Sneaky Bastards

<$BlogMetaData$>February 10th, 2010


Sneaky Bastards

There is an old saying that you never turn your back on your enemy because he is liable to do something really sneaky. Guess what folks? Those sneaky bastards are pulling a fast one.

if you will remember, when the refinery submitted its initial application to the state it said that they will be using 10-12 million gallons a day at the refinery for cooling etc. well, it seems that there is a law on the books in the state of South Dakota that if you use more than 10,000 acre feet of water a year this process must be taken through the state legislature for approval. That means that the refinery would be using around 13-14,000 acre feet of water a year if their usage would be in the 10-12 millions gallon a day range, therefore their operation would come under the scrutiny of the legislature. So now they have revised their estimate to avoid having to deal with the state legislature. It seems they overestimated the amount they will be using and are now only going to be using 9 million gallons a day. This relates to using 10,000 acre feet during the year, hence avoiding the necessity of having this controlled or regulated by the state. What a bunch of baloney (crap). I thought I would never be amazed at what they can do, but I guess that isn’t so. Sneaky Bastards.

This is the same thing they are saying they are going to do with the power plant. There is a regulation in the state that if the output of a power plant is more than 200MW that the plant comes under the control of the PUC. Guess what? The power plant that they intend to build will only be a 200MW facility and they will purchase 50MW off the grid. They could build a 350MW plant or bigger if they wanted to, but to avoid having to deal with the PUC they limit the size to 200MW. What does this tell you? It tells me we are dealing with a bunch of sneaky bastards that’s what it tells me. And the governor wants to be doing business in this part of the state. No thank you! I think the refinery said something at the beginning of this whole dirty rotten ordeal that they would be ‘transparent’. They are transparent all right, we can see right through them. It’s too bad the governor, the planning and zoning and the county commissioners couldn’t.

Between Mr. Al Huddleston and Governor Rounds, they are going to bankrupt this state. Mr. Huddleston’s (Al) success record is a big fat zero in regards to successful business ventures. I have been writing this for over 2 years so I’m sure everyone is well aware of his successes and failures. In last Monday’s Argus was a letter in the ‘voice of the people’ section. It was an eye opening letter and I want to list just part of it.

Governor rounds invested $3.2 million dollars of state money for land to expand the Battle Mountain Game Preserve. The purpose of this was to make a paradise for “Elk Hunters”. The net result one or two elk per year. Hoo-Rah!

Rounds honored development of the Southern Hills Golf Course. The developer went to jail for unpaid state taxes and overbilled expenses. City taxpayers now are paying $75,000 per year on the golf course.

The Governor provided a $450,000 grant to Hot Springs for a new log library. The design was not followed and roofing tiles are breaking and many of the logs are undersized and substandard. Do you see a trend here folks? Do you see where I’m going with this?

Hyperion wants to build a $4 - $10 Billion dollar oil refinery in Union County. Hidden in Hyperion’s application on page 83 or 84 of their180 page initial application is a one paragraph statement about taxes. Hyperion says that they will be paying $180 Million dollars in the 2% excise tax for the cost of building a refinery and they say of course they expect the (normal) refund of $162 million because they are a new company developing an energy center in South Dakota, and they are entitled to this refund under South Dakota state law. So the state would retain only $18 million of the money. Now bear in mind that Union County agreed to this, not the state so can the county speak for the state or does this have to be legislated? Hm-m-m-m-m-m.

Oh I forgot. Hyperion wanted to have CRWS build the water system at a cost of $40 million, so does that mean another $800,000 in refunds for Hyperion because CRWS could see that this was not a good deal and turned them down. (Thank you CRWS) Everybody is getting refunds around here and we are going to get stuck with a big bill. Don’t forget that the Secretary of Transportation Bende was going to LEND the county $3 million to improve the township roads to enable big equipment and trucks to enter and leave the facility. The money has to be paid back in 3 installments of $333,000 in 3 years. Still don’t know where the townships are going to get that money. When I said this venture was going to bankrupt us, I wasn’t kidding.