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Show v By Jack Wallis J of the most important decisions tting the growth of Uintah County Wuled to be made this week or 'time this month. This decision has 8 with the location of the Deseret nation and Transmission jerative's Moon Lake power plant, ,,Jr it is located near Rangely, ;za or Green River, Utah. te Bonanza site will mean $4 to $5 in annual property taxes, 38 the assessed valuation of the y 'rom $80 million to over $200 ;on and also bring in ap-tmately ap-tmately 2,000 workers at the peak instruction and require 1500 let5 for the mine and plant ation. ie first 400 megawatt unit is ed to cost $646 million, and is d to be producing power in : of 1985. timeframe for building this plant ome critical. The planning for '"ng a coal supply started way jn 1974 and the site location with 12, which have been ted to three. Bonanza site has always been the trred site, but in April of this year 'began a campaign to block j, h site in preference of the ?e ste. At first Colorado did not j;. proposed coal-fired power ; ln its state. The Rangely site did . e the necessary water source, so .'.'tough the Bonanza site would conveying coal for nearly 36 ,rm the mine to the plant, the has always been the site until the recent Colorado 110 bring the tax base to its state. ' wakes the construction time 311 the more critical is tne Dreak-i Dreak-i n Deseret's negotiations with er & Light Co. to buy half of : ""' II plant that has just been hL eseret was planning to get w megawatts of power from the 4t plant- With this setback 'Mnnot afford any delays on its . Uke plant. ' C00Peratives belonging to 'nave been experiencing a 25 to ';.Jent growth in power needs. i;.,"8 t( projections the Moon "arit must be ready to generate by March of 1985." An all-day meeting was held Wednesday Wed-nesday at Dinosaur, Colo., with a public meeting in the evening, between Colorado and Utah interests and government and Deseret officials to decide on the site location. The main decision is up the the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, since the sites will be built on BLM lands and will require right-of-ways for coal conveying and power transmission lines. Deseret says the site decision must be made shortly after the June 11 hearing to keep within its time-frame. The advantages of the Bonanza site include available water filings from both the Green and White Rivers and the air quality monitoring that has been done in this area. Also there is the future possibility of using waste or byproduct by-product gas from oil shale extraction plants in the radius of Bonanza as a fuel source for the Moon Lake power plant instead of coal, when the oil shale projects get underway. With this in mind, the boilers for the Moon Lake plant' will be the type that can be converted from coal to gas in case the gas becomes readily available in future years. If the Bonanza site is approved it will be the first project to bring such impact to the local area. Along with the $646 million expenditure will come many growth problems. Not only does Deseret need to know where its Moon Lake plant is to be built, so it can be finished by the end of 1984, so do the communities that will support the labor force and services needed by such an undertaking. If the plant is to be built at Bonanza. " the whole area must gear up for it and we must gear up fast. The fast-track construction plans don't leave much time for planning and preparation. Two thousand workers will be a dramatic influx to the area, it will tax all of our community resources. We hope a clear-cut decision will develop out of the meetings in Snosaur, Colo., and that the Moon I ake Dower plant can progress on its planned timeframe. And of course, we hoi the Bonanza site is the one given KLn light by the federal omaals making the decisions for the BLM. |