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A monthly employee publication of the Bonneville Power Administration
August 1998
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A monthly employee publication of the Bonneville Power Administration
August 1998
Employee meetings just aren’t what they used to be — fortunately.
The July 8 meeting was billed as BPA’s first “Academy Award” presentation, and was hosted by “Waylon” (acting Chief Operating Officer Steve) Hickok.
After a “public service” presentation of Pluralism Council awards to four managers for their contributions to diversity (see the July Circuit for details), the event lunged into a film tribute to Deputy Administrator Jack Robertson, winner of the Best Supporting Actor in a Leading Role award for his stint as acting administrator. The meeting culminated with a “celebrity behind-the-scenes” interview with Administrator Judi Johansen.
In his acceptance speech, which followed a standing ovation, Robertson compared himself to Mike Miller, band leader of RIF and the Earlyouts, saying he waved his arm in time before employees, half of whom paid attention and half of whom ignored him, and did 360-degree spins before Congress to give the impression that someone was in charge. Robertson exited the stage with his nearly life-size “Bonne” statuette while RIF and the Earlyouts played “Hit the Road Jack.”
Before her interview, Johansen presented Robertson with a letter from the entire Northwest House of Representatives delegation commending him for his work, which, the letter said, “did not go unnoticed.”
The segue to serious questions was not without its bumps, but the balance of the meeting was devoted to Johansen answering questions from interviewer Ken Kane and from the audience in the auditorium and in the field. The questions were wide ranging.
Johansen asserted that she has “faith and confidence” in the current leadership at BPA but that she wants to bring in “a couple new faces.” One is Paddy McGuire, who started July 13 and who will be working in constituent and intergovernmental relations.
The other is someone from the environmental/fish community, perhaps Lorri Bodi of American Rivers. Johansen said that BPA needs to change its image as the environmental bad guy because “it’s not true.” She said that BPA needs to pay attention to the bottom line, as does any business, but that BPA makes a significant contribution to fish. She said that BPA needs to have the fish and environmental groups understand the agency, a goal that can be accomplished if the agency reaches out to the fish/environmental community by listening, having patience, understanding the interest groups and hoping they will do the same. She said that BPA could bring great value to the region by clarifying the agency’s role amid all the efforts on fish. And she noted that many employees embrace the same values as the fish and environmental groups.
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Many questions focused on the recent strategic planning retreat and on Johansen’s vision for the agency. At the retreat she “challenged the executives to look up from the immediate and imagine where the agency needs to be in the next five to 20 years.” Her primary concern is that “we have to add value to the region as the region defines the value.” She is having people look at a couple of ideas to see if they would add value and to see if they have any fatal flaws. One is legally separating transmission from the agency and exploring what it would look like as a transco — an independently owned and operated regional transmission company. Another is what it would be like if one agency owned and operated all generation in the Federal Columbia River Power System. She said she has encouraged the executives to focus on three areas: succession planning, improving the rewards/recognition program and reconnecting with employees. Succession planning is an issue because the institutional memory is in danger because staffing has become very thin in some critical areas and many employees are qualifying for retirement. Her goal is to have all areas adequately staffed. Johansen acknowledged that the recognition program needs some rethinking, noting that one of the things she likes about work is getting strokes. The problem, she noted, is that people like getting strokes in different ways. |
Jack Robertson takes his "Bonne" and returns to his role as deputy administrator. |
She also said she was eliminating some “seventh floor meetings” so executives would have more time to get out and reconnect with employees by walking around and talking with them.
Her vision of the agency in 2003 is a “nonprofit entity that responds to the region’s values.” That would probably mean that it provides low-cost power, has implemented open transmission, has made progress on Columbia River issues, has shown itself to be a good business partner and continues to be a regional asset.
When asked to identify the most important issue she is facing, Johansen replied “Balancing work and family life, just like everyone else.”
In response to a host of shorter questions, Johansen said she did not take a voluntary separation incentive when she left in 1996; the agency is working on the year 2000 computer problem, and she thinks BPA is in a good position — “We can’t promise we will be perfect but we are doing what we can”; rumors that the executives presented the unions with a plan for a reduction in force are in error — BPA has modified its policies on RIFs to conform to federal changes; and cost cutting will continue to be a theme “so we will not be a victim of the market.”
Now BPA has two headquarters.
July 9, Administrator Judi Johansen and Transmission Business Line Senior Vice President Harvey Spigal dedicated the Dittmer building at the Ross Complex as the TBL headquarters.
The TBL headquarters was created to emphasize the functional separation of the business lines in line with new federal rules. “The changes to the Dittmer building,” said Spigal, “also aim to unify TBL employees. They create a consistent first impression for customers, legislators and all who visit the Ross Complex. We’re not fancy. We’re busy providing the technical expertise that supports a reliable transmission grid.”
About half of TBL’s 1,689 employees work at Dittmer and the Ross Complex. Those in Portland will be moved to Vancouver by the end of 1998.
The NCAA Final Four and the NBA Championship Finals may be the ultimate in hoop hysteria for fans, but for the kids (and their families) and the recreational league player, Spokane’s Hoopfest’98 is about as good as it gets.
