GRANT COUNTY PUD

I support the continued build-out of the fiber optic network.  I understand the fiber program is paying its way. In today’s world of electronics we need that system for our education systems and business endeavors. Without it we can not expect to compete on a state, national or international scale. I urge Grant County PUD commissioners to get on with the build-out and put that project behind us.

I am hearing that PUD commissioners you are considering an across-the-board rate increase. This will acerbate the inherent problems in providing rates that reflect the cost of bringing power to the various rate classes.

Dennis Conley, Ag Power spokesman, presented a ‘white paper’ that reflected a robust farm economy as justification for rewarding Grant County farmers with a subsidized irrigation rate. That subsidy is presently at sixty percent (60%). 

The district’s Fast Facts booklet, dated December 2008, reveals irrigation energy costs averaged 2.980 cents per kWh based on sales of 555,748,295 kWh.  Without a 60% subsidy this irrigation rate would average 4.967 cents per kWh.  This is  a subsidy of 1.987 cents per kWh and amounts to $11,042,719 a year — every year. 

PUD commissioners are charged with providing ‘fair and equitable rates’ to all rate classes. The citizens of Grant County should not have to provide support to irrigation farmers. Their gift is having land to farm in the Columbia Basin Irrigation Project. 

Douglas F. Burk

Ephrata