LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
- January 9, 2007
To The Editor; RE: Credit card fraud and local businesses
Recently I used my credit card at a Princeton business and thought nothing of it. It turns out one of the employees has a history of fraud-related offences and took my credit card number (not the actual plastic card) and spent a few hundred dollars on it until they expired the credit limit.
This fraudster enjoyed some fine dining at a number of local establishments where the card number was freely accepted without verification, identification or signature check. In fact, the fraudster enjoyed the experience so much they returned to the same establishments a second time for more good service on my credit.
This situation compels me to petition local business to stop the practice of accepting card numbers without verifying the ownership, identification and signature of the person presenting the card number. I would encourage businesses not to accept a card number without the plastic card itself.
I also petition local businesses to request criminal record checks for the people they hire, especially when those employees have access to customer credit card information. I am well known in Princeton so the fact that another person can pretend to be me and use my credit card number indicates that the problem is serious.
Any one of us can be easily victimized in the same way. Please train your staff to pay attention and be responsible when accepting improper payments such as this.
If we work together we can prevent this sort of fraud.
- Rosemary Doughty, Princeton
The Editor: SOS advertising, Similkameen News Leader, December 18, 2006
Dear SOS: Please stop trying to play the honesty card. Neither I nor Compliance Coal have accused you of dishonesty as yet. To say that you are mistaken merely means that I question your information, not your integrity. Your statement that "Compliance has such respect for the truth they have refrained from using it" is anything but tactful. If you feel that all statements that do not reflect your opinion are an attack on your honesty, there can be no civil conversation with you!
The most compelling statement in your very political attack ad draws on an article in the December issue of Discover Magazine. I subscribe to Discover. You have extracted a sentence from the opening paragraph of an article called "Can Coal Come Clean? How to survive the return of the world's dirtiest fuel" by Tim Folger, a journalist in need of an attention grabbing headline, not a scientist.
Your remaining extracts, "Built to demonstrate the feasibility of a new way of wring power from coal without belching assorted toxins into the air," "It makes the lowest-cost electricity on TECO's (Tampa Electric Company) grid." come from the second paragraph of a six-page spread, partially devoted to describing the Polk Power Station near Tampa, Florida, built as a demonstration project with considerable government funding.
The Polk Plant is the Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) facility you are demanding but you conveniently failed to complete the second sentence which continues to say that, paraphrased, the $600 million plant has been running steadily since 1996 and now produces the lowest cost electricity on the grid: hardly remarkable since coal/biomass generation, after hydro, is the most cost-effective per kilowatt hour.
Despite the immense cost, while this plant burns so clean that "You don't even see a heat plume", it does not capture carbon dioxide or mercury, the very substances at the root of the local debate.
While riddled with some dubious statements, the article does inform us that the Polk Plant is one of only four of its kind in the world.
It also mentions that of 75 coal-fired plants planned for construction over the next ten years in the United States, only nine will be IGCC because each plant will cost about $1 billion.
I do not want to critique the whole article but it is clear that after getting everyone's attention, the author goes on to provide a great deal of information that the SOS committee does not intend to highlight.
In this case, unless the creator of the ad failed to read the whole article, SOS has obviously used bits of truth to manipulate public perception. I sincerely hope you do better with your future publications and your information store front.
- Karin Green, Princeton
To The Editor,
Sir, I'm writing this letter because I saw a sign on a pole by the Post Office asking us to support the Compliance coal/wood-fired energy project because of the jobs it will bring to local people.
My immediate response is "No jobs on a Dead Planet." It isn't worth harming farms, wildlife, tourism, fishing, our own health or the health of children and grandchildren to create a few jobs.
In science fiction films and books like Star Trek, Kirk, Spock, Uhuro and Piccard drive around the universe at
'warp speed' able to access thousands of habitable planets - many with fine, California-like climates.
