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Show Power Federation names directors at annual meeting A new board of directors was elected at the annual meeting of the Southwest Utah Co-operative Power Federation held last Sat. night with a dinner followed by six speakers. The meeting was attended by close to seventy representatives of communities com-munities and organizations from throughout southern Utah. , New directors are Raymond Prestwich of Cedar City, John Vaughn ;T of Kanab, Leon Bowler of Enterprise, Lyndon Bradshaw of Hurricane, Rudger McArthur of St. George, Alpine Bowler of Enterprise, Glen Willardson of Garkane Power, Carl Palmer of Salt Lake City and Jan Graf of Santa Clara. This is the first federation board that Cedar City has representation on. The city council voted last fall to join the federation and in a straw poll vote last Feb., Cedar City's residents favored going with municipal power system rather than supporting the purchase of CPNational's electric system in the area by Utah Power and Light. The city had voted earlier to join the Southwest Power Agency-the financing arm of the federation-and has had representation on that board. The newly elected directors decided to wait and elect their officers at their next meeting. A motion was raised by Rudger McArthur who said that more time was needed by the directors to consider possible officers. Outgoing chairman Carl Palmer on the group's second anniversary said.'i'm proud to say that the federation is stronger now than it has ever been before. The electrical future in southern Utah is not with UP & L. This will be a year of propaganda by UP & L to convince the mayors and councils against condemnation." Palmer also welcomed Beaver and Garkane Power as new members of the group and said that Milford, Minersville and Beaver Co. are also interested in joining. The federation represents communities com-munities from throughout souther Utah and Fredonia, Az. who hope to purchase CPU's system in the area to obtain a locally owned and operated electric utility system. Negoitations with CPN had been ongoing last year when CPN and UP & L announced that they had negotiated an initial sales agreement in Dec. The two investor owned utilities recently announced a finalized agreement and Continued on Page Two Power Federation annual meeting Continued from FrontPage the federation has filed condemnation' complaints to acquire the system. Reinemer Vic Reinemer, editor of Public Power magazine, coauthor of Overcharge and member of the American Public Power Assn.'s board, was the keynote speaker. An advocate of publicly ' owned electric utility system, Reinemer said that the average rate for public power systems is 30 percent below that of investor owned utilities. He : mentioned communities throughout the U.S. who are trying to go municipal including 14 Oregon counties. "There are 2200 plus public power systems around the country," said Reinemer who also mentioned "hot fights" around the country between public and private utility systems. He said to summarize a recent study done by the APPA as to why some municipal systems die and others thrive that the five key factors were found to be: (1) community pride, (2) leadership, (3) knowledge of the values of municipal ownership, (4) knowledge of the municipal system and (5) knowledge of the private utility involved. With some 300 projects; investigating in-vestigating alternative energy sources around the country including solar, wind, geothermal, synthetic fule, heat pumpsrAnd "many others, Reinemer, ended'emphasizing that the future holds an almost endless list of possible energy innovations. Forest Ron Forest, geologist with the Phillips Petroleum Co., who has been working on their geothermal development near Milford, said that his company hopes to build a 120 megawatt plant which would supply enough energy for m.ood people. Forest explained that Phillips holds the majority of leases on the Roosevelt Hot Springs one of the top three geothermal areas in the U. S. with commercial potential. He explained the history of the hot "bubble" saying that it was initially discovered in 1967 and that Phillips began its exploration in 1972. The 500 degree Fahrenheit waters produce a million pounds of steam per hour according to two flow tests done i, by the company in 1977. ,.. Forest said that it will take two and . a half years to actually build a plant , and that Phillips hopes to have one in operation by early 1983. "We want to move forward this summer. We have to have a facility within the site area since the fluids can't be moved more than one and a half miles," explained Forest. He said that Phillips hopes to have a second plant operational by 1985. "The costs of this power will be very competitive with fossil fuels. It should be about the same initially as electricity generated by coal. But I think that it will be cheaper than coal in a few years because coal involves such a large labor force," he continued. con-tinued. Forest said that the minimum life lor the wells is expected to be 30 years. He called Phillips' figures conservative and said that the wells near Milford seem to be peculiar because they seem to regenerate their heat. He said that the life of the geothermal area would also be prolonged since Phillips will return the hot water used back into the wells. Willardson Glen Willardson, manager of Garkane Power, outlined how their locally owned utility system works and said that they have had their first rate increase in 23 years. He predicted that having power available will not be the problem for the area in the future, but that transmission lines to get power into the area are the big issue. "Garkane needs transmission tie-ins tie-ins with St. George and Cedar City and we are currently working with the Department of Energy and Nevada Power on this," said Willardson. Merrill Sterling Merrill, of the boards of the Intermontain Power Associaiton and Intermountain Power Project, encouraged en-couraged the movement for a publicly owned utility system to southern Utah. YflT ; "In actions to get CPN's system look strongly at the transmission lines so that no one can turn off the spiget. You are sticking your necks out at. the. present tiem so be bold-not timid. There is along lead time required to acquire any power source so as soon as you get the system, start acquiring power," advised Merrill. Gabiola and Brown Al Gabiola and Dick Brown of the Western Area Power Administration which administers the allocation of the electric power generated by federal hydro electric facilities at dams in the western states said that contracts for this "cheap" Bureau of Reclamation power will expire in 1989 and that allocation plans are currently being reviewed. Gabiola said that the existing customers have to be notified five years in advance if their allocations are going to be reduced and that the WAPA is currently making tentative plans for those 1989 allocations by gathering as much information as possible. "I urge you to become actively involved. Send your, representatives to the public meetings which we are ;-tl holding;! -Through participation; yoi'w may be able to gain some influence in your favor," said Gabiola. ' Brown, however, cast doubts on whether the area would be able to get an allocation. "We are now marketing a finite resource to an increasing demand," he explained. In a private interview exclusively with the "Record", he also raised doubts on whether allocations now given to investor owned utiltiies could be withdrawn to be given to other groups. He said that the way that the power arrnagements were initially legislated might require that the federal government continue to sell their "cheap" power to these private companies. DICK BROWN RON FOREST (J: W ' !t-i VIC REINEMER GLEN WILLARDSON |