Category Archives: Government

Electric Co-ops in the U.S.

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There are 800 member-owned electrical co-ops in the USA. 40 million people get their power from an Electric Co-op! Principally in rural areas, these Cooperatives cover 56% of the populated land mass in the 50 states.

Rural Electric Cooperatives began in 1876. They are consumer-owned, non-profit utilities. FDR’s New Deal created work projects in the 1930s and this brought electricity to rural areas. In 1942 the rural electrical co-ops of WA State formed a coalition. To this day the WRECA represent those member co-ops in Olympia.

Metal barn roof with cool cupolas on top!

Ratepayers to the Co-ops are not customers, they are owners. They have a say in the supply of electricity. Lately these member-owners have been interested in local renewables like wind and solar. Grid resiliency and enhanced services are priorities via rural microgrid projects, and deployment of broadband (internet) service.

Sources:

  1. www.WRECA.coop
  2. https://ilsr.org/rural-electric-cooperatives

A Changing Climate – South Carolina

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The Palmetto State is a sunny place, with beaches that ribbon the eastern shore. Like other coastal areas, flooding and onshore storm damage is a growing threat.

In my previous post I discuss the state’s solar industry. The emergence of local solar installs in coastal communities is coinciding with the visual evidence of climate change.

Pawley’s Island, road’s end, March 2020

It will be public funding and budgets that will mitigate, prepare and repair the coastal areas. To save places like Pawley’s Island, a breezy retreat settlement from the antebellum period, they will use public subsidy, i.e. taxpayer investment. Should they instead charge the companies that caused climate change or some other thoughtful solution?

Flooding in Charlestown SC, March 2020

In coastal flooding records beginning 1953, 22 of the 32 major or greater flooding events have happened since 20152. More frequent and intense storms ravage and flood South Carolina.

The state’s aquatic conditions and their politics coincided to make the Charleston area a human slavery trade hub in America’s founding. Places made possible rather quickly and majestically by relying upon and exploiting a slave economy and labor market.

If money is invested to save water-side mansions, what about the coastal areas where the Gullah Geechee still live? Or the places that are less symbolic than Old Charleston or Pawleys Island? The residences of poorer people lacking the resources to move or repair damage done by these weather events?

Generating solar electricity in the community makes a lot of sense. Through honest debate, we can collectively heed the science. Establish progressive policy to power our lives with limited harm to ourselves and the world we live in.

Sources:

  1. www.ClimateToothpaste.com boxes with “patented blend of humor”!
  2. www.dnr.sc.gov/climate/sco/ClimateData/yearly/cli_sc2020review.pdf

2022 Solar Incentives – WA State

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– 26% Federal Tax Credit expires Dec. 31, 2022. Average of ~$5000 per Residence.
– Net Metering, aka Bill credit from the electric utility. No expiration date.
– No sales tax.
– Increased home value. Also, property tax assessment exempt.
– Associated electrical upgrades, e.g. batteries, also qualify for the 26% Federal Tax Credit.

Electricity in Rural Areas

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On The Tonight Show in 1988, Johnny Carson asked 98 year old rural farmer Merritt Heaton this question: “What’s been the biggest change, since you were a young man on the farm?“

  • His answer: “Oh, well, I’d say electricity.” And there was immediate verve in the studio!
  • Johnny Carson grew up in Nebraska. He responded: “Well people forget … I remember going to my grandparents’ home where they didn’t – they had the kerosene lamps …”
  • Merritt Heaton: “Exactly, maybe had a few candles around?”
  • Johnny Carson: “Ab-solutely”

In the mid 1930’s, 90% of rural America lacked electricity. By 1950 just 20% of rural America lacked electricity. What happened in 15 short years!?

Beginning in the mid ’30’s, new transmission towers and lines began to dot and thread the landscape. A new vista on the horizon, and new illumination for the farms and rural folk. Imagine the incredulity of these large metal structures, promising 24/7 electricity to remote areas.

Pres. Franklin Delano Roosevelt took office in 1933. FDR’s New Deal was a plan to take the country out of its economic and unemployment woes. The Great Depression lasted from 1929-1939.

In 1935 FDR formed the Rural Electrification Administration, now known as Rural Utilities Services. A year later Congress passed the Rural Electrification Act (REA)

Funding electric projects in rural America was a priority for the US Dep’t of Agriculture. Loans were distributed via the money allocated in the 1936 Rural Electrification Act. The effort trained and employed physical laborers, electricians, and those that would help administer 1000s of miles of new electrical lines.

Sources:

  1. Usda.gov
  2. The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, Feb 3 1988_YouTube

My testimony to Seattle City Council: “Why Ban Plastic Bags?”

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Plastic Bag Monsters being interviewed by Martha Baskin

My name is Paige, I live in Seattle and I want my city to do better. Better by the oceans, our waterways, and our urban landscape.

Seattle Public Utilities should stop perpetuating the madness and the myth that is plastic bag recycling. Recycling of plastic bags hardly exists; If we use 292 Million bags a year and recycle 13%, then that is still over 200 Million bags that cannot make it into the proper waste stream. Instead the cast offs, the fly-aways, the disposable plastic bags are disposed of everywhere. And the millions more are stuffed in our landfills preserved for many generations to come.

When it rains in the 2nd hilliest city in the country, the water collects all that we have thrown or dropped on our pavement and gravity and water take the product to the lowest point in our region – which happens to be filled with water.  It is easy to see on days like today exactly how plastic bags flow downhill through the stormdrains and debit into the nearest waterway.

Nickerson Canal

Each year I do I a litter pick on the Nickerson Canal for MLK Jr. Day of Service. We have coffee and doughnuts first and and then we get down to business. And those plastic bags are a dirty business. They are wrapped around bushes, stuck in the blackberry brambles, and caught between rocks. It is evident that plenty of them must make it into the canal – how could they not?

Children on these litter pick ups know the perils of those plastic bags. They’ve seen the You Tube videos, the powerful images worldwide, and the local news reports. From the North Pacific Garbage Patch just full of plastic to the West Seattle beached whale with 20 plastic bags in its stomach – our world waterways are littered with the stuff.

Plastic bits scooped from North Pacific Gyre/Garbage Patch

By making a decision to limit the availability of plastic bags to our environment we make a positive step for a better future.

But there are those that want a free and easy way to pick up their dog’s poop. Are they single issue voters?

What are the citizens of Ireland, Portland, Bellingham, and Los Angeles doing? I doubt their streets are lined with dog poo.

We pick up after ourselves, whether it’s a litter pick up or walking our dog. And we seek to limit the harm we contribute to our neighbors, to our surroundings, to our world.

I would like Seattle to be a good neighbor to Puget Sound that Bellingham and Edmonds have already become. I don’t know where the ACC (American Chemistry Council) and their millions of dollars fit into this. But if they find their way back to town again we’ll simply process their advertising dollars and meet them with the truth because I don’t think the kids of Seattle, the dogs of Seattle, the grown-ups in Seattle, want to continue the madness of a throwaway society. Because plastic bags are not “free” – they cost us dearly.

Footnote: The above article is the Nov. 22, 2011 testimony I presented to Seattle City Council and Seattle Public Utilities Committee. Here is the Seattle Channel Video of comments given by businesses, organizations and citizens. My comment is minute 6:20. Thank you to Heather Trim, Dir. of Zero Waste Seattle and Toxics Manager at People for Puget Sound.