Nearly 4,800 teams, 19,000 players and 30,000 spectators converged on 300 courts in downtown Spokane on June 27 and 28 to play in what is billed as the largest 3-on-3 basketball tournament in the country.
Left: Dennis O'Drane watches his shot while Jon Fisher moves into rebounding position. Right: John Hairston gets ready to receive a pass from Marshall Cobb. |
Of those 4800 teams, 10 had BPA connections. Spokane’s “Hydro Hoopsters” and Portland’s “Tigerbomb” played in the men’s recreation divisions. BPA families were well represented in the youth divisions. Scott and Elizabeth Thompson (children of account executive Garry Thompson), competed in the boys 12th and girls 8th grade divisions and Meghan Murphy (Tom Murphy) played in the girls 6th grade brackets. All teams finished with 1-2 records. Jack and Andrew Johnson (Jack Johnson) competed in the boys 7th grade and 5th/6th grade brackets, with both teams going 3-2. Aaron and Jason Gomez (Gailyn Gomez) played in the 10th grade and 5/6th grade brackets. Jason’s team finished at 2-2. Marcos Armendariz (Oscar Armendariz) played in the boys 5th/6th grade bracket and won the consolation bracket. |
With balanced scoring and rebounding, the Hoopsters (Oscar Armendariz, Marshall Cobb, John Hairston and Tom Hannon) routed “Hoopatitis A” 20-8 in the first round, but dropped their next two, to finish the tournament at 1-2.
Tigerbomb finished at 3-2 and nearly made it to the championship game. Tigerbomb won its first 3 games, before losing to eventual champion, Mutt, and its last game. According to Dennis O’Drane, “we left it all out there on the court, but the weary legs will be primed and ready next year.”
Hoopfest’99 will be the last weekend in June, so mark your calendar, put a team together and join in the fun. Tom Hannon, Energy Efficiency representative in Spokane
The Business Services Group is jumping the gun on cost cutting.
Even before the external Cost Review panel weighed in with its recommendation that BPA reduce overhead by 50 percent, Jim Curtis, senior vice president for Business Services, had set that same goal for his group. And he pushed the envelope on timing. The Cost Review panel recommendations call for the reductions to be accomplished during the next rate period, fiscal years 2002-2006. BSG is on track to reduce its costs by 50 percent by the end of FY 2001.
The baseline for all the reductions is the actual expenses in FY 1996.
A look at the graph on page 3 shows the trend. The actual BSG budget in FY 1996 was $93.5 million. The target for FY 1998 is $64.4 million. That is a 31 percent reduction within two years.
Of course, cost cutting is not everything. Many a business has cost cut its way out of existence because it couldn’t effectively deliver services. The point of the Shared Services organizational redesign effort is to deliver services more effectively at less cost.
General Services began a cost-cutting campaign in 1994 during the Competitiveness Project. Manager Jack Kiley says, “When the Cost Review panel suggested a 50 percent cut in our costs of doing business, we were already working with similar internal goals. We’ve done it, and I attribute our success to managers and employees who constantly find ways to do their jobs better, offer greater service and do it all at reduced cost.”
Kiley says he used outreach, staff reductions and technology to meet his target. On the technology side, networked computers and electronic forms have been a huge success at reducing costs and delivering service. In the face of the moves required to separate the Transmission and Power business lines, the group has cut expenses. Moves are happening faster than before and some rented space has been eliminated.
Kiley is proud of the achievements his group has made but expects more to be asked of the group: “We may have cut 50 percent since 1994,” he says, “but this is not the last time we’ll be asked to review and change. It’s the nature of being in the service business.”
In the last three years, Field Corporate Service has reduced its budget by 55 percent while improving its client satisfaction scores. The key to this success is matching client requirements to the group’s priorities. According to Lynda Stelzer, “Under a ‘one-team’ approach, Field Corporate Services takes a field-wide perspective in serving our clients. We work together across the field and think about how we are going to deliver our services at the lowest cost.”
Information Resources is one of the BSG groups that has been through a redesign study in the last few months. Even before the results of the study have been implemented, the group can boast of a 20 percent budget reduction in the last two years. The service improvements the group has made are not always apparent to the layperson (going to a 32-bit operating system from a 16-bit does not light up most people’s lives, and most users probably don’t realize that the new hardware and software being purchased is cheaper and more reliable than in the past). But even the casual user should be able to appreciate the fact that almost all personal computers have been upgraded. If not before, people can give thanks in 2000 when the upgraded computers do not crash because of the millennium bug (see story on page 7). “If you stop to think about the magnitude of the increases in employee productivity brought about by these changes, it is truly staggering. It is likely that the accomplishments made by BPA’s IR community in the last five years have had a greater impact on more of the work force than the gains made in this function in the preceding 15 to 20 years,” says Mark Pierce.
And more change is coming this fall when the shared services concept is implemented. It means a partnership between the business lines and the governance segment of IR that Pierce is looking forward to: “We want to be partners with the business lines, and we think we can be the most effective providers of services for our clients.” Already Pierce believes IR can match any outside firm for price and service with the added value of in-house knowledge.
