Business in brief: Business fair to help book fund

The Rathdrum Area Chamber of Commerce is hosting a business fair on Aug. 16 in the parking lot at the Panhandle State Bank on state Highway 53.

Businesses will provide information about their goods and services and offer giveaways. The event features food, beverages, live music and children’s activities. Proceeds from the children’s attractions go to a local program that provides money for books for first grade classrooms. The bank will match all money raised.

The business fair runs from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m.

Portland

BPA line upgrade to be discussed

The Bonneville Power Administration would like the public to attend an open house Thursday to learn more about a planned transmission line upgrade project in North Idaho.

The BPA will replace about 340 wooden poles and perform other upgrades on a 25-mile section of the existing Albeni Falls-Sand Creek transmission line. The project area is on an existing right-of-way from the Albeni Falls Dam near Newport, to one mile north of BPA’s Sandpoint substation in Dover, Idaho.

The BPA also will replace the existing conductor on about 17 miles of the line. The new conductor will allow the line to withstand more heat and more electrical current.

The meeting is from 6 to 8 p.m. at Priest River City Hall, 209 High St. Information about the project is available on the BPA’s Web site at: www.transmission .bpa.gov/PlanProj/ Transmission_Projects/.

Construction would not begin until 2009, but BPA employees and contractors have been in the area upgrading access roads and doing other preparatory work.

The BPA is a not-for-profit federal agency that markets about 40 percent of the electricity consumed in the Pacific Northwest. The power is produced at 31 federal dams in the Northwest and one nuclear plant, and is sold to more than 140 Northwest utilities. The BPA operates a high-voltage transmission grid comprising more than 15,000 miles of lines and associated substations in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana.

Boise

Avista rate hike open for comment

Idaho customers of Avista Utilities have until Sept. 7 to comment on the company’s request to increase the price of electricity for its ratepayers in that state by about 1.5 percent, or $1.04 per month for the average household. That would bring average bills to $70.42 a month.

The company has said, in filings with the Idaho Public Utilities Commission, that it is not recovering enough money to cover its costs of generating electricity.

If approved, the increase would be applied to what is called the power cost adjustment surcharge, and begin Oct. 1.

Avista has 118,000 customers in Idaho, and said the higher costs of burning natural gas to make electricity along with the slowdown of hydropower from river dams led to the request.

The utilities commission will accept comments via e-mail at its Web site: www.puc.idaho.gov. Click on “Comments & Questions,” fill in the case number (AVU-E-07-07). Comments can also be mailed to: P.O. Box 83729, Boise, Idaho, 83720-0074, or faxed to (208) 334-3762.