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Tuesday, August 8, 2006 10:22 PM PDT
FERC money has politicians, groups scrambling for a share
By: Jim Ruffalo
A word which soon will be familiar in our local vocabulary is "FERC." Actually, it's an acronym meaning Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and it represents the on-going action that will move PG&E's Middle Fork power generating assets to more local control.
The agreement granting PG&E current (you have just entered the pun zone) control expires in 2013, at which time the Placer County Water Agency and the county's board of supervisors take charge (semi-pun alert).
To explain either the system or the agreement would require the harvesting of a whole forest to supply the needed newsprint. But cutting to the chase, let's talk money.
Early on in the reporting process, it was estimated that Placer County would have get about $15 million as its share once the licensing process was completed. However, some knowledgeable folk are saying that about $100 million per year is a more realistic figure.
Great, huh? Well, there is one little problem; what do supervisors do with that much new money?
Being elected officials, they no doubt have already spent the first quarter-billion dollars of the estimated $100 million.
Some might see the new pile of cash as a jackpot for the open-space proposals. Others, no doubt, point to the needed infra-structure in the fast-growing Lincoln-Roseville-Rocklin areas. And, of course, every special interest group in the foothills is mobilizing the letter-writers and demonstrators needed to "persuade" those elected officials to see things their way.
Fifth District Supervisor Bruce Kranz is no different. He has some hard, fast ideas concerning possible ways to spend this windfall. Only thing is, Kranz wants to match the proposed spending with what produced the financial payoff.
Kranz is proposing that as much of the new money as possible be spent on water resources, doing so mostly in the very area that produced the new money.
He's already out on the road, appearing before public interest groups, county advisory committees and just about wherever he finds a gaggle of a folks.
He's already prioritized the spending list, citing paying off all debts as his top choice. Then comes current operating costs, providing money for capital improvements, and - finally - funding water-related and power-producing infrastructure projects.
That latter item conjures myriad proposals, not the least of which would be restoration of the Meadow Vista well-water system.
Other ideas include the encasement of the miles of water canals in the county, or providing needed fire hydrants in that neck of the woods, remediation of watersheds destroyed by fire, or implementing additional water storage.
Another proposed project, which would benefit all of Placer County, would be to build and operate a large regional waste-water treatment plant.
You know, we are not that far away from the day when homeowners will see sewage bills larger than property tax bills.
By having a truly regional plant, not only do operating costs diminish, so too does the price tag on the neverending change orders trickling down form the state's dreaded wastewater treatment folks.
If Placer County had one giant wastewater treatment facility, one mandated change covers all users. Building one large new osmosis treatment bypass is a whole lot cheaper than putting together 75 smaller units.
Such a gigantic operation would cost millions, but by earmarking revenues from the re-licensing project, the new money pays for all of it.
Yes, there'll be plenty of money. And it's also true that the whole county should benefit from this flood of new funds.
Nevertheless, the problem is that the overflowing fiscal faucet is not neverending. As is the case with all natural resources, the flow is finite. It's up to our elected officials to make the correct choices.
Now to do this, we'll have to act quickly. After all, the special interests and other political fellow travelers not only are already organized, but are well into the process of leaning on the elected officials, trying to trade votes for future funding.
To be perfectly blunt, Roseville/Lincoln currently are receiving the bulk of taxpayers' money. Not that this isn't semi-proper, considering that the bulk of the taxpayers live there.
Still, areas such as Auburn and Colfax also help fund all of those new government buildings and projects in the Roseville/Lincoln sphere.
With that logic in place, it's also perfectly logical that most of the FERC proceeds get spent in the area that contains the bulk of the FERC assets.
The choice is simple: liquid gold or water over the dam!
Jim Ruffalo appears in the Journal Wednesdays and Sundays. His e-mail is jmruffalo@yahoo.com. |