Award-winning science fiction writer Ursula K. LeGuin brings us back to Earth when she warns, "The future has become uninhabitable. Such hopelessness can arise, I think, only from an inability to face the present, to live in the present, to live as a responsible being among other beings in this sacred world here and now, which is all we have and all we need to found our hope upon."
Compliance Energy wants to put a lump of coal in EVERYONE'S stocking this Christmas. During this sacred season let's honour our sacred responsibility to Earth, the only home we have, by saying
'NO"'to coal.
- G. Allison, Princeton
To The Editor;
Compliance Energy and CEO John Tapics recently placed a full-page ad in this newspaper implying that the critics of their proposed coalfired power plant are lying and deliberately spreading misinformation. This just shows how desperate Compliance is.
The outcome does not mean financial gain for those people opposed to the project. Let's look at what Compliance had to say. Waste Coal
I used the term in one of my letters to the editor. Where did I get my information?
From the company information packet that they give to anyone who visits their storefront. Included was an article from the July 03, 2006 issue of the Northern Miner.
With reference to the coal mine owned by Compliance near Coalmont they said, "If its power plant proposal is not accepted by the government, the company will have to work hard to secure contracts for the thermal coal coming out of Basin. What I meant by the term waste coal was coal that can not be sold on the open market because it is of too low a grade to be economically transported far and is therefore a waste product. According to their 2005 annual report Compliance only has one customer for their Basin coal. This one customer bought 43,400 tones of coal while the wash plant at the mine has a capacity of 400,000 tonnes. It's hard to make money operating at 11% of capacity and in fact the company has consistently lost money. There is nothing wrong with turning a waste product into income, as Compliance wants to do with its proposed power plant. It makes economic sense. What the company does not say is that the lower the grade of coal burned the more that is needed per megawatt of power produced. The more coal burned the more contaminants are released into the environment. The picture that I get is of a company operating an economically unfeasible mine that never should have been developed in the first place that is willing to sacrifice the Similkameen Valley and the health of its residents to save itself from other bad decisions. Environmental Assessment
The company says they are complying with all provisions of the newly weakened Environmental Assessment Act. And why not, the Campbell government has made sure their industry friends wouldn't have to worry about what those pesky locals think. Public input is merely window dressing. Sulfur Emissions
The good news is the company says the coal is low in sulfur and most emissions will be captured. Great! What about mercury? The word does not appear anywhere in the entire full-page ad. Mercury is toxic to all living things. Enough said.
According to information in the information package, Compliance is a coal mining company that has never built or operated a power plant. The people opposed to the plant are new to all the terminology so please excuse us, Mr. Tapics, if we sometimes use the wrong term. What you should understand is that your plant is not wanted no matter how much you want to get rid of coal you can't sell anywhere else.
There are other alternatives to supply the power we all use. The Similkameen Valley has potential from run of the river hydro, wind and solar power. The first two are economical right now, as witnessed by the fact that in BC Hydro's 2006 call for power 36 of the 38 proposals approved were for renewable energy.
Why not identify suitable sites and look for investors to build these renewable energy sources. With a bit of hard work and imagination we could turn the Similkameen Valley into a showcase of how energy needs could be met nation-wide without increasing greenhouse gas emissions. Solar energy has the greatest long-term potential as a renewable energy source. The Valley has lots of sunshine in the summer months when electrical demand is high to run air conditioners all over North America.
Other areas have come up with innovative ways to level the playing field for solar power. At present, solar power is significantly more expensive to produce than dirty, non-renewable sources such as coal. With a little help in the short term, the price per watt will come down like other high-tech products. Ontario is paying 42 cents per kilowatt hour to small producers in order to stimulate the manufacture of solar products. Germany is paying 65 cents per kilowatt hour. In Germany there are 30,000 people employed in the renewable power generation industry.
What if we could attract these kinds of companies to the Princeton Industrial Park? What would Princeton be like if 100's of people were employed manufacturing, installing and maintaining wind, solar and hydro power generating equipment and controls?
- Dan Pippin, Princeton
