Aluminum workers rally in Portland
JOBS: They fear new BPA rates will close area smelters permanently
May 05, 01
The Associated Press
PORTLAND - Northwest aluminum workers rallied Friday to ask the Bonneville Power Administration to help save jobs threatened by the federal agency's recommendation to shut smelters for up to two years to conserve electricity.
But the BPA's acting chief, Steve Wright, told workers he was doing his best to make sure they'll still receive full wages and benefits if the aluminum industry decides it's cheaper to close its handful of plants in Oregon and Washington than pay skyrocketing electricity prices.
"We have been with you all the way through this fight," Wright told a crowd of about 500 workers who had gathered at lunchtime in the plaza at Bonneville headquarters.
Many of the workers were wearing T-shirts that said "Wright is wrong!" for recommending smelters be shut down.
But Wright told them closure was inevitable if wholesale electricity rates keep increasing - already rising tenfold from about $25 to $50 per megawatt-hour to open market rates of nearly $250 to $500 per megawatt-hour in little more than a year.
Bonneville supplies about half the power to the region, most of it generated at 29 hydroelectric dams along the Columbia and Snake rivers, and one nuclear plant in Washington state.
But the BPA does not generate enough electricity to meet expected demand of more than 11,000 megawatts this October, when new five-year contracts with aluminum companies take effect. The system can produce up to 8,000 megawatts, which will force Bonneville to buy the remainder on the open market.
If that happens, Wright says wholesale electricity rates could shoot up 300 percent, damaging the Northwest economy and forcing the 10 remaining smelters in the region to close.
"It is not my goal, it is not the goal of this agency, to put the aluminum industry out of business," Wright told workers.
"But we do have a very difficult problem - we are looking at a wholesale power market that has gone through the roof in terms of prices."
Some workers warned that shutting down the industry for up to two years could kill it in the Northwest.