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Show City Civic Clubs Hear Proposed Remedy For Power Shortage Hopes of the Southern Utah Power and Development company, com-pany, a non profit organization, to develop sufficient power in Iron, Washington and Kane counties coun-ties to assure continued industrial indus-trial and agricultural development, develop-ment, were aired at a combined meeting of the Cedar City Lions and Rotary clubs Tuesday noon. Gronway R. Parry of Cedar City, and LeRoy II. Cox of St. George, leaders in the new company, outlined out-lined the problems of the area in connection with power needs ami the purpose for which the company was organized. Those present seemed to be of the unanimous opinion that a serious power shortage exists, and that the future growth of the area is dependent upon the development of more power. However, nothing very concrete was offered as to how this development de-velopment is going to be accomplished. accomp-lished. The new company Is conducting con-ducting an exhaustive survey of possibilities of power development, develop-ment, but the organizers have not agreed upon a definite program pro-gram as yet. The possibility of bringing in power from such places as Boulder, Boul-der, Davis or Parker dams, has been ruled out, since apparently no power Is available and other obstacles are too great. This leaves the construction of new generating plants as the only solution. Where to build them and how to finance such an un dertaking must yet be decided upon. Use of the Southern Utah deposits of coal in steam generating gener-ating plants seems to be the most logical solution, but this presents pre-sents a huge financing problem, together with the problems of distribution, dis-tribution, proper organization, etc. Information was given at the meeting Tuesday purporting to prove the success of municipally owned power plants, using costs and earning capacity of the St. George plant as an example. However, it was not explained what would become of the St. George and Parowan municipal plants in the proposed development develop-ment programs or where the Cedar Ce-dar City power question would fit into the picture. It is generally gen-erally agreed that to make pow-er pow-er development and distribution economically feasible the congested con-gested areas must be included in the service territory, and without St. George and Cedar City, the major power markets of the are, included in the overall program, pro-gram, It is doubtful if sufficient volume would be needed to make It possible to provide cheap power pow-er to the outlying areas. Thus it would seem a necessity that the St. George municipal plant be taken over by the new company com-pany and that city and Cedar City agree to purchase power from the new plant. This brings up a serious fl-(Continued fl-(Continued on Back Page) Civic Clubs Hear (Continued from Page one) mncing problem since It Is assumed as-sumed that the most logical means of financing would be by the Rural Electrification Administration, Admin-istration, but it Is doubtful If RE. would provide funds for municipalities such as St. George and Cedar City. It may be possible possi-ble that these cities would help finance the plant in order to assure as-sure sufficient power production but this again presents a difficult diffi-cult problem, since it is doubtful doubt-ful it the cities would be permitted permit-ted to tax city property to raise funds to develop power for use outside the city limits. The question of where the Soft hern Utah Power company plants and distribution system would fit into the program is naturally of paramount importance. import-ance. However, it is assumed that the new company would purchase the holdings and franchises fran-chises of the present power company. com-pany. This assumption becomes more logical when It is realized that Southern Utah Power is operated op-erated as a holding company of the Washington Gas and Electric company, and that under present government regulations the local firm must be disposed of by the present Washington company. There are many problems to be overcome, but the future of this area seems to be dependent upon the production of more power, and the leaders of the Southern Utah Power and Development Devel-opment company movement are determined to overcome every obstacle and assure the future growth of this area through the development of sufficient electrical elec-trical generating units to meet all power needs for industrial, agiicultural or commercial development. |