Thanks for sharing the enlightening history of Bonneville Power Administration missteps and stumbles by Bill Arthur and Marc Sullivan (“BPA adds to long history of poor resource management,” The Herald, July 19). One theme that seems to recur in that history is BPA’s desire for dominance and control. In 1976 BPA sought congressional approval for unfetter authority to acquire and market new energy. Congress, however, granted a more constrained authority.
BPA’s recent decision to join Market + seems inexplicable. Their other alternative, energy market EDAM, offers advantages on cost, reliability, integration of renewable energy resources, and environmental impacts. What could explain BPA’s preference?
Here’s the essential fact: Without BPA participation, the Arkansas based Markets+ is probably not a viable project. BPA owns 75 percent of Northwest transmission. Without that transmission Markets+ would have very limited ability to deliver or receive energy from Northwest participants such as Puget Sound Energy and Snohomish PUD. Without strong participation by Northwest entities and access to their hydropower, Markets+ would be too limited to succeed.
Bonneville knows that their participation is a life-or-death matter for Markets+, as does the market’s organizer, the Southwest Power Pool. This gives BPA a degree of leverage they could not hope to have as part of EDAM. BPA has been lured away from what would most benefit our region so it can be a big fish in a small pond rather than share the advantages of a bigger pond with other big fish.
Don J. Miller
Arlington
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