Attracting pot industry

Just like the aluminum industry moved here for cheap power, the Northwest is attracting illegal and legal indoor pot growers.

Spokane County along with electric providers may have need to tighten regulations on who gets barns with their own electric meters and who doesn’t largely due to unknowable illegal indoor pot farms.

In SoCal, for example, one has to submit a load schedule upfront before expanding an electric service so they don’t overuse what’s available. Here you can build a detached barn or garage without a house with its own meter. Even three-phase I hear. No questions asked.

It’s no secret we pay as little as a third what SoCal does for power and points west of us nearer Wenatchee pay close to a third what we do in Spokane.

Pot grower power theft is so rampant in SoCal, thieves are blowing transformers and melting service entrance lines. One got caught when his tree caught fire touching his overhead service wires.

Legal or not, I’m not sure the Inland Northwest wants to attract that kind of industry. But we are.

Mike Reno

Newman Lake