We are totally joining this family in their clamor for water. I am trying my very best to be the Zen person that I always am, but coming home from a great Labor Day weekend where there's 24-hour water and electricity (ok, it's a hotel, there was a Labor Day Weekend Special, y'know), only to find out there's no power, no water and no TV?!
I feel like sharing these puns that friends threw in during the weekend:
Q. What does CUC mean now? Ans. Customers Using Candles or Commonwealth Using Candles.
Q. What does the CNMI have before candles? - Ans. Electricity!
A friend also shared that the promo at that hotel, which was $77 for an overnight stay for two with Sunday Brunch, was cheaper than her monthly utility bills. Thus, she concurred that "Luxury is cheaper now than our basic necessities."
As of blog press time, Garapan still doesn't have water since 3pm.
21 comments:
And yet, somehow, with things as bad as they are, there are many who believe King Fitial and our House and Senate are doing a pretty darn good job.
Pretty twisted huh?
Don't think Aggreko is going to solve our problems. 13 megawatts does not mean we will no longer have power outages, but I can assure you, having to pay Aggreko for the rental and fuel will mean another raise in our rates.
Don't say I didn't warn you...
we only have power for 3 hours all day on saturday & sunday ,this is a joke ? I know its not a joke but is CUC try to pay back our complain by do a black out more often
Arrghhh ,and what more ,I need to Throw 2 weeks worth of food from The fridge because this more than usual black out .
I'm optimistic that Aggreko will solve the power crisis. Any hope is better than none at all.
If you believe Aggreko is the solution to our problems, I would like to show you some land I have for sale on Goat Island.
Do you know that residents coined a new spelling for CUC? They pronounce it---If You See, K!
My sleep-befuddled mind took sometime before I got what they meant...yow I guess I'm just one of those who have exhausted all means of counting sheep and slats on the floor trying to sleep because there's nothing more to do in the dark...lol
My comment on this issue individual local voters can answer this problem,this is of POLITICO......HEHEHEHE
Pete A promised us 24/7 potable water when he ran for lt. governor two decades ago.
WHERE IS THE WATER, PETE?
I guess there is no solution for the power crisis, no plan. Agrekko is not the solution then what is the solution that we should pursue?
anyone??
juan pan is the next to go down
If you do the numbers, Aggreko will actually help quite a bit.
From what I understand, Saipan's base load is a bit over 40 Megawatts.
Power Plant 4 is producting 14 Meg, Aggreko will produce 15, and right now Power Plant 1 is limping along around 8 meg. Power Plant 2 is even putting out 1.5 meg, so that gets you just under what you need to run this island.
Might still have outages, but much fewer and farther between.
Rick is right about the numbers. It will be close, but there may just be enough power to get us by, most of the time. It may relieve enough pressure to be able to take other engines off line for repairs and maintenance too.
Ed is also right, however...you can bet that the additional costs will be passed on to us rate paying consumers.
Take your pick, a higher price and electricity...or a lower one and a candle.
So it's a choice between the devil and the deep blue sea, nai?
"It may relieve enough pressure to be able to take other engines off line for repairs and maintenance too." (by B Bateman)
You are stuck on dumb. Relieve pressure? Take engines off line for repairs? Are you blind, deaf and dumb?
Bruce,
All but two of the engines that CUC manages are down, offline, kapoot, available for repairs. Over the past 3 years thye have each been going down or down and we have not fixed them. Hell, we have thrown an aweful lot of money into repairs and preventive maintenance ($30+ million in the last three years).
Tony and Fitial want us to believe (as you have been brainwashed to believe) that the Aggreko Generators are needed to allow us to shut down our generators and fix them. THEY ARE DOWN and have been. We have not fixed them. Not due to the low cost of power in the past, not due to a lack of funds for repair, not due to the fact that THEY ARE ALL UP RUNNING AND NEEDED. They are down due to Mismanagment and corruption. They are down because the money used for repairs obviously did not pay for repairs... it was spent however so someone is walking a bit taller with some loaded pockets.
Enough with the stupidity. Logically the down generators can be fixed without Aggreko and should have been. If Power Plant 4 has been able to consistantly keep their generators up and running and maintained and produce above and beyond what they are required to then the issue is OUR GOVERNMENT and their inability to properly manage a power plant.
PP
REVOLT
Rick,
What about CISCO repairing the engines? Where are the parts? What happened to the nearly one million dollars? Just wondering if you know.
CISCO is only one out of many contracts that were sole sourced or entered into via fixed bidding that claimed to be aimed at "Repairs and Preventive Maintenance" that never happened (or if it did it sure as hell didnt work).
How do you spend Millions of dollars in reapirs and preventive maintenance only to end up in the situation we are in today (2 generators working)? This is ludicris!
Wake up citizens. It was your tax dollars, your retirement fund, your money from public land, your paid fees that was obviously funneled to straight through to certain corrupt politicians pockets and thier "investor" friends. You wouldnt stand for it if this was your car and you spent thousands in repair only to be left with an inoperable vehicle after the service was done and paid for. Why are we standing for it now?
PP
REVOLT
For a list of only the Federally Funded, sole-sourced contracts for 2008 go to my blog. pragmaticplato.blogspot.com
PP
REVOLT
there's a word out on the street is that there will be a second indictment apart from the recent one...
There is a lot to be done at Power Plant 2, as I understand it, although I don't have first-hand knowledge of any of this. Cooling water problems exist, it's not just as simple as getting parts for the engines.
As my brother John, the owner of CISCO said on the news recently, he was contracted to supply parts, which he did to about 80% before CUC cancelled the contract. CUC was supposed to provide labor for the repairs, but apparently had manpower issues so never finished the work.
The cooling water information above came from a customer at 360 who works at CUC in the water division. A few days ago he told me that he has the capability to deliver the water the plants need, but that he can't get enough power to the pumps to do so.
I used to be in the diesel engine generator business, and I can assure you all that running a power plant involves a lot more than making sure engines are running. Myriad associated plant systems must be maintained as well.
Rick,
It is not only CISCO. A ton of money (tens of millions over the last 3 years) has been allocated to CUC for Repairs and Preventive Maintenance. How on earth could the state of the engines be the result of those millions of dollars that have already been paid to all the companies for Repairs and Maintenance?
PP
BELIEVE
PP,
I composed a long answer to your question, which laid out a proposed plan for the repair and upgrade of the power plants, but somehow it didn't get posted, and I don't have the energy or inclination to do it over again.
These plants are fixable, but that requires some serious planning and companies and people with the expertise to do so.
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