Ruling Could Cost Wwp Power Source

A ruling Monday by a judge in Washington, D.C., could deprive the Washington Water Power Co. of some of the cheapest electricity in the country, but give four North Idaho cooperatives a share for the first time.

Kootenai Electric Cooperative Inc., Northern Lights Inc., Clearwater Power Co., and Idaho County Light and Power Cooperative Assoc. Inc. had challenged the allocation of power from the Priest Rapid and Wanapum dams on the Columbia River.

The dams are owned by the Grant County Public Utility District, which takes about one-third the 1,900 megawatts of energy they produce.

The rest is purchased by 12 other utilities, including WWP, under contracts that start expiring in 2005.

The electricity costs less than one-cent per kilowatt-hour.

The Idaho cooperatives and seven others dismissed from the case last year asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to set aside 30 percent of the Priest Rapids and Wanapum output for their use.

They argued that the law authorizing construction of the dams included a requirement that some power be distributed to neighboring states.

Administrative Law Judge Bruce Birchman agreed, and awarded 30 percent of the dams’ output to Oregon, Idaho and Montana.

But the bulk, by far, went to Oregon. The cooperatives ended up with about 1 percent, or 19 megawatts.

Kootenai Electric alone uses 40 megawatts, General Manager Bob Crump said.

But the ruling at least opens the doors to negotiations, he said, something the Grant PUD had not been willing to discuss in the past.

Crump said the cooperatives are still studying Birchman’s ruling, and hope to increase their take of the Columbia River power.

Birchman also allocated WWP 19 megawatts, based on the number of its Idaho customers.

“That’s disappointing,” said Chuck Goligowski, a wholesale marketing representative for the utility, who added that the company now buys more than 130 megawatts of power from the utility district.

He said WWP and the other Washington customers of the district must file responses to Birchman’s ruling by Jan. 8.

WWP, Goligowski said, would prefer to settle the matter, an avenue the district said was open in a release announcing the ruling.

“These are low-cost resources,” he said. “They are very valuable to WWP customers.”

The Spokane utility gets about 10 percent of its energy from Columbia River dams owned by the Grant PUD and others in Douglas and Chelan counties.

, DataTimes