Business Services Budget & Actual Comparison
1. FY 1998 OY Budget is reduced 28.5% from FY 1996 Actuals. 2. FY 1998 actuals are Oct-May.
Business Services 4 year FTE Allocations & Actuals Comparisons |
BSG’s Staff Management office, while quite small, has been setting an example for the rest of the organization. It is on target this year to reduce its budget by nearly 40 percent since the FY 1996. The numbers are even more impressive if one looks as far back as the Competitiveness Project — the reductions estimated by the end of FY 1998 from FY 1995 are nearly 50 percent. Which points out one of the difficulties BSG as a whole is facing on the cost reduction front — so much was cut during the Competitiveness Project that any reductions made since 1995 should be viewed as impressive. For example, in the Financial Planning Support group, personnel costs plunged by about 60 percent from the Competitiveness Project through FY 1997. Again, the point of all the effort is to cut costs but also to increase effectiveness. HR’s costs and staffing levels have been going down (by 38 and 25 percent respectively since 1994), but, as manager Veronica Williams points out, “In FY 1998, demand for all HR services has gone up.” While reducing costs has been important to HR, maintaining service levels that respond to the demand has been equally important. HR cut the costs of delivering Employee Assistance Program services by 75 percent while retaining a high level of client satisfaction by changing from full-time onsite service providers to on-demand services. An audit of the program shows that employees rate the assistance highly. |
The same sort of accomplishment has been achieved in training and internal consulting. This time the shift was to internal services rather than consultants. While centrally funded training costs have plummeted by 76 percent since 1994, the nature of the services has been modified to make them more user focused and customized. Rather than offering a broad range of general training classes, HR works with clients to design specific training that meets their particular needs. And it uses the Mobile Training Facility to take training to people rather than requiring people to come to Portland. Feedback shows high client satisfaction and considerable client savings in travel time and dollars.
HR has also centralized personnel processing in Portland. This enables fewer FTE to process more actions (in spite of dual processing during the transition to HRMIS). Processors also staff the HR Employee hot line (503-230-3230) from 7 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. This improved coverage assures that clients reach a person rather than getting a voice message.
But its more dramatic accomplishments may be in the future. HR went through a redesign process in the last few months and is re-inventing itself for the future. HR knows that service requests will not decrease even as its staffing level and budget decrease. Williams says, “We met with the business lines regarding FY 1999 needs and issues so we’ll be prepared and can allocate resources appropriately. We don’t want to sacrifice service standards or disappoint clients. We’re banking on process efficiencies and HRMIS for improvement.”
An area that is getting rave reviews from BPA employees and vendors is the combined Travel and Accounts Payable area. It seems that everyone owed money by the agency wants to get it fast and reliably — and BPA travelers are at the top of that list. Disbursement specialist Carol Babb points out that her group has made some improvements in the accounts payable system software and some procedural changes in the group so BPA traveler claims can now be reimbursed within 24 hours. As happy as that has made travelers, they are even happier to receive E-mails informing them that they have been reimbursed.
The group has made similar innovations that make accounts payable transactions from the field go faster and save BPA money. Field employees can enter invoices directly into the accounts payable system. The group at headquarters can then review and authorize payment by the Treasury. This speeds up processing, prevents invoices from being lost and reduces BPA’s costs. Vendors like the system.
Says Babb, “We are encouraged to innovate, which is what makes it fun to work here.” Something is definitely going right if someone in a group that lost a quarter of its staff through attrition and is making employees happy is having a good time.
25 Years
30 Years
35 Years
August 1998
25 Years
30 Years
35 Years
Need a little help locating a substation? A transmission line? Talk to the folks in Energy Efficiency. The Transmission Business Line did just that when it needed some help because its survey group was busy.
Ron Starkey, a public utilities specialist in Idaho Falls and project manager for EE’s Global Positioning System (GPS) Services, has just completed a successful pilot study for Transmission’s Geographical Information System (GIS) program. The work, done at two locations in southeast Idaho and another south of Portland, entailed obtaining GPS location coordinates and supporting data for three BPA transmission line segments and related facilities such as towers, substations and tap points. The results were both cost effective and sufficiently precise for Transmission’s needs so more work is being planned.
Starkey used the same sophisticated, high-end GPS receivers Transmission’s survey group uses for similar projects. While the units are similar to the hand-held GPS receivers advertised in outdoor catalogues and sports pages, the equipment BPA uses is considerably more accurate.
The beauty of the units is that they can be mounted on just about anything that is fairly stable and can be moved from point to point — they can be carried in a backpack or mounted on a car, a truck, an all-terrain vehicle, a snowmobile or an airplane. The receivers pick up signals from GPS satellites to quickly and accurately compute the locations of features on or under the ground. GPS units can be used for a wide variety of applications in mining, surveying, navigation, forestry, transportation, environmental work and agriculture. As in the pilot program, BPA usually uses the units to locate substations, transmission line segments, individual towers, points of delivery (meters) and other facilities. After the GPS coordinates and related data are processed, they are imported into BPA’s GIS database.
