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Tuesday, August 3, 2010
News / Biz Duke Energy and Cherokee Indians friends again
Posted By Rhiannon Fionn-Bowman on Tue, Aug 3, 2010 at 11:51 AM
That sounds like it's straight out of an 1800s newspaper, but it's not. Duke Energy has been eying some land — land the federal government stole from American Indians when they forced them on the Trail of Tears — for a new electrical station. The site Duke Energy originally chose just happens to be in sight of a several thousand-year-old Indian mound, where the tribe once buried their dead. Incidentally, it's also near the tribe's first settlement — on land they had to buy back for millions of dollars.
Here's a snip from Bruce Henderson's article in The Charlotte Observer:
The tribe had complained that it wasn’t consulted about Duke’s plans to build the station near Kituwah. Swain County placed a 90-day moratorium on such projects in March, and Duke temporarily stopped work.The following month a citizens’ group filed a complaint asking the N.C. Utilities Commission to stop the project. The group charged that Duke ignored the archaeological importance of Kituwah and broke utilities law in not seeking the commission’s approval.
The commission’s Public Staff, which represents utility customers, later agreed with Duke that it didn’t need a permit to start work. The complaint, however, is still before the commission.
Duke says it needs to build the electrical station and upgrade power lines to meet growing electrical demand, including expansion of the Harrah’s casino on the Cherokee reservation.
The Cherokees lost Kituwah in the early 1800s, when the federal government forced them off their land. The Eastern Band, who escaped into the mountains, repurchased 309 acres for $3.5 million in 1996.
What always amazes me about large corporations that claim their main motivations are saving people money, being a good neighbor and boosting stockholder earnings, is that it often takes a bright light on their plans to actually get them to pay attention to the "good neighbor" part.
Good neighbors would have been all, "my bad, I'll find another site," instead of duking things out bureaucratically and in the media. What ends up happening is the injured party is eventually vindicated and the company ends up spending more money — on all that red tape, legal fees and, eventually, on the site they could have and should have started with. All of this, of course, counters their want to keep expenses low to keep prices low to keep shareholders happy. In the meantime, the company ends up coming across as a giant, uncaring, insensitive asshat — and definitely not as a good neighbor.
Why not do the right thing to begin with? Be a good neighbor. Do what's right. In the end, that will translate to better prices and higher earnings. Not only that, doing the right thing will earn you the heart of the people you serve, Duke Energy, which — I'll tell you since you don't seem to grasp this — is invaluable.
The rest of us have to read between the spin, yo. This story is about David v. Goliath, not about being a good neighbor or penny pinching.
Though, you can't ignore our part in this brouhaha. Duke Energy is an electricity supplier, they make money when they have energy to sell and customers to buy it. So when we demand more electricity, they will do what they have to do to increase our supply. The only reason they have to install a new station at all is because our demand for electricity is up, and rising.
Put that in your peace pipe and smoke it.
Not familiar with the Trail of Tears? You should be:
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