Published March 24, 2005
Klamath
Falls Herald and News
By DYLAN DARLING
The mock bills are in the
mail.
Pacific Power has sent mock bills to Klamath Basin irrigators, showing them
how their monthly power costs might go up in a year.
Contracts between Klamath
Reclamation Project irrigators and the power company that keep power prices
down to about a half a cent per kilowatt hour expire next spring and company
officials say they will likely increase tenfold.
"In some cases more," said Jon Coney, company spokesman.
Irrigators should have
gotten the mock bills and a letter explaining the situation Wednesday or they
will get them today, he said.
"In compliance with the contracts, state law and regulatory policy, it is
expected that these rates will be discontinued and irrigator electricity
service will be provided under our standard irrigation tariff rates beginning
April 2006," according to the letter.
That tariff is about 6
cents, Coney said.
The mock bills sent to customers are specific to their usage from 2000 to
2004, showing how much the customer paid for the power under the current
contract and how much they would pay for it with the increase.
A mock bill provided by
Pacific Power to the Herald and News was for a hypothetical customer with a
60-horsepower irrigation pump. It showed power costs going up by about ten
times.
The letter, signed by Doug Larson, company vice president of regulation, also
includes a disclaimer that the estimates can vary widely because your future
bill will depend on customers demand and a demand charge that will be tacked
onto the bill once the contract expire.
Pacific Power's predecessor,
COPCO, made the contracts that provided for fixed reduced rates for irrigators
in the Basin.
"These contracts have held irrigators' rates at levels that have not
increased since that time - and some not since 1917," according to the
letter.
Irrigators have known the
end of the contracts, and possible ensuing increase in rates, have been coming
for years.
"This has not been a secret," Coney said.
The Klamath Water Users
Association has had a committee working on the issue for close to a decade and
its members say they still hold out hope at getting new contracts that
continue a reduced rate. Their last resort is to try to get the public to vote
for a public utility district that could control the costs of power to
irrigators.
But at a Klamath County Cattlemen's Association luncheon in late February, a
Pacific Power official said the rates would likely be going up to what other
irrigators around Oregon pay, or about 6 cents per kilowatt hour. The mock
bills and letter are the first formal notice to individual customers of the
coming increases, Coney said.
"We have a
responsibility to prepare folks for this," he said. "That's all we
can do at this point."
He said making the mock bills that went back five years for the individual
customers came after a request from the water users association.
The company continues to
work with the water users, as well with the Klamath Off-Project Water Users, a
group that represents irrigators who aren't in the Project and have a separate
contract they say doesn't have an expiration date, to find ways to manage the
change, according to the letter.
"It's not an easy pill to swallow for anyone," Coney said. "We
understand that."
On the Net: pacificpower.net
PacifiCorp. hotline
To field questions about how
power bills for Klamath Basin irrigators could be going up in a year,
PacifiCorp has set up a hotline. The line is open from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday
through Saturday. Call (800) 715-9238
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