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Storm after storm, cooperatives repair & prepare

"I honor the cooperative spirit and all those who are a part of it"...

Basin Electric Power Cooperative - July 22, 2010

As I write this column, it is an overcast, windy day in Bismarck. The previous few days brought thunderstorms, 80 mile-per-hour straight-line winds and deadly tornadoes throughout parts of our neighboring state of Minnesota. It seems like the weather is determined to test us these days. It seems the political and regulatory groups want to test us too. But, co-ops have and will always find ways to survive the storms, both real and political.

In my last column I discussed the Good Friday ice storm of 2010. Several member co-ops experienced downed lines and broken poles, but none worse than Mor-Gran-Sou, who lost an astounding 12,000 poles with more than 600 miles of fallen lines. I talked about how the cooperative spirit answered the call of action.

Adding to that, a tornado touched down near Bowdle, SD, on May 22. Homes were leveled, boats and vehicles were destroyed, and the place looked like a scene from the movie Twister. The tornado, rated EF4, took out a portion of our Antelope Valley Station-to-Broadland 345-kilovolt transmission line, 11 structures in all. Nine were flattened, one was bent in half, and the last one was completely gone.

There’s no doubt that, as cooperatives, we’ve weathered many storms this past winter and spring and, now, this summer. Yet, one thing always brings us through these storms: the cooperative spirit.

In this issue, I honor the cooperative spirit and all those who are a part of it: our co-op friends who helped Mor-Gran-Sou rebuild their system, giving up the Easter holiday, nights, weekends and time with family; and our Transmission System Maintenance employees, who jumped in together and responded to the Antelope Valley-to-Broadland line damage. They worked tirelessly in muddy and wet conditions to place new structures, string line and get the line restored. I’m pleased that as of June 20, the line is back up.

It’s a tough time for cooperatives right now. I’ve written in the past about bad climate change legislation, and most recently, about the administration’s proposal to further cut RUS funds. If that’s not enough, we’re also facing several Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations that could make our fossil fuel plants much more expensive to run, if not impossible.

Here are just a few potential regulations we’re facing under EPA: additional and more restrictions for sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides; new and tighter National Ambient Air Quality Standards; new Hazardous Air Permits for mercury and other emissions; stricter ozone standards; regulation of CO2 by the EPA under the Clean Air Act; tighter particulate matter standards; new coal ash disposal regulations, including the potential ban of pond ash disposal; and new regulations for cooling intake structures.

These proposed regulatory concepts have one thing in common: They are directed at making the use of fossil fuels so expensive they are no longer economically viable for use in producing a kilowatt-hour of energy. Exactly what they want! Do my remarks suggest I am against a cleaner environment? Absolutely not, but there has to be a balance. As a country, as a world, we must recognize that it will take all forms of fuels: coal, nuclear, renewables, hydro and natural gas to fuel our global economy.

I’m not going to dwell on this EPA issue in this column. I think we need to take this time to celebrate our strengths. But, I am going to call you to action.
For each of these regulations outlined in this issue, there will be comment periods. Now is not the time to be quiet. Your members need to know what lies ahead, and our rule makers need to understand the impacts of what they are proposing.

Our nation and our cooperative family are facing challenging times. Our economy is in rough shape, and we are facing one of the worst environmental disasters in our history with the oil spill in the Gulf, which many suggest will have a profound effect on this country’s debate on a meaningful energy policy. It is also important we recognize there are fewer people today who understand the interests and importance of rural America than there were even four years ago.

For our voice to be heard, we must take a position of communicating - fully and continually – the issues and positions with our elected officials. But let’s not stop there; we must communicate with everyone on the need for a balanced approach to our energy future. As cooperatives, we have never been known to fold up shop because we were disadvantaged. Instead, we use our common roots and unity - found in the form of 900 electric cooperatives serving 42 million people, using 2.5 million miles of transmission line, and covering nearly three quarters of our nation.

If we can rebuild nearly all of one cooperative’s distribution system in a matter of weeks, we can stand up and fight for our consumers’ future and for a reasonable energy policy for our country.