IHOP - $12,600 WAPA BILL FOR TWO WEEKS

Well I see that anti nuke CAmountaigal wants to stir the pot. Rocky Flats was a nuclear weapons facility. not a power plant. Two very different types of activities. Rocky Flats was processing plutonium and had a fire back in the '50's that could have contaminated the area with highly toxic plutonium. This is not what goes on at power plants. Besides, the level of safety has been greatly improved over the last 50 years.
There are no reported cancer clusters around the nuclear power plants here in the NE. And no one is glowing from living near them.

Bassman;
Stir the pot? I don't see anything wrong with giving facts and if you know anything re Rocky Flats, it was still operational until the mid 80's. It doesn't matter what they did there. Working with plutonium or uranium, the processing causes radiation dust and it settles.
I believe that people need to know all the facts: good, bad or indifferent. They need to be told all the possibilities re any health effects on any type of generation of power by whatever means. They have a right and a need to know.
The people of the VI are asking the hard questions now. They're not just taking the word of the gov't or those who want to implement these things on their island. Apparently, they were not satisfied with the answers they got re the Coke project and they rejected it on the basis of unanswered health risk questions.

If your nuclear facilities are safe and functioning well in the NE, I am thrilled to hear that you don't have any problems or worries with them. But the Virgin Islands or any island is not the NE of the US. The VI has unique problems that most of the US doesn't have. Hurricanes, frequent flooding after tropical storms, small seismic activity everyday and the possibility of Tsunami's.

What would you tell people here if they asked: would our island, our lives be safe with a small nuclear facility if we had a major earthquake followed by a Tsunami? Or could they end up like Japan? One never knows until it happens.

Delegate Donna Christiansen has commissioned a study to be done down wind from the refinery to determine the cause of medical problems in people here who have flooded her office in person, email and calls with medical issues. So, apparently there are problems here to be addressed when the causes are known.

The people of the VI should be given all facts and they themselves should be the only ones to determine if they would like Coke fired plants, Nuclear facilities or any other type of power generation.

We from CA are not all "anti-nuclear." Afterall, there are 2 nuclear power plants in CA. San Onofre and Diablo and they are still there; however, I readily admit to being anti-oil drilling off the Santa Barbara Coast. Those oil disasters are better left to Texas and Louisiana.

Neil, I understand that a backup method of power generation is necessary, and fossil fuel is one of the near-term answers, but it's not the only answer, and it's definitely not the only long-term answer.

Think about this: we could build a small nuclear power plant here and power all three islands for next to nothing. There are companies that provide nuclear power generation FROM BARGES that could come in here SOON, take WAPA completely offline while building a permanent nuclear plant, and SIGNIFICANTLY reduce power costs for EVERYONE while other renewable options are tossed around in the interminable, corrupted bureaucratic mess of the VI government.

I know some people are leary of nuclear power, but it's safer now than it's ever been, and it should be considered as a viable option.

Lisa,

The idea of nuclear power would have to be evaluated very carefully since the VI could be affected by hurricanes, tsunamis, and earthquakes. A small island wouldn't survive a disaster like Fukushima, which continues to get worse every day.

There are alternatives like biomass that combined with a higher penetration of renewables including energy storage would make sense. In the meantime, many residents, businesses, and the government are working diligently at reducing consumption as well as adding renewable power.

WAPA is in the process of shortlisting proposals for the 10MW solar system that will hopefully be online by 2014.

Evergreen solar panels can be had for 78cents a watt now at sunelec in miami. Solar is the way to go.