Playa La Jolla Beach Club A.C. - Public Site

Arizona Daily Star - Tucson, Arizona  Sunday, 24 November 2002

Protested generator makes it safely to U.S.

By Tim Steller
ARIZONA DAILY STAR

LUKEVILLE - Workers have tucked one 800-ton steam generator safely behind the U.S. Customs Service station at this border crossing and returned to Mexico to retrieve a second one.

The successful crossing of the $150 million generator relieved workers who had worried about protesters blocking the generator's passage from Puerto Peñasco, Sonora, to the United States at Lukeville.

Although protesters delayed an earlier stage of the generator project in October, they did not block this first generator's passage. The second one is waiting an hour south of the border at Puerto Peñasco, also known as Rocky Point, for transport through western Pima County to the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station, west of Phoenix.

The daytime passage of the generator through the border town of Sonoyta, Sonora, on Thursday brought out hundreds of onlookers who turned the industrial event into something more like a parade.

The 75-foot-long generator rides at about 3 mph high atop a raft of four transporters designed to carry such massive loads, operated by a heavy-lift company called Fagioli. The transporters have 224 wheels and 26 axles.

The generator's movements are scheduled to occur largely at night to minimize traffic blockages, but the municipal administration of Sonoyta allowed the generator to move through the city during the day Thursday.

Sonoyta resident Dulce Brena brought her three children out to look at the generator and was impressed by its size. She took pictures of her children with the passing generator in the background.

Brena and other onlookers had heard rumors that the generator might contain something dangerous. That fear has been stoked by the fact that the generators are being installed in a nuclear plant. The generators, however, contain nothing radioactive - just steel tubes for circulating water.

Eduardo Cuadras also brought his family out to see the generator's passage and thought it was a good sign that there was minimal security surrounding the generator and the crew that was moving it.

"I see that none of them is wearing any sort of protective equipment," Cuadras said. "If it were risky, this area would be fenced off."

Arizona Public Service Co. originally planned to take the first generator all the way to the nuclear plant, then return to Puerto Peñasco for the second one. But the protests changed that plan, convincing the company to move both generators - worth a total of $300 million - across the border as soon as possible.

The transporters will begin moving the second generator in about a week, said APS spokeswoman Sheri Foote. Again, the generator will move primarily between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m.

Once the second generator reaches Arizona, in about two weeks, Arizona 85 will be closed during nighttime hours while it moves northward through Lukeville, Why and Ajo in western Pima County.

Send mail to webmaster@playalajolla.com with questions or comments about this web site.
Last modified: 12/14/03