04-14-2013, 03:15 AM
quote:
Originally posted by Frankie Stapleton
Who in their right minds would invest in such an unstable area?
...tens of thousands of us live on.
These two sentences often get combined in the Pahoa and Puna area regarding any kind of development. Aren't the "tens of thousands of us" investing in this area? If the average price of a home was $100,000, just a thousand would be $100 million invested in this area. If there are "tens of thousands", then are all these people not in their right mind? (this question may be rhetorical if only applied to the Puna area). And the bottleneck of Hwy 130 is due to the tens of thousands, not the one or two industrial developments in Puna. Are all of these people immune to lava flow and only the geothermal plants are at risk? And unlike a lot of the people living in Puna, a geothermal plant will have insurance protecting them from losses due to earthquakes and lava flows. The active part of a geothermal plant are the well holes, and well, they look just like small holes if the plant isn't there. PGV has said their plant is designed to be disassembled and moved in the event of a threatening lava flow, and even then, the plant infrastructure on the surface is so old that it would just be sold for scrap. Just a comment to examine the lack of logic in some of the perceptions floating around Puna.
"It was a majority decision to descend into the Dark Ages. Don't worry, be happy, bang on da drum all day! Onward to Elysium."
*Japanese tourist on bus through Pahoa, "Is this still America?*