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Doug Bechtel
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This week I would like to finish up our discussion of the OPALCO annual meeting. As usual, one of the best parts of the meeting is the question and answer session with our members. This year, more than in past years, we had a very broad range of questions. Several people came up to me afterwards to ask questions that they didn't want to ask during the meeting.
Two questions centered on our financial report, with one member asking about the aging of our accounts receivable. Our members do a particularly good job of paying their electric bills. Even though during 1994 we did nearly $10,000,000 in business, the amount we wrote off for bad debts was just $21,224. As I have reported previously, the vast majority of our members (93%) pay their electric bills before the 10th of the month. As of the end of 1994 we had a total of $18,192 that had been owed to us for 60 days or more.
In a related question, one of our members asked if we charged people for the cost of repairs when our system was damaged. The answer is "Yes". If you damage our system by driving into a pole or digging up our underground wires, we will charge you the cost to make repairs. Since this usually involves an overtime call-out, the cost of making repairs can be considerable.
Another member expressed his concerns over the dangers associated with EMF (Electric and Magnetic Fields) and urged that OPALCO do everything it could to bury the power lines to reduce these fields. OPALCO has been very active in the EMF field. We have measured the fields from many of our facilities. We have brought nationally recognized experts on the subject in to talk to San Juan County officials. Our major facilities (most recently on Lopez) are designed to minimize EMF without adding a lot of cost.
In response to the actual question about burying our power lines to reduce EMF, I am not totally convinced that burying the lines in all cases will reduce the EMF. To the extent that undergrounding is a solution, our ongoing storm abatement program and our efforts to convert lines to underground for other reasons probably make us the most aggressive utility in the country on converting to underground.
The board continues to monitor the EMF issue and has received briefings from staff and experts and are very aware of your concerns in this area. I think that our members can be comfortable with the time and effort spent by OPALCO on EMF.
Another question concerned our efforts to reduce the annoying blinks that necessitate resetting all of your digital clocks. We continue to refine our system to reduce the number of blips and, in fact, many of the blinks we now see appear to come from the mainland. We do realize that this is a problem for our members and we are working very hard to minimize the number of blinks, while minimizing the number of members affected by an electrical problem or outage.
There were several questions on conservation and what OPALCO is going to do in the future, but that is a topic for a separate OPALCOGRAM all by itself.
Again, I want to thank all of you who attended the meeting and we look forward to another good turnout in 1996.
Doug Bechtel
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