LEAPS - The Major Defining Element of This Campaign

By Leroy J. Saunders

"Drawing the line" at LEAPS/LINES

I applaud any endeavor to improve, expand and increase benefits and services to the Rate Payers. However, I stand firmly opposed to improvement, expansion and increase that comes with a cost that far exceeds any perceived benefit such improvement, expansion or increase may purport to bring.

The "Unknown" Factor of this equation is the crux of the entire matter.

Q. Is human life and health immune and impervious to the effects of all aspects of this project - specifically the 500,000Volt Transmission LINES? Or, will those unfortunate residents located within proximity of these LINES fall victim to luekimia, Lou Gherig's Disease, and various forms of cancers, birth defects and other various illnesses?

A. UNKNOWN

Q. Will this heretofore virtually unheard of (except in Monterey, Mexico?!) method of madness accomplish all of the idealogical claims of its proponents? Will it "stabilize" the lake? Will it "improve" the quality of the water in the lake? Will it "improve" the quality of aquatic life and activity in the lake? Or, will it simply seriously disturb the habitat of lake life, and bottom dwellers as it sucks and churns the literal LIFE out of the lake?

A. UNKNOWN

Q. Will the construction of this debacle infuse new life into the local economy by way of new jobs, increased revenue and taxes, and become the "10TH WONDER OF THE WORLD" as it draws hundreds of thousands of tourists and visitors to the area to see "what?!". A giant bottom-sucking, fish-killing, lake-draining, life-threatening, three quarters of a billion dollar "question mark"?

A. UNKNOWN

Fellow Rate Payers, that is the problem. Too many "unknowns". Too many unanswered questions. Too many vacant seats around the "table of agreement". Without even addressing the fact that LEAPS is "unnatural" (water doesn't 'flow' uphill) "cost prohibitive" (Enron failed trying, and even Nevada Hydro can't afford to do it alone) and "far-fetched" (you've got to run all the way down to Monterey, Mexico to see anything reasonably resembling this albatross. I've got a better idea............

Give us Rate Payers a better tasting and secure, long term water source, a higher level of customer service and lower our rates. That's what the Elsinore Municpal Water District was meant to do.