Last time I looked we live in America with all of the rights and freedoms that one comes to expect from that citizenship. One of the biggest issues these days is public participation and transparency in government activities. The nation has awakened to the oppression, mass corruption and taxation without representation by the very government that they own. We here in Mohave County know all too well the violations of our rights and the domination of government. This belittling and debilitating treatment is so appalling, so extreme that it has caused a distinct and appropriate movement of the people to defeat it.
One of many glaring abuses is the current “review” of the Mohave County General Plan spearheaded by the county manager Ron Walker and his handpicked TAC team WITHOUT APPROPRIATE PUBLIC PARTICIPATION. This new plan essentially hands over our community, our water supply and our overall economic survival to greedy corporations who will use every loophole created to profit at this communities demise. This step by step dissection/review of the plan has created what our county representatives will use to support their approval of inappropriate projects. Projects that would otherwise never be accepted under current guidelines and proper assessments. Legally, they have manufactured a legitimate defense for illegitimate actions which they have already taken.
The new General Plan revisions were created mainly to support one particular project while also opening the flood gates to more like it. Hualapai Valley Solar AKA Mohave Sun Power was approved by the Mohave County Board of Supervisors (BOS) as a WET-cooled power plant which directly violates the current General Plan policy 3.5. Policy 3.5 states: “Mohave County will only approve power plants using “dry cooling” technology when the aquifer is threatened by depletion or subsidence.” The Hualapai Valley aquifer is indisputably in depletion. Even using a conservative estimate, 10,000 acre-feet of water are being withdrawn annually, while recharge is only between 2,000 and 2,400 acre-feet of water. This results, at a minimum, in a net depletion of 8,000 acre-feet per year.
Section 3.5 of the current General Plan has been totally removed from the revised General Plan. This was a strategic move by the county to retroactively support their inappropriate approval of the HVS project. Despite all the evidence the BOS continue to support as well as mislead the public as to the true negative impact of the project on our already threatened water supply. Gary Watson district #1 supervisor was recently quoted at the Republicans Men’s Club saying "Hualapai Valley Solar was slated to be built north of Kingman and would use effluent from the city of Kingman and some groundwater. " After all the months of meetings, review of data and testimony this man still claims to his constituents that HVS will be using effluent water when in fact there is NO requirement in the Certificate of Environmental Compatibility (CEC) for them to use effluent at all. The CEC has been stayed by the Arizona Corporation Commission because of this very fact.
This is a very important issue, an issue that cannot be pushed aside or ignored. You have to ask yourself just how far is this county willing to go to make a few men millionaires through our tax dollars/stimulus funding? We expect our leaders to react, vote and develop sustainable growth practices to facilitate positive economic growth for the entire community. Instead they have went to great lengths to rewrite (without appropriate public participation) the only document that could protect this community.
Denise Bensusan
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