Construction traffic dangerous, costly

Cob plant should be built in an area
already zoned for heavy industry

The author Diana Giordano is a 25-year resident of the Langell Valley. Her family is engaged in farming.

By Diana Giordano, guest columnist  H&N from 9/21/03

Roger Hamilton's comments in the Aug. 31 Herald and News were right on point regarding the Cob gas-fired electrical-generating facility proposed for a site just east of Klamath Falls, near Bonanza.

Additional points need to be made regarding the placement of this huge facility on exclusive farm use-zoned land in eastern Klamath County.

County records show approximately 900 home-, farm- and ranch owners live in the Poe and Langell valleys in the vicinity of the proposed site. Several hundred children of these families attend the Bonanza and Henley schools.

They travel the roads to and from the area daily along Highway 140 East, and from the Dairy and Poe Valley areas into Bonanza. These roads are all antiquated two-lane systems with sharp turns, inadequate shoulders and poor road beds. Winter snow and ice removal is intermittent at best.

These roads will serve as the primary truck routes that will carry supplies and union workers out to the site to construct the largest gas-fired electrical plant in western North America. People's Energy officials estimate that 86,000 large-truck trips, as well as hundreds of thousands of employee vehicle trips, will travel this same worn and dangerous route for two years.

This road use will occur around the clock - rain, snow or blizzards during plant construction. The roads throughout the route are in desperate need of resurfacing even before this proposed increase in use, especially at the Olene Gap, where a complete new roadbed is needed due to severe and dangerous ruts. What 86,000 semi-trailer rigs with tons of rock and machinery will do to the road is really beyond the comprehension of most of us.

Approximate cost to simply resurface the roadbed for the nearly 60 miles round trip from Klamath to the site is nearly $3.25 million. If the road bed must be rebuilt, it will cost the taxpayers of Klamath County and the State of Oregon tens of millions of dollars. Why should we, the taxpayers of Klamath County and the nearly bankrupt State of Oregon, pay for this expenditure?

If People's Energy insists on building the plant for California's exclusive use, shouldn't it be responsible for the road repaving and reconstruction that will be required when its power plant is completed? Perhaps a $30 million trust should be set aside by People's Energy for that purpose.

How should we value the risk to human lives that may be lost on these roads from the massive increase in traffic? Tens of thousands heavily loaded semi-trucks will travel the 60-mile round trip distance. Plant construction workers will significantly add to the traffic load during morning and evening shift changes. Is the daily exposure of these huge loads and increased traffic to school buses and high-school-age drivers on the icy, windy and incredibly slick conditions really acceptable? In the years I have lived and traveled their proposed truck route, I have unfortunately seen multiple fatalities on these same roads.

The narrow, shoulderless rutted lanes, inadequate passing lanes, and slick winter conditions make the roads dangerous to travel now. To think that any amount of county tax revenue will make up for a single life lost due to the incredible increased volume of heavy semi-truck traffic and thousands of light truck trips, is unconscionable at best. That $1 million per year payment in lieu of taxes that the country talks about accepting certainly does not buy the life of anyone I know - how about you?

This plant should be built in an area already zoned for heavy industry such as the former Weyerhauser site. The infrastructure to support its construction is in Klamath Falls, not in Bonanza.

Siting the plant where existing zoning laws permit would eliminate the danger inherent in the increased traffic and excessive wear on our rural highways. The thousands of adults and children who drive the roads from the eastern county into town would be spared the danger of year-round encounters with heavy construction trucks and long lines of construction workers traveling to and from the construction site.

To the two county commissioners John Elliott and Al Switzer, who support this location, state politicians, Gov. Ted Kulongoski and the Oregon Energy Siting Council: this plant does not belong in an exclusive farming area; it does belong in an area already zoned for heavy industry. Please put it there if you insist on burdening us with California's problems.


This email was cleaned by emailStripper, available for free from http://www.papercut.biz/emailStripper.htm