Using the GPS equipment in the field accelerates data gathering and speeds up the entire mapping exercise. “What used to take us weeks, sometimes months, we’re accomplishing now in a matter of hours or days,” Starkey says.
GIS is a highly sophisticated computerized mapping system that can draw information from multiple data bases to create layers of information on maps. GPS/GIS has enormous potential. The technique has a number of potential applications in the electric utility industry such as locating danger trees, measuring transmission line sag (using GPS in combination with a laser to determine the distance from the lowest point of line sag to the ground or nearest obstacle that could result in a ground fault), establishing the boundaries of rights of way, locating access roads and determining the coordinates of sites with a potential for hazardous material spills.
The precision of the GPS and the data bases of GIS provide Transmission with a host of benefits such as faster analysis of outages and precision in evaluating rights of way as in the proposed South Oregon Coast Reinforcement Project. There are even revenue implications when it comes to more accurately gauging distances over which power is wheeled.
The successful GPS pilot is the latest of several projects that EE and Transmission have collaborated on. Because EE and Transmission are in different business lines, the cooperation requires a work agreement that conforms with Federal Energy Regulatory Commission standards of conduct. “The use of a work agreement started because of FERC, but it actually raised our level of commitment so we were able to identify and select specific projects in which we could help each other,” says Mike Hoffman, international market lead and the Energy Efficiency contact for the pilot project. Cameron Oster, intern in Communications
The Geographic Information System is more than gorgeous maps.
“Every office at BPA has used our services,” says Steve Sherer, the geographer who heads up the GIS group. And it shows. Colorful detailed maps that show transmission lines, wetland preserves, precipitation zones, salmon spawning areas and more adorn cubicle walls throughout the agency.
Sherer wants everyone to look beyond the beauty of the maps. “GIS is more than maps,” he says. “GIS is a database approach.” The maps produced by GIS have three feature types — points, which can be transmission towers, houses, and the like; lines, which can be transmission lines, roads, rivers and the like; and areas, which can show substation grounds, counties, precipitation zones and the like.
What’s important, Sherer points out, is that each of these features can have nearly unlimited “attributes,” that is, pieces of information in a huge data base. “Much of what we do is make maps,” says Sherer, “but much of their value comes from the attributes behind the features and the analyses they allow.”
Sometimes the information in those attributes comes from people such as Ron Starkey (see other story) who are out in the field gathering precise global positioning system coordinates for, say, a transmission tower. He could also be entering information associated with that tower such as when it was built and last maintained.
But a lot of the information in the GIS system comes from other data bases, especially those maintained by other federal agencies. The U.S. Geological Survey, for instance, provides baseline data on the location of roads, rivers, cities and political boundaries. The Forest Service can provide similar information on its road system but can also include spotted owl habitat. The National Marine Fisheries Service, which is in charge of Endangered Species Act listings of anadromous fish such as salmon and steelhead, can provide information on healthy and unhealthy stocks.
The GIS system can analyze all this data and produce graphic representations. On the South Oregon Coast Reinforcement Project, for example, the system can produce maps of the alternative routes that show all the public and private land, the proximity of spotted owl pairs and marbled murrelet nests, the locations of rivers with salmon runs, and more.
As another application, assume for a moment that BPA wants to site a new substation. The designers have in mind a host of criteria that make a site suitable for a substation — the land is flat, the soils drain well and are stable, the area is near transmission lines, it is not near homes. The list can be quite long. The GIS data base can be queried to find areas that meet all the criteria.
The final result may be a map, “but,” says Sherer, “it is a map that no one has ever seen before.” It may show zones in various colors — red zones might be those areas that meet none of the siting criteria while those in green might be those that meet all the criteria. The value of the map comes from GIS’s ability to analyze information in the data base.
The reason the maps appear in cubicles throughout the agency is that there are few groups that don’t use the tool. The applications in transmission seem obvious, but there are just as many in environmental work (plotting habitat zones, noting the location of PCB spills), power (precipitation patterns) and even marketing (where are all the agency’s direct service loads and how close are they to a competitor’s transmission line?).
GIS’s maps are pretty pictures packed with information.
Upper photo: shaded relief model of the Columbia River Basin. Center photo: visual assessment area and photograph locations for the BPA-Lower Valley Transmission Project. Lower photo: Bonneville dam area of the WCC Transmission System & Hydro Electric Power Plants Map.
There are two sides to BPA’s business success — costs and revenues. While cost cutting has been the center of attention for several years, tracking and forecasting revenues is receiving more re-cognition because how much money the agency takes in is as important as how much it spends.
“With Bonneville needing to compete in the marketplace and behave in more businesslike ways, we need to be looking at net revenues and the interplay between revenues and costs rather than focusing solely on the cost side as we’ve done in the past,” says Geoff Moorman, Power Business Line manager for Business Strategy and Assessment.
“Now the revenue actuals to date and forecasts are something we want to be watching all the time to see how we’re performing,” Moorman adds.
