Adrian Garcia

SunZia Southwest Transmission Project

PO Box 27115

Santa Fe, NM 87502-0115

Dear Mr. Garcia:

I am a biologist, a teacher, and a frequent visitor to

the San Pedro Valley. I met you briefly on April 15th in Cascabel at

the meeting of BLM officials and the Redington Natural Resource

Conservation District Board of Supervisors.

Here are my comments on the proposed SunZia Transmission

Project:

Of the many routes under consideration for approval by

the BLM, none should be undertaken except those in areas already

disturbed by highway or energy transmission infrastructures, such as

the existing I-10 corridor or the route through the Tucson area. To

reject these on the basis of cash economic concerns reveals an

unaffordable and archaic way of thinking about economy.

We must see economics in terms of the planet’s resources

and living systems, rather than financial speculation on the part of

big investors. We must understand that all of us are investors here,

including human citizens and wildlife and generations to come. To

think of saving money by running 300 16-story transmission towers

along the San Pedro River Valley, with the associated bulldozing,

tree removal, and road construction, is to think in an unthinkable

way, one that only appeals to the wallet.

This project has been touted as promoting “green

energy,” but we know there has been no energy source identified at

all. In the end, these towers could be used to carry electricity

from nuclear plants or coal-fired plants. The investors will be

happy to provide access to the first customer with the need and the fee.

SunZia, if it should come to pass, will provide a

negligible income for the use of public lands. This leasing is

practically a giveaway and should not be considered an argument for

proceeding. The real cost of the project will be felt in interrupted

wildlife corridors, disturbed habitat, and in the opening up of wild

lands to unmonitored use by all-terrain and off-road vehicles. This

will inevitably lead to erosion, loss of vegetation, and siltation in

the aquatic habitats.

If the transmission towers are to be built at all, they

should never be routed in the San Pedro River valley. I worry

further that huge projects such as this one will be seen by some as

holding out the possibility that we Americans can continue the

unsustainable way of life we see today which has resulted in so much

irrevocable damage to earth, air, and water, and in terrible species

extinctions and poor prospects for the futures of all of us.

We must downsize our projects, our lifestyles.

Electricity should be produced in Arizona for use in Arizona, not

transported hundreds of miles from New Mexico from a source as yet

undescribed—probably with intentions of going all the way to the more

profitable markets in California. Any new energy production and

transportation schemes should be balanced with conservation

projects. We should put our investment there, not in giant towers

and roads across wilderness areas in the southwest.

Please keep SunZia away from the San Pedro.

Yours truly,

Bonner J. McAllester

PO Box 332

Monterey, MA

01245