Give nuclear plant a chance

Dear editor:

I have lived in Mountain Home six years and I have a wife and five-year-old son. Mountain Home is a great place to live and I look forward to raising my family here.

Our state and national economies are in trouble. With a new administration, the Air Force base could once again face closure. Micron is starting to move its factories to Asia. We need stable, well-paying businesses that can't be sent overseas, and preferably ones that bring money from other states into Idaho. The proposed nuclear power plant by Alternate Energy Holdings Inc. fits all these requirements.

I attended an Elmore County Planning and Zoning Commission hearing on the plant and I think the commission made a mistake in voting against the rezone. Heavy industry like wind, solar and natural gas facilities are given preference to site anywhere in the county, but a nuclear plant and many other beneficial industries would be confined to a remote industrial area closer to Boise that doesn't even have infrastructure. Clearly, the county's comprehensive plan needs to be corrected to help bring the industry we need. These plans should serve economic development, not be used as a tool to stop it.

I work as a dental hygienist and I use nuclear technology every day when I X-ray people. Like anything else, as long as people are trained and the equipment is maintained and inspected, nuclear technology is safe and beneficial, regardless of misinformation and scare tactics.

Nuclear power is the safest way of generating the large amounts of reliable, affordable electricity our country needs. This plant would use a low-water design built for a desert environment. Thousands of people die every year from coal pollution and thousands have died in dam collapses. Around 50 have died in the 50 years of commercial nuclear power, all of them from a single unsafe reactor design that was never allowed in the U.S. All spent fuel is safely stored and we should be reprocessing it into more fuel.

We have a major Air Force base in our county and we still have a proud agricultural heritage. The size of this power plant would be smaller than some subdivisions so I don't see how we'd be in danger of losing our agricultural sector. The low-cost power could make much more land available for irrigation.

I say give this company a chance to build the plant. We have a great opportunity and all we have to do is let private initiative do the work. It would be an investor-built plant so it wouldn't raise our rates.

I think most of the people opposed live out of the county or their livelihoods are tied to the regional and national economies (agriculture) and they fear change. I believe the silent majority of young families and local businesses support this plant as a great way to have clean, safe and stable jobs.

It would be interesting to see if the Air Force base could ever be built if proposed today, yet what would Elmore County be without it?

Two generations ago, people with vision and determination started an Air Force base that now economically benefits us in many ways.

What vision and determination we now showing that will economically benefit people today and in the future?

Chad Steele