BPA’s revenues are more variable than its costs because they depend on several factors outside the agency’s control. One is how much power BPA has to sell, or inventory. Inventory depends primarily on streamflow conditions and hydro system operations, which must consider flows for fish and other river uses. Other major factors that affect revenues include which products BPA can sell from its inventory and the prices it can obtain for those products. The realized prices in turn depend on the firm power rates developed in BPA rate cases and on market prices that can be obtained for surplus sales. BPA also receives certain revenue credits and some revenues from sources other than sales.
Revenue forecasts are performed for a variety of purposes — to monitor BPA’s success at meeting planned financial targets, to assess quarterly financial performance and to provide information for rate proposals and special projects such as Issues ’98.
For the upcoming power rate case, revenues will be projected for the rate test period, fiscal years 2002 through 2006. Revenues will be forecast at current rates and at proposed rates to make sure the rates will recover the revenue requirement.
“I think of the forecast as a plan,” says Spencer Wedlund, public utilities specialist in Business Strategy and Assessment. “It shows what we’re going to sell and how we are going to cover our costs.”
The revenue forecasting function was re-engineered along with the rest of the Power Business Line. Instead of being done by a central staff, much of the sales and revenue forecasting now is done in the power business areas (hubs).
“The reason was to orient BPA’s business around our customers,” Moorman says. “The hubs are our primary interface with the customers and are responsible for revenues. Thus, the same people are responsible for getting and forecasting revenues,” he says.
The revenue forecast is compiled from data submitted by close to 30 employees. The east and west hubs forecast revenues from power sales to their preference customers. The bulk hub forecasts sales to customers other than preference utilities, including BPA’s sales from its trading floor.
The trading floor projects revenues from sales of the power remaining after all the other hub sales, generally deals lasting less than a year. Other inputs to the revenue forecast include sales of ancillary services and reserve-based products, power purchases and transmission expenses, which are made by the Transmission Acquisition group.
Janet Ross Klippstein, public utilities specialist in Bulk Power Marketing, is responsible for coordinating the revenue forecast for the bulk hub. She explains that the forecast she compiles is different from the other two hubs in that it uses market prices or information from individual power sales contracts. The east and west hubs, on the other hand, forecast sales of products at posted rates.
Klippstein says the information she uses changes all the time. “The trading floor forecast from Eric Federovitch is the most dynamic part reflecting constantly changing market prices and available secondary energy.”
“There probably will be a lot more accounting for inventory month by month in the future,” Wedlund says. This matching of available resources with loads by time period is becoming more and more necessary as the hydro system is operated closer to its limits. It no longer is accurate to use annual or monthly averages as BPA did in the past; now forecasts are made seasonally and even daily as adjustments are made for heavy and light load hours.
Wedlund and Jim Reilly compile the revenue forecast. “We assemble the information, make sure nothing is left out and make sure it’s updated,” Wedlund says. “We keep the projections dusted off and ready for special requests as in Issues ’98,” he adds. Klippstein echoes the need for staying current: “We’re revising the forecast all the time,” she says.
Martha Swain, public utilities specialist in Power Products, Pricing and Rates
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The town of Steilacoom, Wash., is out of the loop. That’s loop as in a power grid. The town is served by a single BPA substation and when that station goes down for maintenance, which happens every seven to 10 years, so does the southern Puget Sound beachfront town. When maintenance to a BPA transformer left the town without power from 8:00 a.m. to 5:29 p.m. on July 6, Steilacoom had some decisions to make. Rather than curse the darkness, Steilacoom lit the BBQ and invited townspeople to Sunnyside Beach Park for a Power Outage Party. Diversions ranged from kayak rides and interpretative tidepool walks, to a blood mobile with souvenir t-shirts for donors (“What did you do when the lights went out in Steilacoom?”), to several fun and educational booths from BPA and others. According to city employee Nancy Covert, “When BPA advised us they were shutting down the substation, we immediately began notifying businesses and residents through utility bill inserts, school flyers, press releases and radio announcements. Then we turned to the fun of creating the beach party again.” Said Terry Huber, research manager for the Town of Steilacoom and one of the event’s primary coordinators: “A big part of our job is educating people — no one should take it for granted that when a switch is flipped the lights will come on. We went to great lengths to give people notice of the outage. Since we are owned by the people, we take a little extra care and expense to make it easy for them. A true challenge is to take the most difficult thing and try to be the best at it. It would’ve been easy to say ‘Power’s out, fend for yourselves,’ but, instead, we created an opportunity to mingle with our customers and be accessible.” And BPA was right in there being accessible, too. The BPA tabletop display “What’s going on at the substation today?” drew lots of attention and questions for the four Transmission Business Line employees who staffed the booth and helped out throughout the day. |
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Children also enjoyed a crawl though the giant SamN tent and went home with their choice of a coloring book (“Saving Energy with Zippie, Splash and SamN”), a salmon lifecycle hexaflexagon or a pop-up dam model. Operator Lonnie Cox and Electrician Dana McClain did the longest duty at the BPA booth, with help from Rick Titera. Supervisor Leonard Halseth helped with both setup and cleanup of the exhibits and handouts. Behind the scenes, the exhibit was made possible with photos taken by electrician Marv Olsen and enlarged free of charge by mechanic Keith Lawson, who used his home darkroom equipment and materials, and spent over eight hours of his own time to make BPA look good at the party.
