By Jim Haley
Herald Writer
A lawsuit asking a judge to prevent the Snohomish County PUD from revealing power contract information won’t be played out in court after all.
Two energy companies on Monday asked the court to dismiss the lawsuit, including a request for a permanent injunction that would have barred the utility from revealing how much it is paying American Electric Power Service Corp. and Enron Power Marketing Inc. for power.
That’s because David Aldrich, a former PUD commission analyst and utility watchdog, said Monday he’s giving up his drive to get the information — partly because he doesn’t have the wherewithal to fight the energy giants in court.
Beth Ginsberg, a Seattle attorney representing Enron and American Electric, said the lawsuit will be dismissed.
The two companies sued the local utility to prevent it from turning over proprietary trade information to Aldrich under state public disclosure laws.
On Thursday, a court commissioner issued a temporary order banning the PUD from giving Aldrich the documents. A more involved hearing had been set for this morning.
Aldrich sought the information about contracts with the power suppliers early this year after energy prices rose sharply, and the utility was locked into paying high prices for up to eight years.
Those deals are partly responsible for recent steep rate increases.
More recently, he pursued the information under the state’s public disclosure laws, which require public entities to disclose most information.
It’s not that Aldrich doesn’t want the information, but he’s afraid he might lose, and that might hurt chances to get similar information in the future.
The PUD remained neutral in the battle, Aldrich said.
"I felt nobody in the courtroom was defending the public’s interests but me, and I’m not competent to do that," Aldrich said Monday of last week’s hearing. "I don’t want a bad precedent to be established for lack of legal competence."
PUD general counsel Mike Gianunzio said he received a letter Monday from Aldrich saying he has withdrawn his request for the contract information.
Gianunzio said when the contracts were being negotiated the companies insisted on a secrecy clause. But the utility also demanded the deals remain subject to state public records laws, he said.
"We are absolutely in favor of the public having access to this kind of information," Gianunzio said. And he said the utility would have gone into court today telling a judge that "there is a presumption that all these records are public."
The utility’s problem, he added, is it’s difficult to buy power from big marketing groups such as Enron without "confidentiality provisions" in the contracts.
For example, Greg Wolfe, vice president in charge of western marketing for American Electric, said in court documents that the contract information sought by Aldrich might reveal the formulas the company uses to make long-range power cost predictions.
Revealing that, he said, would give competitors a leg up in future bidding.
You can call Herald Writer Jim Haley at 425-339-3447 or send e-mail to haley@heraldnet.com.
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