In 1967, a new Seattle City Light dam opened in Pend Oreille County in the northeast corner of the state. The Boundary Dam, only a few miles south of the Canadian border, was built on the Pend Oreille River. It generates anywhere from a third to 60 percent of Seattle’s power, and when electricity supply exceeds demand, the surplus is often sold on the open market, reaping millions for Seattle-rate payers. The dam is not without controversy; Pend Oreille county fiercely opposed the building of the dam. In fact, the city of Seattle pays to mitigate the impact of the dam, recently to the tune of about $1.3 million a year.
But this money no longer satisfies Pend Oreille’s civic leadership:
Seattle officials say their contribution more than covers the community’s costs associated with the dam: road maintenance, public safety, additional students in the schools. Boundary Dam, Seattle says, provides good jobs in a place where opportunities are scarce.
Seattle took a risk by building the dam in 1964-67, said City Light Chief of Staff Sung Yang. Now Seattle residents should reap the benefits.
Besides the impact fee, Seattle City Light sells power wholesale to the Pend Oreille County Public Utility District, saving Pend Oreille ratepayers almost $20 million last year, by City Light’s estimates.
For a while, at least, it seemed that the city of Seattle had the advantage. Without an agreement on impact fees in place, Seattle had refused to pay anything until securing a long-term deal. And Seattle—a city of over half a million people—should have the advantage.
Pend Oreille is home to approximately 12,900 residents, many whom are retirees. The voters of one Pend Oreille school district have seen fit to reject a bond measure to refit a school seven times. Northwest Washington is also quite conservative politically. As much as Seattle is Democratic Seattle, conversely, Pend Oreille is GOP country. (But this doesn’t stop Pend Oreille County Commissioner Linda Merrill from trumpeting, on her blog, the award of federal “stimulus” dollars for county projects.)
Recently, the legislature has taken up a bill sponsored by Rep. Joel Kretz and Sen. Bob Morton. who represent the 7th legislative district, which contains Pend Oreille County. The is meant to dictate terms to the two sides, creating a new formula which could result in much larger payments by Seattle to cover the dam’s impact on the community. With Pend Oreille possibly having that much more leverage, Seattle City light has caved and will pay Pend Oreille $1.6 million to avoid paying more later.
While Eastern Washington Republicans are solid in their backing of this bill, Rep. Ross Hunter explains his tacit support for this shakedown:
“All I want is a level bargaining field,” said Rep. Ross Hunter, D-Medina, whose amendment would require Seattle to make payments during negotiations. “I can make the negotiations fairer, and I’m sticking up for the little guy here.”
I’m sure Seattle City Light rate payers, feeling their wallets that much lighter, will not be so appreciative of this kind of “fairness.” Seattle City Light, whose rate payers are themselves “little guys,” are being punished for making savvy long term investments like the Boundary Dam. Its a shame that Seattle-area legislators like Hunter think they’re being magnanimous for “sticking up” for Pend Oreille, when he should be playing hardball, and it feeds in to a terribly destructive relationship; the more they shake us down, the more we pay. The more we pay, the more they resent us for doing so.
Shocked to see a story painting Ross Hunter a spendthrift fool. “Guess which A+ supporter is a dummy” stories to follow – introducing selected facts on obscure issues, two per week until victory is won.
Next up: Deb Eddy Claims to Tip Consistently..
Gosh, us poor city folks are victims! Don’t cry, Will, I hate those rural meanies as much as you do.
Let me see if I’ve got this right: It’s Seattle’s dam, it just happens to be on someone else’s land? But we own their asses because of some long-ago financing arrangement we made.
In the interests of fairness, it seems wise to transition into some kind of arrangement where it’s their dam and they just sell us the power.
@3
So, we built it but it’s their dam? I think not.
We built the dam at considerable capital outlay and risk and pay to operate the facility. We also subsidize their own power rates to a HUGE extent, and pay to mitigate the impact of the project on their community. I can see negotiating a new rate for that mitigation payment (COLA and all that), but I dunno about 30-40% worth.
Also, the Pend Oreille commish likes some crappy books:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-revi…
What’s the problem here? — we can simply reduce the discount that we now give on power sales to their local PUD, thereby recouping any excessive payment forced on SCL
Small typo in this sentence:
“Northwest Washington is also quite conservative politically.”
I’m pretty sure you meant “Northeast Washington”.
I went to high school in Pend Oreille County in Newport, and there is definitely a lot of community animosity towards Seattle regarding the dam.
The dam is also featured in Kevin Costner’s “The Postman”. Who gets the residuals on this, Seatte or Pend Oreille County?
It’s time for Seattle to form our own State.
We’d be bigger than at least two states in population, so we’d get two US Senators and two Congressmen.
Then let Pend d’Oreille mess with us …
why don’t we just stop selling any electricity to pend oreille? then they’ll be begging us to come back even if we don’t pay them anything per year.
Has anyone ever been to Newport? Seattle Power ain’t the only game in town.
@4 – we built the dam but it’s their river providing the power.
Maybe rural people wouldn’t be so conservative if urban liberals didn’t act entitled to hog all the money.
How fascinating. So many facts left out of this discussion. And regarding the commissioner’s taste in books, it’s quite diverse. And have you read any of these books? You might be surprised. But back to the dam. Pend Oreille PUD bid to build that dam. It is in our county. Property was owned by our PUD. But the federal government chose to award the dam project to Seattle. That is why SCL sells Pend Oreille PUD a small amount of their power at cost. The Federal Government stipulated that in its original license. And consequently, Pend Oreille had to litigate to enforce this. Pend Oreille County is rich with natural resources. How does that do the residents and county any good when the government shuts down the forests with heavy regulation and restrictions on timber harvest and makes it nearly impossible to harvest the mineral deposits in the area? And a city is awarded the use of our water without compensation. Now to $$. SCL pays NO property taxes to Pend Oreille County. And they pay very little in sales taxes, as they take delivery of all equipment, etc in Seattle, so they pay the taxes to Seattle. Since the dam is owned by Seattle, that’s taking money from one pocket and putting it in another. The current law calls for the impact payments to help with loss of revenue. Oddly, SCL has never considered that part of the equation. Now honestly, how is a small county with a budget of less than $10K supposed to fairly negotiate with Seattle? Who has the big club?