Grant PUD to consider Reclamation contract

EPHRATA — Grant County PUD commissioners may vote next week on a new contract with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, one that will have an impact on Grant County irrigation districts and irrigation customers.

Bureau of Reclamation officials have asked for a delay in the process of implementing a new contract. But a letter sent by the PUD to Bureau of Reclamation officials said the PUD plans to “finalize the contract and present the contract for signature to USBR (the Bureau of Reclamation) by June 20.”

The contract expires June 30. Commissioners were updated on the contract at the regular commission meeting Tuesday.

The cost to the Bureau of Reclamation, and through them to the irrigation districts, is estimated to be about $1 million each year after the contract expires, said Thomas Stredwick, public information specialist for the PUD.

The letter was signed by PUD general manager Kevin Nordt. In the letter Nordt wrote the irrigation district directors and managers had asked for a six-month delay in implementing the new fees, since their 2017 budgets already had been approved before they knew the fees amount. The irrigation districts also asked that the new rates be phased in over a period of time.

Utility district officials agreed to both requests, Nordt noted. The proposed contract phases in the rates from 2018 to 2022.

“Because Grant PUD substantially incorporated the comments from USBR into the latest draft and USBR had no comments on the final draft, we anticipate USBR signing the contract in a timely manner to maintain continuity of service,” Nordt wrote.

The original agreement was part of a larger contract dating to 1976, when the PUD bought some electrical lines from the Bonneville Power Administration. As part of that sale the PUD agreed to transmit electricity for free for some irrigation district operations. The irrigation districts had and have to pay somebody for the power, either BPA or another supplier, but didn’t have to pay for transmission until the contract expired.

Edna Rey-Vizgirdas, public affairs specialist for the Pacific Northwest region Bureau of Reclamation office in Boise, said Bureau of Reclamation officials want to get the irrigation districts more involved in the process. The three parties “need more time to discuss the new rates and contract provisions,” Rey-Vizgirdas said, “to hopefully reach agreement between all the parties.”

There has been discussion, said Rod Noteboom of the PUD. “For the last – about five years or so, a lot of off and on conversations,” he said at Tuesday’s meeting. In answer to a question from commissioner Larry Schaapman, Noteboom explained most of the conversations were between PUD and Bureau of Recreation officials, or with Ron Rodewald, the former director of Columbia Basin Hydropower, who has since died.

More detailed negotiations began in about February 2016, Noteboom said. The initial rates were presented to the Bureau of Reclamation in November 2016. Representatives from Reclamation and the three irrigation districts affected by the change met with PUD officials in December.