01/23/2003

Associated Press

Electricity rates are likely to go up this fall, thanks to meager snowpacks in the Cascades and throughout the Columbia River basin.

The lack of snow translates into low stream flows for power-generating dams.

"The longer this dry winter continues, the prospects are very high that we will request a process to put a rate increase into effect," Bonneville Power Administration spokesman Bill Murlin said Wednesday. "That's not to say we will do it; it just says the chances are pretty good."

Northwest Weather and Avalanche Center Mt. Baker

"I've been telling industrial and commercial customers that they ought to put in their budgets a 5 percent to 6 percent increase just as a placeholder so they won't get surprised later in the year," said Dick Varner, fiscal services supervisor at the Eugene Water & Electric Board.

The snowpack Wednesday stood at 66 percent of normal in the Columbia basin, 59 percent statewide and 48 percent in the Willamette River basin.

The numbers are almost as bad as in 2001, one of the driest years on record in the Northwest. And typically, two-thirds of the snowpack is on the ground by Feb. 1.

Related Stories

Locke proposes new water laws BPA to build new transmission lines from Spokane to Grand Coulee

"So we're not getting the snow accumulation we usually get during the big months," said Jon Lea, a hydrologist with the U.S. Natural Resources Conservation Service. "We still may have some saving grace in the precipitation that may fall between now and June 1."

But the snowfall would need to be much greater than average to make up for the slow start, he said.

The latest stream flow forecast from the National Weather Service shows the Columbia flowing at 72 percent of normal at The Dalles through the end of summer. That is expected to lower the BPA's surplus power sales this year by $200 million to $300 million, or about one-third to one-half of what the federal power marketing agency would take in under normal conditions.

The loss in anticipated revenue hits the agency just as it's starting to recover from the 2001 drought and energy crisis. To cope with diminished reserves, flat sales and marginal market prices, the agency is considering a special provision for a rate increase known as a "safety net" clause. It probably would kick in next fall, on the heels of a smaller rate increase expected this spring.