“Everybody’s been real nice and expressed their appreciation,” said Paul Chasco, the town administrator. He said the picnic was such a success that he planned to pitch to town council the idea of making it an annual event — minus the power outage. Kyra Chatfield, community relations coordinator in Seattle
Just when everyone knows to blame El Niño for the weather, along comes the kid’s sister, La Niña.
El Niño appeared suddenly in the equatorial Pacific Ocean over a year ago, and now it seems to be fading just as fast as it appeared. The latest long-range forecast models and techniques are now hinting that beyond El Niño may lie La Niña, a weather system that historically produces weather conditions the opposite of those of El Niño. BPA meteorologist Nancy Stephan notes, “Most of the models are predicting a transition to La Niña; however, they disagree on the timing and magnitude of the event. The best tool we have now is to monitor the ocean and atmospheric conditions for signs La Niña is on its way.”
During normal years, prevailing trade winds blow from east to west across the equatorial Pacific Ocean. Warm tropical water pools up over the western edge of the Pacific near Indonesia and Australia where it supplies ample heat and moisture to develop storm systems and heavy rain. In contrast, the equatorial water off South America is normally much cooler than the water off Indonesia, resulting in less rainfall in the eastern equatorial Pacific but creating productive ocean upwelling to fuel a booming fishing industry.
During an El Niño, the trade winds slacken and can even reverse during the peak of the event. Without these driving trade winds, the ocean waters actually slosh eastward towards South America, causing warm water to build up off the coast of South America. This abnormally warm pool of water eventually becomes so large that it spreads throughout the eastern and central equatorial Pacific and northward up the coast of Mexico. Last year’s intense El Niño resulted in warmer-than-normal water all along the West Coast of the U.S. Australia, the Philippines and Indonesia suffered from serious drought while California and the desert Southwest saw increased rainfall. The Pacific Northwest experienced a mild winter with below normal snowpack.
La Niña, which translates to “the little girl,” creates weather conditions opposite those of an El Niño. During La Niña the normal equatorial conditions intensify. The trade winds actually increase and create warmer-than-normal water conditions near Indonesia and Australia, resulting in above normal rainfall. The normally cool eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean experiences even cooler waters, resulting in below normal rainfall but abundant upwelling for good fishing. The general impact to the Pacific Northwest is cooler and wetter conditions.
While any weather labeled abnormal generally scares people, the effects of La Niña could benefit BPA. The cooler temperatures and above normal precipitation could result in a good snowpack this fall and winter. According to Stephan, “La Niña years, on average, produce an above normal runoff and water supply. So, if a La Niña actually develops by this fall, we will have cause to be optimistic about the new water year.” One area to watch is that cooler temperatures in the winter and early spring could produce higher-than-normal energy demand. However, with good planning, this should be a manageable issue.
From looking at previous La Niñas, Stephan, her team and other researchers have discovered a few other effects a La Niña can have on the Northwest. Although cold snaps are not more frequent during La Niñas, they often occur later in the winter than in normal years. Along the same lines, the last occurrence of frost in many areas tends to be later in the spring. Winter flood events are also a little more likely because of the higher probability of above normal low-level snow accumulation.
“The equatorial Pacific is in a transition period right now,” Stephan says. “We will really have to watch how the trade winds, sea surface temperatures and weather conditions in the equatorial Pacific evolve over the next few months.” La Niña may not have time to drive our winter weather patterns this year. But, if she does, watch out. La Niña could become the next giant weather phenomenon to dominate the Pacific and people’s attention.
Stephan’s tip for this year: “You might start thinking about buying those season passes for skiing.” Cameron Oster, intern in Communications
Representatives of the Renewable Northwest Project, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Northwest Energy Coalition and BPA unveiled the Bonneville Environmental Foundation at a June 24 kickoff event at the World Forestry Center in Portland.
Creation of the foundation brought together a remarkable group of environmentalists and utility representatives. Retired Sen. Mark O. Hatfield congratulated the group for working to provide new ways to improve the environment of the Pacific Northwest.
“It’s a great pleasure to see so many gathered with the common goal of improving and preserving the environment that is so much a part of our lives here in the Northwest,” said Sen. Hatfield.
Rachel Shimshak, director of the Renewable Northwest Project, explained that it’s not often that the region’s leading environmental and energy policy groups join in partnership with BPA. “This is a notable exception,” she said.
The foundation breaks a new trail on which environmental groups, BPA and others will work together to promote renewable resources and enhance fish and wildlife habitat in the Columbia Basin.
Sen. Mark Hatfield (seated) signed the bylaws of the Bonneville Environmental FOundation at a ceremony in Portland. Standing form left to right are Jeff Shields from Enerald PUD, Karen Garrison from NRDC, Sarah Patton from NWEC, Rachel Shimshak from RNW and BPA's Jack Robertson. |
Deputy Administrator Jack Robertson was credited with the idea for the foundation. Robertson said that the foundation was only partly his idea and that putting the foundation together was a much bigger job than just one individual could successfully pull off. “There’s nothing greater than the simple power of a group committed to making something work,” said Robertson. “The foundation was designed to pull people together to enhance the environment.” |
Robertson thanked BPA employees John Taves, Dennis Oster and Roxanne Freeman for their tremendous commitment and for capturing the concepts he envisioned for the foundation.
