City of Cashmere Light Department

In 2006, the City of Cashmere began discussing the sale of the electric department to neighboring Chelan County PUD. At long last, the sale is expected to be finalized October 30, 2008 after the city and PUD finalize some rerouting and easement projects. The purchase price will be $3.5M. It has been reported that the reason for the sale was due to rising maintenance and operations costs.

The City of Cashmere Light Department serves approximately 1,200 customers, and Chelan PUD serves approximately 42,000 customers. In the last dozen years or so, two other cities have sold their electric departments: the Town of Waterville sold their utility to Douglas County PUD, and the City of Fircrest sold their utility to Tacoma Power.

Greenhouse Gas Emission Performance Standard

In 2007, the Legislature passed ESSB 6001, which established a greenhouse gas emission performance standard for electric utilities. This bill prohibits electric utilities from entering into long term contracts for power sources that exceed a certain emissions standard. Cities and the governing boards of all public electric utilities must make a determination that their baseload electric generation meets this standard in every year of contracts that are longer than five years.

Because the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) supplies power to most of the 17 city electric utilities, this power is also subject to the emission performance standard. BPA will soon contact each affected city and provide information about the generation resources the agency intends to use to meet its load obligations. This information will help the utilities complete an analysis of their individual emissions, as required under this new law. If cities have questions about this law or about the information provided by BPA, please contact Victoria Lincoln at victorial@awcnet.org.

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