Bonneville Sets Controversial Rate Hearing

The Bonneville Power Administration will hold a hearing Wednesday on what has become probably the most controversial rate case in its 58-year history.

The meeting, the seventh of eight scheduled around the Northwest, begins at 7 p.m. at Cavanaugh’s Fourth Avenue, E110 Fourth.

In July, the federal power-marketing agency proposed a major overhaul of prices charged to industrial and residential customers, as well as other utilities that use its vast transmission system.

Rates to public utilities would drop 8.2 percent from present levels. Industries like aluminum smelting would receive a 12.7 percent break.

But to maintain revenues, the cost of power sold to private utilities serving the Portland and Seattle areas would increase 31 percent.

That could translate into rate hikes for residential customers of those utilities of as much as 14 percent.

The Washington Water Power Co. is unaffected by that increase because it does not buy any power from Bonneville.

But the Spokane utility does rely on the federal agency’s grid to transmit power it sells on the wholesale market to customers elsewhere in the West.

Bonneville has proposed a hike in transmission rates of about 15 percent.

Even utilities that generate all their own electricity would be affected, because they rely on Bonneville to perform various services on which charges may go up.

Pend Oreille County Public Utility District customers, for example, may be facing a 6 percent rate increase if the Bonneville plan is unchanged.

The proposed rates would not take effect until Oct. 1, 1996.

But Bonneville must decide this week whether it will sign contracts with the smelters that will lock in the lower rates for five years.

Washington Gov. Mike Lowry and Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber have written President Clinton and Energy Secretary Hazel O’Leary asking them to delay any commitment until the region can assess all the impacts of Bonneville’s program.

Bonneville Administrator Randy Hardy will fly to Washington, D.C., today to discuss the options with Energy Department officials.

, DataTimes