The Bonneville Environmental Foundation will work like this: BPA will sell power from specific hydroelectric projects and renewable resources endorsed by environmental groups based on an independent review of the resources’ environmental impacts. The endorsement will help these products earn a premium in the energy market. The foundation will then receive a substantial share of that premium, which will be invested in fish and wildlife restoration efforts and new nonhydro renewable resources in the Northwest.
Funds to support the foundation’s activities may also come from individuals, corporations, utilities, public and private institutions, tribes and others. The money raised will complement funds already available from governmental and other sources.
“This innovative idea has the promise of educating customers about the environmental qualities of their energy resources, plugging them into clean power and providing additional and real benefits to the environment,” said Shimshak.
Emerald People’s Utility District located near Eugene, Ore., has expressed its intent to make the first purchase of power from resources already endorsed by the environmental groups. Those resources are the Packwood Lake Hydroelectric Project in Washington and the Idaho Falls Hydroelectric Project. About 20 average megawatts are currently available. Power from new wind and geothermal projects will also go into the resource pool.
Sen. Hatfield will head the foundation as president of the board of directors. Other board members include Lorri Bodi, co-director of the Northwest office of American Rivers; Don Frisbee, consultant and former CEO of PacifiCorp; Brett Wilcox, president of Northwest and Goldendale aluminum companies; Don Samson, Watershed Department manager for the Columbia River Intertribal Fish Commission and former chair of Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation; Aldo Benedetti, elder statesman of the Northwest energy industry; and Shimshak.
“Perhaps nowhere in the United States is the average citizen more concerned about what is happening to the environment,” Sen. Hatfield remarked. “It is my hope that a decade hence, the people of the Northwest will look back on this day as a turning point. They will see a strong foundation. One that provided financial support for many significant environmental improvements over the years.” Crystal Ball, public affairs specialist in Communications
“I was told there are three places you don’t want to be at midnight on New Year’s Day2000 — a hospital, an elevator and an airplane. You won’t be finding me in any of these places.”
BPA Administrator Judi Johansen’s light-hearted comment on the year 2000 (Y2K) computer problem served as an attention-getting response to a question at the July 8 employee meeting. Johansen did go on to say, however, that the agency expects a non-event on Jan. 1, 2000, because of the actions it has taken and is planning to take.
Some employees may be new to the Y2K problem, but the agency has been working on it for over two years. Larry Sims, manager of data services in Business Services, readily displays a 99-page inventory of computer systems. The inventory is the result of efforts by BPA’s cross-agency committee to develop an exhaustive list of computer systems and embedded chips that may have a problem with the year 2000.
The agency formed a cross-agency committee last spring to oversee combined efforts to find and fix Y2K problems (see story in the September 1997 issue of the Circuit). Deidre Meaney of the Power Business Line, Brian Furumasu of the Transmission Business Line and Larry Sims from Corporate have been working vigorously to assess problem systems. Barry Hirsch of Communications and attorney Arlena Barnes joined the team this summer. “We have been assigned to find and fix Y2K problems,” says Meaney.
The Y2K problem is really many problems. The biggest is the one most employees are aware of — many older computer applications and operating systems have a two-digit field for the year and were programmed to recognize 00 in the year field as 1900. In the year 2000, some computer systems may operate under the assumption it is the year 1900. This could create problems for computer-controlled systems unless significant reprogramming is done.
But wait. Jan. 1, 2000, is not the only date that could cause problems. Some other potential problems that have to be evaluated are:
Another challenge is embedded microchips that contain date-sensitive information. Many of BPA’s remote sites contain microchips used in communication and control equipment and in protective relays. Generating units can be controlled from miles away by computers adjusting system loads in response to peak demands or making adjustments to maintain a stable transmission system. The problem is identifying all the embedded chips and then finding ways to test for all possible Y2K problems.
The only way some systems can be tested for Y2K readiness is by advancing the date on the equipment to 01/01/00 and seeing what happens. The difficulty arises from the need to test the equipment while creating minimal disruption in normal operations, to identify specific program code that is causing the problem and to fix the code with the available documentation and current knowledge of old programming languages.
The team asks every employee to be alert to possible Y2K problems in the automated systems they use. If they think there may be a problem with a system, they should check with the manager in charge of the system to see if it has been evaluated. It probably has, but it doesn’t hurt to ask.
The committee stresses the importance of employee involvement at this phase of the effort, but would also like to make it clear that there may not be a problem. “We are expecting a non-event but planning for the worst,” Meaney says.
Completing testing on every system will take a very long time and some systems may be missed. “Finding the embedded systems can be challenging, but we expect to find about 99 percent of them,” says Furumasu. The agency will hire some outside contractors that have a Y2K database that includes many types of equipment that BPA has installed on the transmission system. This data base will make the evaluation procedures easier and faster, according to Furumasu. Experts from BPA’s Technical Services organization, engineers in the Transmission Field Services organization as well as engineers and programmers in BPA’s control centers will apply their knowledge to conduct a number of tests on the communication and the protection and control equipment.
