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"It's been financially beneficial for Weyerhaeuser," says EWEB Chief Financial Officer Dick Varner. Varner says the corporation has made "at least" $1 million a month selling power from its cogeneration turbines, which generate power by running the paper mill's byproduct steam through turbines. The Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) accused the Longview Fibre mill in Washington state of "profiteering" from similar power sales. "What you have is an industry with large load profiteering and then coming to us to serve their need," BPA spokesman Ed Mosey told The Oregonian in a story about Longview Fibre. "It's essentially pushing the cost onto other ratepayers." Weyerhaeuser buys 60 megawatts of power (enough to run 35,000 homes) from EWEB for about $27 per megawatt hour to run its mill, according to Varner. Meanwhile, Weyerhaeuser generates about 12 to 18 megawatts of power through its cogeneration turbines, Varner says. But instead of using that power at its mill to reduce what it buys from EWEB and BPA, Weyerhaeuser sells the power on the market at a big profit. On the market, power was selling in December for $570 a megawatt 4 21 times what Weyerhaeuser pays for public power. Because BPA lacks sufficient generation capacity to serve all its utility and industrial customers, the agency has been forced to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on the power market buying electricity from Weyerhaeuser and other sellers. In effect, BPA is buying power from Weyerhaeuser on the market for $570 a megawatt and selling it back to them through EWEB for $27 a megawatt. The big losers in the deal are other ratepayers. BPA has announced that because of the high cost of buying power on the market, it will boost rates for EWEB and other customers by 60 percent. Varner says EWEB will pass that cost through into a 30 to 35 percent rate hike for local residents this year. If the energy market continues to spiral, Varner says a "nightmare" scenario has BPA raising rates 95 percent and local rates increasing 60 percent this year. EWEB now gets about one-third of its power from BPA and will increase to 70 percent from BPA in October. Weyerhaeuser spokesperson Lisa VanWinkle disagrees that the corporation is profiteering at the expense of other ratepayers. Weyerhaeuser's profit from the electricity sales from cogeneration are justified, "because we invested in these turbines," she says. Varner says an EWEB contract with Weyerhaeuser allows them to make the millions of dollars. "I wouldn't want to characterize it as gouging on their part because they're doing exactly what the contract allows them." EWEB sells the power for Weyerhaeuser on the market in exchange for a 5 percent take of the proceeds, Varner says. EWEB paid to build one of the two cogeneration generators at the Weyerhaeuser plant 30 years ago and in exchange gets 50 percent of the power generated by the mill, Varner says. EWEB uses the power to serve its customers. The $1 million a month Weyerhaeuser makes comes from the corporation selling its 50 percent share of the electricity. BPA's contract with EWEB and federal laws don't prohibit Weyerhaeuser from cashing in while using public power, says John Lebens, the BPA account executive for EWEB. "I sure wouldn't call it profiteering," Lebens says of Weyerhaeuser's profits. "It's just one of the realities in this market." Lebens says he doesn't know all the details but says Weyerhaeuser's situation appears to be different from that of Longview Fibre. Weyerhaeuser appears to have started selling power into the market earlier and is selling about one-third to one-fourth as much power as Fibre, according to Lebens. But Lebens says BPA will look into the arrangement. "We're looking around at all these contract relationships." BPA's controls on corporate profits in this area appear weak. For example, Lebens says he knows of no legal prohibition to a scenario in which a company could set up a factory that uses cheap BPA electricity to spin electric generators that create electricity that the corporation could then sell on the inflated market at a big profit. At the same time, BPA's regulation of citizen-owned public utilities like EWEB is strict. If BPA provided EWEB 100 percent of its power needs, EWEB could make huge profits selling the power generated by its McKenzie River dams on the market, perhaps eliminating the need for a rate increase. But Lebens says BPA's contract with EWEB would prohibit such an arrangement to benefit local ratepayers. Lebens also says that if EWEB dropped service to Weyerhaeuser to force the corporation to use its own power, BPA would reduce the power it provides EWEB by the same amount and continue to serve the corporation directly or through another utility. Meanwhile, VanWinkle says Weyer-haeuser is talking to EWEB about bringing another cogeneration turbine on-line in six months to boost power production and profits.
