OPALCOGRAM 189 3/12/97 NEXT PREVIOUS Doug Bechtel A lot of loose ends have been piling up around here, and I wanted to pass on several of these to you. First, by the time you read this, we will have connected our 100th member to our Load Management System. There have been surprisingly few problems on our side, although we continue to hear about problems with some of the state electrical inspectors. We have been working with the Department of Labor and Industries on these problems. We are also working on legislation in Olympia that would exempt the installation of our load management receivers from requiring an inspection. That should solve the whole problem. Speaking of Olympia, there have been a lot of bills this session that will affect the future of the electric industry. We have talked about customer choice and retail wheeling many times before, and there are several bills currently under consideration on this topic this year. Your board of directors and I continue to insist that the smaller user be protected in any deregulated electric future. Based on what we have seen in other industries, the very small users (such as residential consumers) see little, if any, benefits. It is the large users that reap the most rewards. I am not certain a comprehensive bill will pass this session, but the groundwork is being laid for something significant to happen next year (I am not ruling out major legislation this year, either). On a third topic, our tree trimming crews from Asplundh have moved to Orcas Island after spending much of the winter on San Juan in our efforts to reduce outages on our overhead power lines. This is the first winter I have lived here that none of our islands have suffered outages as a result of failure of our overhead transmission system. The credit goes to all of those OPALCO members who let us trim trees on their property.  A growing problem for us is the condition of the rights of way for our underground cable. In many areas, these cables have been in place for 10-20 years, and trees, bushes, and weeds have grown on these rights of way. In other cases, our members have built gardens, fences (and, in one case, a garage over these power lines). We need to keep these rights of way clear so that we have access to our power lines in the event of a failure. If you are in an underground area, please keep this in mind. We do need access to these lines for repairs. Finally, our Annual Meeting is rolling around. This is your once-a-year time to support your cooperative. Our meeting will be on board the Washington State Ferry, Elwha, on Saturday, May 17th. This year, the directors in District 2 (Orcas, Blakely, Obstruction, Big Double, Little Double and Fawn Islands) are up for reelection. As we get closer, I will share some additional information with you. Mark your calendars - we hope to see you! Doug Bechtel NEXT PREVIOUS