The committee plans to have the majority of its work completed by August 1999 but will be preparing response strategies until Jan. 1, 2000. This means, says Meaney, that all employees should be ready to help with system evaluations after the year 2000. “We’re doing the best we can, but that might not be good enough. We just don’t know.”
Planning for Y2K has been thorough and the committee does not expect problems when the magic hour comes. If there are problems? “There may be a few surprises,” says Furumasu, “but we’ll be ready for them.”
Long-time BPA employee Robert M. (Bob) Hasibar died unexpectedly July 18. He suffered a stroke on the way home from work on Friday, July 17. Hasibar, 55, worked 33 years as an electrical engineer for BPA. His most recent assignment was in Transmission Services at Vancouver.
Hasibar was born Dec. 1, 1942, in Ketchikan, Alaska. He earned his engineering degree from Gonzaga University at Spokane, Wash., and came to work for BPA in 1965. He also served in the U.S. Army in Vietnam and was awarded the bronze star.
Survivors include his wife, Madeline, and seven children – all of Portland: Christopher, David, Emily, Katheleen, Kenneth, Mary Miller and Michael. Other survivors are his mother, Judy, of Ketchikan; a sister, Mary, of Seattle; and brothers Frank of Alaska and Donald of Florida.
Funeral services were held July 22 at St. Ignatius Catholic Church in Portland and he was buried in Willamette National Cemetery. The family suggests remembrances to St. Ignatius Catholic Church or LaSalle High School.
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Clear skies and warm weather greeted visitors at the Bonneville Lock and Dam on Saturday, July 11th, for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ festivities celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Bonneville Project. Music could be heard all over the historic landmark as people came to view exhibits (including a BPA booth), antique cars, boats and planes, historic photographs and military equipment. Corps and BPA employees and retirees shared their scrapbooks and reminisced about the early days. There was a sense of pride and ownership in being part of such a great Northwest monument. Bonneville was the first hydroelectric dam built on the lower Columbia River. It was a $20 million project that brought Depression-era jobs to thousands of people in the Northwest. When President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicated the dam in 1937, he promised that the power produced by Bonneville would go first to farms and homes, then to industrial use. He touted progress in electric transmission facilities saying, “We can well visualize a date, not far distant, when every community in this great area will be wholly electrified.” Today, the dam is one of the most visited attractions in the Columbia River Gorge. |
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It has been described in the media as the biggest burrito in Tacoma. Given its geometric shape and its intended life span, it’s more like a pyramid.
Top: Workers pull a 300-foot-long plastic sheet up and over the waste pile. Middle: Technicians weld plastic pieces together to form a seamless cover. Bottom: Bulldozer unrolls "clay carpet." |
In reality it’s a hazardous waste pile containing approximately 40,000 tons, of material spread over an acre on BPA-owned property adjacent to the Tacoma Substation. The waste pile contains a complex mixture of ingredients that includes solvents, lead, arsenic and asbestos. The wastes, deposited on BPA property in the late 1960s and early 1970s, were thought to be clean fill at the time. It wasn’t until much later that the wastes were identified as a source of shallow groundwater contamination. For that reason the Washington State Department of Ecology required a cleanup. Because the waste originated from Occidental Chemical’s chlorine plant in Tacoma (along with a small amount from an unknown source), Occidental was persuaded to accept responsibility for the cleanup. According to Jim Meyer with BPA’s office of Pollution Control and Abatement, “All too often the government is left with paying the cost of cleaning up historical contamination. In this case, because we are the landowner, BPA could have been held liable.” As it turned out, the extent of contamination and the cost of the cleanup more than doubled from the original estimates. Occidental wound up paying $2 million for the cleanup and that doesn’t include what Occidental will pay BPA for the land once agreement has been reached on the price. Although expensive, the cleanup costs could have been much higher had the material been treated and disposed of offsite. Because soil contaminated with solvents is banned from disposal in landfills without first being treated and because the asbestos contamination made thermal treatment impossible, the only option left was to entomb the wastes onsite. |
This cleanup involved excavating the waste and consolidating it on top of clean backfill that is above the 100-year flood level. Once in place, the waste was covered with a combination of materials that includes a “clay carpet” and indus-trial grade (40 mil) plastic. The seams of the plastic were welded to prevent surface water or rainfall from leaching the wastes. Finally, two feet of topsoil was placed over the pile and seeded. The finished pile is 48-feet high, just below the 50-foot height limitation necessary to maintain adequate clearance from overhead transmission lines. The entire parcel will be fenced and the groundwater will be continually monitored, all at Occidental’s expense.
This arrangement exemplifies the principle that the polluter pays. Alex Smith, vice president for Environment, Fish and Wildlife, says, “This cooperative settlement with Occidental not only ensures that the environment and the interests of the general public are well served but that BPA ratepayers are held harmless for any liability.”
Top: Bonneville