The $88 million project, designed to relieve traffic pressure in west Eugene, was derailed by a 4-3 council vote in December, with Rayor abstaining. The three councilors favoring the project, along with Mayor Jim Torrey, are wanting to revisit WEP and perhaps refer the project to the voters. If Rayor votes with the minority, Torrey would likely cast the tie-breaking vote. "The parkway is not dead and there are stalling tactics at work," says Councilor Bonny Bettman. "Gary's the wild card. ... The whole thing changes when Gary participates." The stalling tactics referred to by Bettman are alleged delays by the mayor in scheduling action on the WEP until after Rayor's conflict of interest "expires" Feb. 15. Bettman says Torrey was asked by council members to put the WEP on the Feb. 12 council agenda, but Torrey refused, saying the issue should first go to a meeting with other jurisdictions involved in TransPlan. Torrey is out of town this week and unavailable for comment. Rayor said in January that he would continue to abstain from voting on WEP, but now he says his engineering firm's contract on the WEP is ending this month and he believes his conflict of interest is also ending. The contract is not for design, but rather involves metric conversions to update construction data. "I don't know of any reason why I can't participate," he says. How would he vote if in fact he does participate? Rayor says the project is extremely complex and his vote would depend on proposals set before him, but he's open to constructing a modified "half a WEP" or Phase I of the highway between Fifth Avenue at Garfield Street and Beltline. He says he has more environmental concerns for Phase II, which would continue out past Greenhill Road to Highway 126, cutting through protected wetlands. Rayor walked the Phase I route last week and has studied aerial photos and maps. He plans to return to the Stewart Road wetlands viewing area this weekend to study the Phase I route and how it might affect wildlife and the wetlands viewing areas there. Bettman says time is running short for the city to ask that the $17.3 million in state funds earmarked for Phase I be reallocated for other, more pressing needs, such as work on Beltline and West 11th Avenue. "We can deal with connectivity issues later," she says. Bettman favors smaller projects to ease congestion without encouraging sprawl. Torrey has pushed for completion of the WEP for years, saying the project is needed to support growth and development in west and northwest Eugene, and to serve residents in western Lane County. Councilor David Kelly, however, says he attended a Florence City Club meeting recently and was told Highway 126 improvements were a much higher priority than the WEP for Florence residents. 4 TJT Granada
Can Stay The news came Feb. 7 from Gerry Gordon at CISCAP, Committee in Solidarity with the Central American People. Nicaraguans have rallied around the cause of Granada and the rural health clinic she had directed for over 10 years, says Gordon. The decision came on the heels of another legal victory for Granada, this one blocking her deportation order. Nicaraguan supporters of Granada also credit the impact of a letter to President Aleman from 32 members of the U.S. Congress, only the latest of thousands of letters and faxes from concerned U.S. citizens. Granada herself, who has been in hiding for two months since 14 armed men surrounded her house on Dec. 8, was ecstatic at the news, says Gordon. "I am very grateful that it has been proven that Nicaragua operates in a state of law and I am grateful to President Aleman and Mr. Marenco for honoring the law," says Granada. "I am also very grateful for the incredible demonstration of solidarity from so many people. The strong statements of the march of 10,000 Nicaraguans and of all the human rights groups, Nicaraguan and international, who have been so supportive of us, are moving us toward a more loving world," she says. "These efforts are really going to give life to many thousands of poor. People of good will in those countries with greater resources can express their caring for Nicaragua by continuing to support the vital work of the nongovernmental organizations. In this way the rights of life and health will be realized." 4 TJT
According to the Times, the report read in part: "Television news organizations staged a collective drag race on the crowded highway of democracy, recklessly endangering the electoral process, the political life of the country and their own credibility, all for reasons that may be conceptually flawed and commercially questionable." Locals who watched the returns into the wee hours of the morning saw the networks 4 CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox and MSNBC 4 twice make the wrong calls regarding Florida and its 25 electoral votes. Once the networks predicted that Gore had taken Florida, and then later they gave the state and the election to Bush. (The AP also called Florida for Bush but did not declare him winner of the election.) Although the networks retracted each bad call, and the final results were not determined for another five weeks, the report says the damage was done. Written by CNN-hired journalism experts Joan Konner, James Risser and Ben Wattenberg, the report concluded that by prematurely declaring a victory for Bush on election night, the networks unanimously created the "impression" that Bush had defeated Al Gore in the race to capture Florida. "That characterization carried through the post-election challenge," the report noted. "Gore was perceived as the challenger and labeled a 'sore loser' for trying to steal the election." The experts found problems with the Voter News Service's polling models and technology and said that the consortium run by AP and the networks "lacks checks and balances." The report also called for ending the use of exit polls to project winners and a moratorium on making projections in a state as long as its polls are open. On election night 2000, there was "a powerful collision between the public interest and the private competitive interests of the television news operations and the corporations that own them," according to the report. The New York Times (Feb. 2) called the report "the most comprehensive review yet of television's performance that night," and noted that while the authors of the report called CNN's coverage "a debacle," they also "offered a much broader criticism of network news." The report found no political bias in election coverage and no evidence of any effect resulting from CNN's handing Florida to Bush before the polls had closed in one part of the state. For its part, CNN said it would not project winners in states until all its polls are closed nor where candidate are within 1 percent of each other. 4 LW
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Paul Otte