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<\/a><\/p>\nEWEB\u2019s Plan to Sell its McKenzie River Valley Territory is Very Unpopular with Customers<\/span><\/span><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n By Scott Rohter, September 2013<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Eugene Water and Electric Board’s<\/span><\/span><\/span> financial troubles can be at least partially traced back to the collapse of the now defunct energy giant, Enron.\u00a0 After this major\u00a0 corporate scandal EWEB decided that they would never again be caught short of electricity\u00a0so they made some substantial investments in alternative energy projects, but these investments proved to be very expensive and they have not paid off . This is due to the fact that the energy\u00a0they generate is being sold at a loss\u00a0because the Federal Government\u00a0sets the prices of\u00a0electricity\u00a0generated by the Bonneville Power Administration so low that EWEB cannot sell its own wind and solar energy at a profit… When you factor in the high cost of re-licensing\u00a0the hydro-power facility\u00a0it\u00a0owns at\u00a0Carmen Smith Reservoir and the other dams\u00a0that it owns in Lane County\u00a0the price of generating electricity\u00a0from its own\u00a0sources is\u00a0uncompetitive.. This supports a long standing\u00a0theory of\u00a0the Austrian\u00a0school of economics which is that whenever the Federal Government gets involved in the\u00a0free market,\u00a0its manipulation generally makes a\u00a0mess of everything.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n EWEB’s\u00a0latest hair brained scheme is to sell\u00a0its McKenzie River Valley customers <\/span><\/span><\/span>to another electric utility company in order to raise money. It is just another one of EWEB\u2019s unpopular proposals that they come up with from time to time similar in nature to the land confiscation proposal\u00a0which\u00a0they\u00a0supported several years ago. That plan was known as the 200 Foot Overlay Map and it left McKenzie River Valley property owners so mad that they turned out in large numbers to defeat the proposal at a Lane County Board of Commissioners meeting.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n That proposal\u00a0was actually an assault on the 4th and 5th Amendments to the United States Constitution which are intended to protect private property rights. The 200 Foot Overlay Map would have taken away 200 feet of private property from\u00a0every rural Lane County property owner who owned land with surface water on it, and EWEB wouldn\u2019t have had to compensate anybody a dime for their “acquisition” of this valuable real estate. The surface\u00a0water could have been in the form of a river, a creek, a pond, or even a seasonal drainage ditch. In my case it would have taken away much more than 200 feet because I have several small streams on my property. This very unpopular proposal generated a standing room only crowd at a Lane County Board of Commissioners meeting where the idea, as well as three Lane County Commissioners were all shortly thereafter disposed of. The idea of the 200 Foot Overlay Map was quickly shelved, and all but one of the County Commissioners who supported the plan were replaced\u00a0in the next General Election.\u00a0While EWEB may not have come up with this proposal..\u00a0they supported it in that they were conspicuously silent and neutral through the whole process.. They certainly didn’t oppose it. <\/p>\n McKenzie River Valley Territory<\/p><\/div>\n EWEB\u2019s latest proposal\u00a0to cut its territory and to sell off three thousand of its longtime, valuable\u00a0customers to Lane Electric in order to raise\u00a0 money for\u00a0its cash strapped operations was met with a packed house full of very skeptical McKenzie River Valley residents at a September 17th meeting in the little town of Leaburg. The meeting room at the fire station was so crowded that the door had to be opened because\u00a0many people were\u00a0sweltering in the heat generated from the presence of so many\u00a0people crowded into such a little room. EWEB estimated the crowd\u00a0to be\u00a0at about 120 people, but my guess is that figure is\u00a0probably low. Regardless of the exact size of the crowd\u00a0there was no disputing the fact that the attendance at\u00a0EWEB’s September Board Meeting was much greater than normal. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n The item on the agenda that stirred up\u00a0so much interest was the so called “service territory transfer”<\/em> of EWEB’s McKenzie River Valley customers to Lane Electric. This is pure doubletalk and spin for a sale and acquisition of a integral part or EWEB’s territory by another electric\u00a0company that would put a mandatory smart meter on all of\u00a0our houses.\u00a0 If smart meters are such a good idea I asked the representative from Lane Electric, then why don’t you\u00a0allow your customers to choose whether they want one or not? The question\u00a0went un-answered. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Let me tell you a little bit about smart meters. Smart meters are designed to do two things. They are\u00a0primarily designed to eliminate jobs… specifically the jobs of the meter readers at a time when Americans need those jobs more than ever. Secondly they are intended to provide the electric utility companies\u00a0who use them with all of the information they need to charge you more money\u00a0for electricity during peak hours, not less money for electricity during off peak hours. Do you know of anyone who is going to change their lifestyle,\u00a0\u00a0or alter their use of electricity just because their is a\u00a0different kind of meter on their house?.. It isn’t going to happen. We will all be forced to pay more\u00a0to use the electricity we want when we want. That is the\u00a0idea behind the\u00a0promotion and the use of smart meters. