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Meditations on the New Year
By Randy Knowles, PUD Board Secretary
Randy Knowles at the dedication of the PUD's first power project, a small and fish-friendly hydro plant at McNary Dam.
As 1999 became 2000, you heard more about Y2K than Auld Lange Syne. The fear of what 01/01/00 would bring overshadowed a great opportunity to think about where we've been as we begin a new year and prepare for a new decade and a new millennium.
In the case of Klickitat PUD, we've come a long way in a very short time. When I joined the Board of Commissioners in 1995 the PUD was what it had been for more than five decades--a distribution utility that bought all of its power from Bonneville Power Administration. Five years later the PUD is an entirely different entity.
Leader in Green Power
With a customer base of 10,000 and just six customers per mile of line, you wouldn't expect our PUD to be a regional leader in the generation of clean, renewable electricity, yet:
In June 1999, we dedicated an 8.4-megawatt methane-fueled power plant at the Roosevelt regional landfill. As the landfill grows, the plant has the potential to generate enough methane to produce more than 30 megawatts of electricity. That will make it the largest methane plant in the Northwest, and one of the largest in the nation. It has attracted positive attention from the region's media, our congressional delegation and environmental regulators because it is both the "ultimate in recycling" and an ambitious endeavor for a small customer-owned utility.
In 1997, we brought on-line a fish-friendly 10-mw hydro plant located along the fish ladder at McNary Dam. National Marine Fisheries Service calls the plant a "fish enhancement measure" because it protects more than 85 percent of migrating juvenile salmon caught in the ladder's fish attraction flow. Prior to the plant, all of these salmon were killed by the flow's high-pressure plumbing. We own and share the output of this plant with Northern Wasco PUD in The Dalles. Our share supplies about 13 percent of the power our customers currently use.
We own the Goodnoe Hills wind demonstration site and are looking for a partner to install a wind project there, another green power opportunity.
These projects are making a significant contribution to the region's supply of affordable green power, a benefit to the entire Northwest.
A More Secure Future
I'm proud to say the PUD has faced a changing future with leadership and vision. After 58 years of being a full-requirements power customer of BPA, we reinvented ourselves to provide a more secure future for our customers.
•We negotiated new contract terms with BPA to allow us to purchase up to half of our power load on the open market. This diversification produces savings that are dedicated to a rate stabilization fund to keep rates low for local customers.
Our power generating projects ensure low cost, locally controlled power for the future. We are able to sell the power we don't need today, covering all of our costs and earning an additional margin to help keep local rates down.
The Board of Commissioners--myself, Harold Hill and Dan Gunkel--imposed new financial goals to boost the PUD's financial health. The goals included establishing new capital reserve, rate stabilization, operating reserve and emergency reserve funds; funding more capital improvements from rate revenue; and reducing net debt per customer. An independent audit concluded that the we have met our new goals and commended the "PUD's pro-active Board and management" for working "diligently to operate the PUD in an efficient and effective manner."
With our rural and rugged service territory, we were once a distribution only utility with high debt per customer. Today we are an integrated, resource to end use, utility that is financially stable, competitive and viable for the future. We look forward to continued success-and the opportunity to serve you-in 2000 and beyond.
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