we do not want them involved, our only option is to purchase the permits from them. Pirates they are. They sailed all the way here from the Atlantic for the sole purpose of claiming our water resources and making money from them by either selling us electricity or paper.

What’s most disturbing about FERC (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) is that it trumps a state’s jurisdiction over its water. In California v. FERC, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the feds superceded the state’s right to set minimum stream flows. And that’s critical in Hawaii, which has a unique water code that factors in the rights of native ecosystems and Hawaiians.

Interestingly, FERC has jurisdiction only over navigable waters, a term the feds have interpreted quite broadly. But the state apparently fought off a FERC application 15 years ago by arguing that the upper Wailua is not and never was navigable.

So why KIUC would opt for a FERC process to develop hydro projects on irrigation ditches, which are clearly not navigable, unless you count inner tubes? Why would it embark on a course that is guaranteed to generate opposition and expensive litigation?

Or in other words, why did KIUC join the pirates? As Adam opines:

In October 2010, the pirates of FFP moved to steal the development rights to some of our water. KIUC freaked out because then THEY (US) would not be able to develop the water. So they began negotiations with the pirates. They agreed to pay a ransom for our water. Then KIUC figured that these pirates were really good at using the FERC process to claim water rights, so they agreed to hire the pirates as consultants to further steal some additional water.

Adam is circulating a petition to KIUC members that asks the Board to reconsider its contract with FFP and bring the issue to a vote of the membership. Signatures must be gathered by April 29, and he’s posted an electric petition at change.org. Unfortunately, that site is “experiencing intermittent downtime due to a denial of service attack from China … in response to a Change.org petition signed by more than 100,000 people worldwide standing against the detention of Chinese artist and activist Ai WeiWei.”

But don't worry. KIUC won't cut your juice if you sign.

While we’re on the topic of energy plans gone awry, today marks the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster. This photo gallery offers an eerie and disturbing look at the human creations that were radiated, and so had to be abandoned, in the exclusionary zone.

And on a related note, in this video geophysicist Leuren Moret talks about how the Fukushima nuke plant destruction and subsequent release of radiation was far worse than Chernobyl. She also gets into Queen Elizabeth's vast uranium holdings and the HARP weapon system, noting:

What this HARP system, this new weapon of war, is doing, is it’s artificially triggering natural events that release huge amounts of energy that can be used as a destructive force.”

Moret sums it up by saying:

We’ve been nuclear guinea pigs since 1945. Nuclear power, nuclear weapons, are not compatible with human life. What species kills their young for energy? What species kills their young for security? What species kills their young for power? None. It’s complete insanity.
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