Author: asnsadmin

Solar energy is Arizona’s up and coming renewable resource, and the state’s energy companies are making good use of it.

In keeping with other states, Arizona’s energy companies are required to utilize renewable energy resources by the Renewable Energy Standard and Tariff, or REST.

REST was approved by the Arizona Corporation Commission in 2006 and took effect in 2007. It requires that Arizona utility companies produce 15 percent of their energy from renewable sources by 2025, 30 percent of which must come from residential or commercial sources, according to the ACC website.

In order to comply, Arizona’s utilities implemented incentives and energy programs for customers who wish to use renewable energy to power their homes or businesses.

Arizona Public Service, a large electric company with 100,000 customers in the Phoenix area, and Tucson Electric Power, a company with 402,000 customers in the Tucson area, offer incentives for business and residential customers for services like solar water heaters, solar space heaters and solar panel systems, according to the APS and TEP websites.

Salt River Project, the country’s third-largest utility with 935,000 customers in the Phoenix metro area, similarly offers business and residential incentives for solar water heaters and solar panel installations, according to the SRP website.

 

In an era where every school in every state is battling budget cuts, electives such as, physical education, music and art jump to the front of line when cutbacks need to be made.

With the rise of childhood obesity in Arizona, the cutback of physical education is diminishing the daily exercise that children need to be healthy.

Arizona was ranked 15^th out of 50 states for childhood obesity in 2007, according to the “F as in Fat Report 2010” by Trust for America’s Health (TFAH) and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF).

It’s no secret that there’s a childhood obesity crisis in the country and the number of reasons is too long to list. Video games, television, computers and fast food all play factors in obesity, but the time of physical activity for children is hardly ever mentioned.

Could 50,000 Arizona schoolchildren be going without lunch?

That’s the fear some people are expressing if the legislature passes and the governor signs a bill under consideration.

SB 1061, sponsored by Sen. Rich Crandall, R-Mesa, waives a mandate that kindergarten through eighth grade public school districts participate in the National School Lunch Program, a federal program that provides free and reduced-price lunches to children through cash subsidies.

While many Republican legislators laud the bill, saying it promotes “local control,” the bill baffles nutritionists and educators who say it attacks a federal program that provided Arizona more than $340 million in cash for lunches last year.

The program, called the “Healthy Hunger Kids Act,” was unveiled in detail Wednesday by First Lady Michelle Obama, detailing the increases of fruit, whole grain, and cut in sodium and trans fat—a $3.2 billion program to be implemented over the next five years.

School officials like Nutrition Director Karen Johnson of Yuma Elementary School District, is baffled as to why this bill is even necessary, calling the National School Lunch Program “a federal program that works.”

“He’s trying to plug a leak in a dam that’s not leaking. There’s no leak here,” Johnson said. Johnson fears this bill could leave some kids, even a small number, with no way to pay for or receive a lunch.

“To me, if one school drops off the program, and if there’s one child that’s going to go hungry that day, we’ve done an injustice to that student,” Johnson said. “I know people don’t think that will happen, but it could happen. And to me, “could” is something that I have to pay attention to.”

Stacey Morley, director of policy development and government relations with the Arizona Department of Education, believes public outrage would likely keep food on the plates of Arizona’s poorest.

While millions of people are getting ready to enjoy pecan pies for Thanksgiving, Sahuarita farmer Richard Walden and his crews at Farmers Investment Co. are getting ready for the upcoming holiday by preparing for their annual pecan harvest.

Walden, 69, is the president of the company his father Keith started in 1937 in California, which became Farmers Investment Co. FICO, which includes the Green Valley Pecan Co. and Santa Cruz Valley Organic Farms, is now the largest pecan grower/processor and the largest certified organic grower/processor of pecans in the world.