Also, BPA suspended the signing of new power contracts because of the uncertainty over how it will pay for market-rate purchases when demand increases. These aren't your typical power stories about kilowatt-hours and electricity deregulation and all those words that make our eyes glaze over. This is about workers out of work. It's about trading the Northwest's sacred fish for the health of the elderly and sick who could die without air conditioning. And that's why there's hope that this time we'll all take notice.
Some tough choices are ahead.
The Northwest Power Planning Council says there is a 24 percent chance the Northwest power supply won't meet demand between now and 2003. What's worse, the outage most likely would happen during a winter cold snap. The region's power interests, fragmented by competing goals, have provided few answers. Power consumers may provide some of their own. Already, utilities such as the Benton Public Utility District are asking customers whether they are willing to pay more for so- called green power.