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Show Presorted Standard U.S. Postage PAID Permit No. 11 Gunnison, UT ECRWSS Volume 5 • Number 29 Seniors Monthly Pot Luck Dinner July 20 • 6 pm Centerfield Park Bring you own dishes Main Dish will be provided For information call Mike 528-5828 or LuAnn 528-7777 Centerfield 24th of July Celebration Parade: July 23rd @ 6 pm Dinner will be followed at the park Do you have items for the Gunnison Valley Community Calendar? Call the Gazette @ 528-5178 , fax to 528-5179 or email to gazette@gtelco.net Gunnison City received a $5,000 grant for trees, sidewalk, and grates and also received the honor of being designated as a Tree City USA recently by the National Arbor Day Foundation. Three steel tree grates were fit into new concrete around the large honey locust trees on Main Street and four new trees were planted along the Sanpitch River Walk. These improvements were made possible by a $5,000 grant awarded to the city from the Utah Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands. In order to qualify to apply for this competitive grant, Gunnison City had to be recognized as a Tree City USA and the city had to meet a list of requirements that encouraged the promotion, development, protection, and care of trees in the city. Council Member Lori Nay piloted this project and worked to have Gunnison City receive that designation and honor in April, 2009. This grant helped correct the conflict between tree and sidewalk that had developed around the three large honey locust trees located at approximately 200 South and Main. The roots from the trees had Thursday, July 16, 2009 lifted up the existing sidewalk and created a walking hazard. The money was used to pour new sidewalk and purchase steel grates to fit around the trees. Also, two ash trees and Canadian cherry trees were planted to enhance the Sanpitch River Walk and add additional healthy trees to the city’s canopy. Other projects that have benefited Gunnison as a result of Tree City USA designation is the transplantation of the mature Austrian pines from the City Hall to the park. This project was a great enhancement of the park and saved six large mature trees and was instigated and completed by Matt Reber, Gunnison City Parks and Cemetery manager and newly designated City Forestry Expert. Being a Tree City USA makes social and economic sense and recognizes and rewards communities who participate in this program. Ultimately, a well-managed community forest helps promote community pride and touches the lives of people within the community who benefit daily from cleaner air, aesthetic beauty, and shadier Copy Price • 75 cents Courtesy Photo Edwardo Turagen and Albert Park, of Parkside Concrete, put the finishing touches on the new sidewalk and trees on Main Street. streets and parks. It also helps present the kind of image that most citizens want to have for the place they live or conduct business. If you have any concerns or suggestions regarding the care, promotion or maintenance of trees in our City or wish to be involved in this program, please contact Matt Reber or Lori Nay. Let’s have cap and no trade Editors note: Living in Central Utah, we all realize what a huge part of our economy coal plays. Todd R. Bingham, president of the Utah Mining Association said, “The effects of a Cap and Trade Bill could be catastrophic for the coal industry.” The following article, written by David Sokol, appeared in the Washington Post on Tuesday May 19, 2009. Sokol is the president and CEO of Mid American Energy, a part of the Interwest Mining and Rocky Mountain Power group here in Utah. The adage that everyone wants to go to heaven but no one wants to die is on display again as the House considers a massive 932-page climatechange bill, introduced by Reps. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.), that would establish a “cap and trade” system for carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions. Its sponsors say it will keep low- and middle-income consumers whole while the United States cuts emissions 83 percent below 2005 levels by 2050 and transitions to a clean-energy economy. Nothing could be further from the truth. On paper, the WaxmanMarkey bill puts a cost on carbon dioxide by imposing a ceiling, or cap, on greenhouse gas emissions and then setting up a market for regulated industries -- such as the electric power sector -- to buy and sell allowances to pollute under that cap. As the cap is reduced each year, market participants will exchange allowances in a complex auction market. If you liked what credit default swaps did to our econ- Mark Henline/Gunnison Valley Gazette One of the many coal trucks that haul coal through our valley every day. The coal industry is crucial to our valley’s economy. omy, you’re going to love capand-trade. Just read Title VIII of the bill, which lets investment banks, hedge funds and other speculators participate in the cap-and-trade market. They don’t have emissions to cut; they have commissions to make. The real hidden catch of the cap-and-trade system, though, is that it will require consumers to pay twice: first for emission allowances and then for the construction of new low- and zero-carbon power plants. Congressional estimates of government revenue from the sale of cap-and-trade allowances range from hundreds of billions to trillions of dollars. Contrary to assurances from the bill’s sponsors that utility customers wouldn’t have to pay these costs for the first decade, some coal- dependent utilities would be forced to purchase more than half of their allowances when the program is scheduled to begin in 2012. Would these allowances reduce our greenhouse gas emissions? No; that would come when consumers footed a second bill -- for the cost of their utilities either to retrofit coal and gas plants to capture carbon -- something that cannot be done today on a commercial scale -- or to shut them down and build non-carbon-producing nuclear plants and wind farms instead. In fact, to the extent that cap-and-trade auctions increase ratepayers’ bills, they will impede utilities’ ability to develop a less carbon-intensive infrastructure. Markets thrive on volatility. Electricity utilities, on the other hand, are highly regulated to ensure price stability -- not volatility -- for their customers. The Waxman-Markey bill imposes a market-based (read: unregulated) trading program on a highly regulated industry that must make enormous long-term and least-cost capital decisions to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. In an unprecedented and unwise fashion, it turns American industry over to the federal Environmental Protection Agency by giving the agency the authority to change the rules on allowances every five years. Is this sound public and economic policy? I think not. If Congress wants to achieve 83 percent reductions in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, the electricity sector can get there, but there is no need for that first cost. Get rid of auctions, speculation, trading, new Wall Street “products” (yes, the bill allows for credit default swaps and carbon derivatives) and the trillions of dollars in government revenue that may end up being spent on other programs. Get rid of the 12 new advisory boards, committees and other institutions established under the Waxman-Markey bill. Focus instead on the most efficient and inexpensive way to cut carbon dioxide emissions. The solution? Keep the cap and remove trading from the equation: Mandate that the industry, over the same 40-year period, simply limit its emissions to the same levels proposed in the Waxman-Markey bill. This can be accomplished with a clear plan that gives states an option: Either they participate in a cap-and-trade program or they elect an alternative compliance mechanism to reach the same greenhouse gas emission goals by working with their utilities to develop a 40-year program of shutting down aging coal plants, retrofitting plants to capture carbon dioxide if the technology becomes available, and/or building zero-carbon energy plants. More important, the carbon dioxide reductions in this proposal can be achieved while providing adequate time to plan to minimize price shock and economic dislocation. It is the states, through their public utilities commissions -- not the federal government -- that have both the interest and obligation to manage citizens’ costs while transitioning to a carbon-free future. This transformation of our entire electricity sector won’t be cheap, but it would be less expensive than the double cost of a complex cap-and-trade program followed by that same transformation. |