Grant PUD rate talk chopped from Tuesday meeting

EPHRATA — A planned discussion about possible Grant County PUD rates was abruptly canceled and a PUD commission workshop closed for a few minutes after a statement from commission chair Nelson Cox.

People were invited to attend Tuesday’s workshop during a discussion on possible changes to the rate structure at the Oct. 10 commission meeting. Cox announced Tuesday the rate workshop would not be on the agenda, then read his statement.

The Columbia Basin Herald requested a copy of the statement from the PUD, but Cox declined to provide it to PUD staff to forward to the paper.

It was unclear if Cox was speaking for the whole commission. Commissioners Terry Pyle and Tom Flint did not return a phone call asking for comment. Commissioner Larry Schaapman declined to answer.

“I cannot respond to that,” Schaapman said when asked whether Cox was speaking for the commission.

In his statement, Cox asked the other commissioners to come back to the next regular meeting, scheduled for Oct. 24, with their opinions on rates and the rate structure. For himself, he said, he was in favor of raising rates on large industrial and industrial customers, classes 14 and 15, to 7.6 cents per kilowatt hour.

Currently, large industrial customers pay 2.597 cents per kWh for the first 10.95 million kWh; 2.96 cents per kWh for the second tier up to 21.9 kWh; and 3.097 cents per kWh beyond 21.9 million kWh.

Industrial customers pay 2.103 cents per kWh for the first 7.3 million kWh and 3.391 cents per kWh after that threshold is reached.

All classes also pay a basic charge and a demand charge. It is unknown how those basic charges may change at this time.

“Today we will close the meeting for about two minutes,” he said. “Ignore my fellow commissioners, don’t talk to them. They’ve got a lot on their plate (and) I don’t want them to go through the same stuff I did for the last two months.”

Cox then said he objected to one group of users, which he did not name, using a substantial amount of PUD power, which he estimated at 30%.

“We can’t take it away from them, but we need to draw a line in the sand. No more going in that direction,” he said.

No other commissioners offered a comment after Cox had finished.

Utility district rates are set using guidelines established in the PUD’s resolution 8768, which starts with an analysis of what it costs to provide service to each rate class. From there, some classes are charged less than the cost of providing service to them, while others are charged more than the cost of service. Irrigators and residential customers are charged less than the cost of service, while large industrial and industrial customers are charged more.

Customer classes paying less than their cost of service must pay at least 80% of the cost, while customer classes such as industrial and heavy industrial users that pay more will pay a maximum of 15% more than their cost. The resolution was originally passed in 2015, and all customer classes were supposed to be within those parameters by 2024. At the Oct. 10 meeting, Schaapman said commissioners are required to make some changes to that resolution.

“It’s going to get superseded – it has to – because it sunsets at the end of this year,” Schaapman said during the PUD’s Oct. 10 meeting. “By default, we have to do something now.”

Schaapman said then that he was in favor of setting parameters, although he thought they needed to be changed, due to inflation and the fact the PUD had deferred any rate increases for what he said was four years.

Rates were last increased in 2022 for 2023. Prior to that, rates had not been increased since 2018.

Dan Miller, a spokesman for the Ag Power Users group, asked about the need for a discussion among PUD commissioners and agriculture and industry power users. Tuesday’s meeting was announced at that time, but when the meeting started, Cox announced the change to the agenda.

Previous coverage of Ag Power Users indicates that the organization contributed tens of thousands of dollars to candidates for the Grant PUD board of commissioners, some of whom were elected to the board. Cox and Commissioner Judy Wilson were among those successful candidates. Agricultural power users are among those who might benefit from increased rates for industrial and heavy industrial rate increases.

The Columbia Basin Herald will continue to monitor the rate-setting process as we reach out to stakeholders for additional information. We have reached out to Cox for additional information, but he did not respond by press time.

Cheryl Schweizer may be reached via email at cschweizer@columbiabasinherald.com.