Tucson Speaks Out: July 30

Modular reactors

Mr. Fleming has suggested an innovative solution to the main problematic issues associated with Project Blue. Get the solutions in place before you creat the problem. It all sounds so simple and surely within the ability and authority of our mayor and city council. Negotiate a deal with Mexico to build a desalination plant in Rocky Point powered by a Modular Nuclear Reactor. Build the 100s of miles of pipelines needed to deliver the water. Require the developer of Project Blue to use a Modular Nuclear Reactor for their power needs. All this just to create anywhere from 65 to 150 permanent jobs paying $65,000 per year and an unknown amount of tax revenue to the COT. I invite Mr. Fleming to quantify the cost benefit analysis of his suggestion.

Louis Stamler

Midtown

Follow the leader

No wonder letter writers supporting the president exaggerate or fictionalize.

His own words reveal the issue. He exaggerates. He distorts. He lies. Letter writers simply follow the leader.

A recent example came in remarks the president made to congressional Republicans: “We’re going to get the drug prices down ... 1,000 percent, 600 percent, 500 percent, 1,500 percent.”

Perhaps that’s new math or an “alternative fact” meant to bolster his constant bullying, this time targeting the pharmaceutical industry.

Thus, don’t blame letter writers when they tell us, perhaps earnestly and of course falsely, that tariff threats produced immediate trade deals, food prices are down and, as one wrote in a July 27 letter, “DOGE identified every dollar spent” in the federal budget.

Yes, 100 DOGE team members in three months looked at every dollar, all 6 trillion, 800 billion of them.

Michael A. Chihak

West side

Old solutions for Project Blue

Daily Star editorial board advisor Stephen Fleming’s opinion on Project Blue glibly said that we need the project and the water and energy problems are easily solved by expanding its scope — lots of salt water available and nuclear power is really problem free — old pre-Project Blue ideas. Permission to build a desalinization plant for Gulf of California water at Puerto Peñasco would be from the Mexican government, not Arizona. Pumping water 165 mi ENE and 2,650 ft higher to Tucson is very expensive. Returning highly saline water back into the ocean would destroy the local fisheries industry. And the waste from nuclear power plants takes 24,000 years to lose half its radioactivity and there are no safe places to store it. Building data centers in cold places with abundant water and hydroelectric power is a much better solution.

Tom Van Devender

North side

The best for education

It appears that TUSD is failing in that students are leaving TUSD for other education options. The question seems to be twofold: 1) what contributed to the problem, and 2) is there any way to fix the problem? In considering the decline for the last twenty years, one name was part of the TUSD Board: Adelita Grijalva. It is apparent that anyone that was part of the TUSD leadership needs to be replaced. The concern is that this contributor to TUSD’s failure has decided to move her ideas from TUSD to a national venue. There are enough problems in Washington without throwing another wrench in the works. We can’t expect to fix a problem by recycling the same broken components. Perhaps the solution for the future educational needs is to get rid of the people that were part of the problem. We need to improve the education provided by TUSD so we can provide leaders in the technological fields instead of burger flippers to feed the immigrants.

Loran Hancock

Northwest side

Who really benefits from Project Blue?

Project Blue is being marketed as a win for our community — but behind the glossy PR lies a troubling web of corporate influence and political entanglement that puts profits before people.

The Chamber of Southern Arizona is leading the charge, promoting the project with posts featuring Keri Silvyn, a lawyer for the developer. The Chamber’s leadership includes Mayor Regina Romero and Pima County Supervisor Chair Rex Scott — elected officials with direct voting power over Project Blue.

Follow the money: Tucson Electric Power (TEP), a key Chamber funder, stands to gain enormously from the project’s massive energy demands. Hours after the June 17 Board of Supervisors vote, TEP announced plans for a 14% residential rate hike. TEP’s CEO, Susan Gray, chairs the Chamber’s board. Other major players include Amazon’s Humberto Quintana and Silvyn herself.

This is more than coincidence — it’s a coordinated effort that erodes public trust. Tucson residents deserve a transparent, community-first process — not one dominated by corporations profiting at our expense.

Chantelle Khambholja

Midtown

Project Blue

The recent flurry of pro-Project Blue op-ed pieces by trade groups, the Chamber of Commerce, and various business leaders appear aimed at drowning out the community voices expressing concern about PB.

They also serve to affirm one of the immutable laws of water economics — water will always flow uphill to money.

Sheldon Clark

Vail

Chamber of commerce?

Congratulations to the marketing arms of the City of Tucson and Pima County for selling Project Blue.

Congratulations to the team that named Project Blue. Makes me think the folks on this Beale team knew exactly water they were going to need to swindle when they came here and bought the land.

Congratulations to Matt Heinz and Mayor Romero for selling Tucson to the highest bidder venture capitalists who don’t even live in Tucson.

Congratulations to the people who market water in the desert as something you can make. Who knew servers gave us water?

We all want good jobs. Great jobs. Only an idiot doesn’t.

Jobs however cannot be maintained for growth if a location becomes inhabitable. Jobs will be killed.

What the Mayor, Council and crooked Town Manager are asking you to do is sell your kidney. You have 2 they say. In a few years, when they come for our other kidney because they staked claim and own it, who pays? You.

Carissa Sipp

Midtown

Project Blue symptom of bigger problem

Project Blue has burst onto the community scene, pitting environmentally minded vs the economic prosperity minded. Unfortunately, the no-growth leadership of this City/County has led us here. No growth leads to stagnant economic prosperity for the people who live here. Union labor has to drive two hours north to find work to feed their families. Disposable income is drying up locally and the local businesses can feel it. The NIMBYs/No Growthers continue to say no to any and all economic development or just “no to this plan but we’re open to another.” Yet they keep saying “no” to the next plan, over and over until we become desperate. The leaders and the people who have elected them have made Tucson ripe for projects like this. Companies know we’re desperate and so here we are negotiating from our knees. Project Blue is a symptom of our poor local leadership. Don’t be surprised when they vote yes.

Sergio Mendez

North side

Continued Trump derangement

During the past eight months Trump has closed the border, stimulated the economy to where stocks are breaking all-time highs, inflation is below 3%, real wages are up, unemployment is low, most Americans have a positive feeling that we are going in the right direction. On the international scene, NATO at Trump’s insistence has increased military spending to 5% of GDP. Not all tariffs are settled but the EU agreed to a 15% on all products headed for the U.S. The EU and the U.S. are the two largest economies on Earth. The negative pundits lamented the tariffs would tank our economy but just the opposite is happening. Billions of dollars are flowing, in reducing our debt. There is a possibility of a rebate going to those who need it the most. Our media continues to call Trump Hitler, refuses to acknowledge his successes. Anne Coulter, a conservative, wrote a book titled “Liberalism is a Mental Illness.” It is being displayed daily in print and online.

Bill Dowdall

Oro Valley

Simple solution to Project Blue

There are two main issues with Project Blue: water usage and electricity usage. Water usage could be largely eliminated by requiring the use of a closed loop cooling system at the data center. This is established technology frequently used at other data centers. Electricity usage would naturally go up with this solution. To address power needs we should place a hefty tax on their electricity usage above some reasonable minimum. This would incentivize Project Blue to do everything they could to minimize power consumption and would likely include maximizing their use of renewable energy. If they wind up paying the extra tax, the city could use it to invest in renewable energy.

If this scares away Project Blue, so be it. But I suspect it would not be difficult to get them to agree to these terms.

Lee LaFrese

East side