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to get share of dampowerBy OREO FIEGHerald Staff WriterUnder threat of federal anti-trust law enforcement, Central Power Light Co. has agreed to share power from two major Rio Grande dams with Brownsville’s Public Utilities Board.The settlement may be worth as much as 1800 million to PUB over the next 50 years — a conservative estimate — and $800,000 in the last three quarters of 1962 alone, said PUB General Manager Fred Kray on Tuesday.Also in the settlement, PUB agreed to stop contesting for the right to serve Brownsvilletelevision station KVEO, Channel 23. The television station, in a move PUB said was illegal, disconnected from PUB in April — switching to CPL to get better service.Though PUB loses that customer, CPL pledged not to continue taking PUB customers away on the line that serves Channel 23, and willUntil now, PUB had been limited under 1977 state laws from growing beyond the perimeter of its electrical system, even if the city expanded. “We feel PUB will no longer be stagnated,” said Kray.Kray called his board of directors together for an emergency session at Holiday Inn, telling them he hopes that the years of strife between PUB and CPL have ended now, and that the two rivals’ relationship is on a ’businesslike basis.”Board members, after negotiations in secret for months, immediately signed the agreement. City commissioners and Mayor Emilio A. Hernandez signed it at City Hall with little comment Tuesday night.Hernandez praised Kray for successfully concluding the negotiations.Action against CPL — brewing since the 1950s when Falcon Dam was completed — finally began in 1978 under the administration of former Gen-allow PUB to compete for new customers as the eral Manager Robert Roundtreefederal court, claiming the investor-owned utility had denied PUB access to hydropower from federally funded dam projects.The agreement gives PUB 25 percent of power generated from Falcon Dam at Falcon, and 15 percent of power at Amistad Dam at Del Rio, both exclusively served by CPL transmission lines. PUB will pay only the cost of transmitting the electricity.Hydropower, at about 1.4 cents per kilowatt, is .considerably cheaper than electricity generated by PUB’s gas-fired generating plant, at about 41 cents per kilowatt, Kray told a reporter during the City Commission meeting.It is also cheaper than power purchased by PUB from CPL and other utilities throughout the state, which is sold at about 3.8 cents per kilowatt, he said.The hydropower will comprise about 15 percent of PUB’s output, with 40 to 50 percent coming from the utility’s own generation and the remain-city expands into CPL territory.PUB had been prepared to take CPL to der from power purchases
Newspaper Details
Brownsville Herald
Brownsville, Texas, US
Wed, Feb 24, 1982
Page 1
Full Page
Clipped by
Sammi B.
NA 19 Mar 2023
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