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n EWEB offered comparisons\u00a0which shed a favorable light on the proposed sale and acquisition by Lane Electric. They offered assurances that no sale would proceed unless it had the full support of the community. There were glaring contradictions however in EWEB\u2019s presentation such as when their general manager Roger Gray said that\u00a0EWEB was becoming more focused on providing electricity in an urban environment and as such it was just too inconvenient\u00a0or inefficient for them to drive all the way\u00a0up river to repair our power lines when there was an electric\u00a0outage., but then in the very next breath he mentioned that EWEB\u2019s operations facility and Lane Electric\u2019s operations center are within\u00a0a\u00a0few miles of each other. My thought was that if their operations facilities are so close to each other, then why is it\u00a0inefficient for EWEB, but it is efficient for Lane Electric?\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Let\u2019s face it. EWEB just doesn’t want to\u00a0provide electricity to\u00a0our little community anymore. They are trying to divorce us as one member of the community so aptly put it. It\u00a0only seems inefficient to some because they\u00a0don\u2019t want to\u00a0fulfill their responsibilities. They would rather do something else. There is no valid reason why it is any harder for EWEB to drive up here to service the transmission lines than it is for Lane Electric and to be perfectly\u00a0clear it is only a short thirty five mile drive. Century Link isn’t looking to divest itself of their telephone and internet service users up here so why\u00a0is EWEB? On the contrary I am constantly being propositioned by\u00a0Century Link in order to sign me up for more of their services.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n There were\u00a0some obvious\u00a0gaps in the presentation last night such as when I asked the spokesperson for Lane Electric why they didn\u2019t offer an opt out program for\u00a0 customers who didn\u2019t want a smart meter on their house.\u00a0He admitted that was\u00a0the case. “There is no opt out program at Lane Electric”,<\/em> he said. He did not offer any explanation why.\u00a0If and when EWEB ever decides to use smart meters, they will allow those who don’t want one to opt out of the program.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n If I have to choose between EWEB which\u00a0doesn\u2019t\u00a0provide me with an\u00a0elected member on their Board, but does\u00a0 provide\u00a0me with a way to avoid having a smart meter on my house,\u00a0versus Lane Electric which would<\/span> provide me with an elected board member, but would not allow me to opt out of their mandatory smart meter program, I will chose to stay with EWEB.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n After an hour long Q and A session that was peppered with equal measures of curious questions and\u00a0diplomatic answers, someone in the audience suggested that we take a vote on the proposed sale and acquisition with a show of hands.\u00a0 A vote was then taken and it wasn\u2019t even close.\u00a0 The vote was about 4 to 1 opposed to the sale. Then there was an\u00a0acknowledgement from the President of EWEB\u2019s Board of Commissioners that the majority of people in the room were obviously opposed to the sale, and yet in spite of the assurances that were given at the start of the meeting that they would not proceed with this\u00a0sale without the general support of the community, a plant in the audience suggested that they needed to do more work in order to educate the public about the so called advantages of the proposed sale and acquisition. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n The next thing you knew, several members of EWEB\u2019s Board of Commissioners jumped at that suggestion and promised that they would be happy to do\u00a0that, and also that they would continue to explore the possibility of selling off their upriver customers.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n When someone in the room asked if they were actually going to follow our wishes or not I remarked, \u201cJust think of them like Congress.\u00a0We elect them to do what\u00a0we want, and then they just ignore\u00a0us and do\u00a0what they want.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n If you liked this article please sign up for my two free RSS Newsfeed right here at the top of the article and also at www.lessgovisthebestgov.com<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Selected Reading<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n https:\/\/lessgovisthebestgov.com\/blog\/smart-meters-are-a-dumb-idea-eugene-water-and-electric-board-tries-to-sell-customers-for-cash.html<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n http:\/\/lessgovisthebestgov.com\/Property-Rights-Oregon-Lane-Reset-Button.html<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n http:\/\/lessgovisthebestgov.com\/Property-Rights-Oregon-Lane-Water-Quality.html<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>It was a packed house. Every seat in the room was filled. There wasn\u2019t a vacant space left in the parking lot either. The little room was\u00a0crowded with concerned residents of Lane County who came to hear about\u00a0Eugene Water and Electric Board’s plans to sell\u00a0its upriver customers to another\u00a0electric company for some much needed cash after making a series of\u00a0 poor investments in\u00a0wind and solar energy projects. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n
<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a>An EWEB spokesperson pointed out that the McKenzie River Valley customers don\u2019t have our own elected member currently on the Board of Commissioners. Then in the next sentence he went on to explain that there was actually\u00a0a member on the Board of Commissioners that\u00a0represent sus. \u00a0That Board member is\u00a0the President who represents the community at large.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/a>All of this\u00a0was typical of the jive talk and the sales gimmicks that were a part of the presentation that was employed by both EWEB and Lane Electric representatives at their meeting in Leaburg. When I\u00a0pointed out\u00a0that EWEB could easily arrange to add another member to their Board of Commissioners to specifically represent their upriver customers they acknowledged that was indeed a fact, but said that the ultimate decision would have to be made by the Eugene City Council. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n