228 



Mr. DeFazio. Thank you. Mr. Eldridge, you will be the last one 

 before l\inch here, unless you want to wait till after lunch. 



STATEMENT OF M. STEVEN ELDRIDGE 



Mr. Eldridge. Thanks for inviting me today. My name is Steve 

 Eldridge. I'm general manager of Umatilla Electric, a cooperative 

 association about 200 miles up the river from Portland. Our service 

 area is 2,500 square miles and we have 65 employees and 5 con- 

 sumers per mile of line. 



We are the largest, most efficient irrigation electric co-op in the 

 United States. Ninety percent of the water taken from the Colum- 

 bia River in Oregon for irrigation occurs in Umatilla and Morrow 

 Counties. This amount of irrigation comprises three-tenths of a per- 

 cent of the flow of the Columbia River and irrigates 200,000 acres, 

 and these 200,000 acres supply aU the bread, meat and potato 

 needs of one million people for one year, with 30 inches of water 

 and 400 kilowatt hours per acre per year, a very efficient use of 

 natural resources. 



There is not sufficient time today for me to respond to all of the 

 issues that you raised. So I will confine my remarks primarily to 

 the acquisition and Northwest Power Planning Council. 



I'd like to start with back in the 1970s, with the letter of insuffi- 

 ciency, the last time we tiiought we were deficit in the region. As 

 a result of that letter of insufficiency, we signed on with a bxmch 

 of other co-ops for a 10 percent of the Boardman, a coal-fired plant. 



Things went along pretty well, and in fact, in 1981, BPA commit- 

 ted to purchase from PNGC any resource that they needed, and 

 they felt at that time that the Pacific Northwest needed all the re- 

 sources it could get. 



Of course, you know shortly after that we discovered we weren't 

 in deficit. In 1983, we were about to close a deal with WAPA when 

 Bonneville came in and offered them a better price. So that fell 

 through. 



Then during the 1990s, when the surplus ran out due to the re- 

 gional load growth, constraints on the Columbia/Snake River, 

 which I think is a lot closer to 1,000 megawatts instead of 500, and 

 thermal plant closures, once again, PNGC decided to pursue a long- 

 term sale of Boardman. 



Now, at the same time, we went on two parallel paths. There 

 were utilities interested in California and the 52 megawatts we 

 had to sell and Bonneville started their acquisition process, and we 

 participated in that, as well. If you remember, about that time, 

 BPA put their externality costs on and they had to back away from 

 part of it because they were inappropriate. There was not any na- 

 tional policy on that. 



We never sold it to BPA. It's going to go to California. It's going 

 to start the first of 1994. It met Bonneville's price levels and there 

 at the last, Bonneville did think thej^d be interested, but they 

 couldn't close the deal for a couple years. 



In fairness to the other parties we were negotiating with, we 

 closed the deal with CaUfomia. It remains to be seen whether or 

 not we would have ever been successfiil. So for the next 20 years, 

 that 52 megawatts wiU be going to California for less than 30 mills 

 a kilowatt hour. 



