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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Idaho regulators grant Avista request

Compiled from staff and wire reports

Idaho regulators decided this week to allow Avista Utilities to increase base rates by $3.23 million to include the purchase of a gas-fired power plant in Oregon.

However, Idaho customers’ bills will not rise because Avista will simultaneously reduce a surcharge by an equal amount, the Idaho Public Utilities Commission said in a news release.

The agreement means that the surcharge will be extended for an additional 12 months beyond its planned September 2006 expiration date. The surcharge is an annual change to customers’ bills that accounts for the “extraordinary costs of power,” the release said.

Effective today, the surcharge will decrease to .163 cents per kilowatt-hour for residential customers. The base rate will rise to 5.84 cents for use of 600 kilowatt-hours or less and 6.61 cents for all use above that, the release said. The average residential customer uses about 1,000 kilowatt-hours per month.

Avista’s purchase of a half-share in Coyote Springs 2 plant for $62.5 million adds 140 megawatts of power to company resources during a low water year, meaning Avista will have less need to buy power from the volatile energy trading market.

Avista’s request to include the power plant purchase in Washington customer bills is pending before regulators in that state as part of a general rate case.

Sacred Heart nurses win ruling on buttons

Nurses at Sacred Heart Medical Center have won a labor ruling allowing them to wear buttons on the job that state, “RNs Demand Safe Staffing.”

The hospital banned the union buttons last year, a move that the National Labor Relations Board deemed an unfair labor practice.

The hospital was ordered to quit enforcing its policy against wearing the buttons while on the job; rescind the policy; and post a 60-day notice of the decision.

The Washington State Nurses Association, the union representing about 1,250 RNs at Sacred Heart, said the button ban was symbolic of union-busting efforts.

Nurses say the buttons are worn throughout the country to show support for quality patient care.

Comcast broadband suffers problems

Comcast’s high-speed Internet customers nationwide have suffered Web and e-mail problems since last week, the company said Thursday.

The intermittent nature of the problem made it difficult to pinpoint how many of Comcast’s nearly 7 million broadband customers have been affected, Comcast spokeswoman Jeanne Russo said.

Some Web pages took a long time to load or were inaccessible altogether. E-mail was down for some.

The latest service disruption started about 8:30 p.m. Wednesday and ended shortly after midnight.