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Del. Ward Armstrong speaks at Thursday’s SCC hearing. |
Friday, November 20, 2009
By MICKEY POWELL - Bulletin Staff Writer
Appalachian Power’s proposed rate hike would hurt families, harm jobs and hinder economic recovery, area residents told State Corporation Commission (SCC) officials during a public hearing Thursday night.
The hearing was held at Franklin County High School in Rocky Mount. About 125 people attended, and numerous residents of Henry and Patrick counties traveled to the hearing aboard two buses chartered by Del. Ward Armstrong, D-Collinsville, and the House minority leader.
Appalachian is seeking a $150 million rate increase that would raise base rates by about 14.5 percent for resident customers who use 1,000 kilowatts per month, according to company spokesman Todd Burns.
However, an SCC release stated that the base rate increase Appalachian is seeking is $154 million. The proposed rate hike would raise the monthly bill of a customer who uses 1,000 kilowatt hours of electricity from $91.49 to $107.14, a hike of $15.65, or 17.1 percent, the release said.
The rate hike would be in effect for two years, Burns has said.
Larry Jackson, Appalachian’s external affairs manager, said the rate hike is needed basically due to the utility’s costs of meeting new federal environmental regulations.
Appalachian’s current rate hike request is its 13th in the past three years, and the SCC has approved most of them — if not the entire hike sought, at least a portion, according to Armstrong.
Paula Burnette, a member of the Henry County Board of Supervisors, said the frequency of rate increase requests is “about as often as some people wash their cars.”
“When is enough going to be enough?” Armstrong said. “The rate increases have got to be curtailed and stopped.”
Due to high unemployment rates, many Henry County residents have low incomes, and “a big chunk of them have no income,” he said.
“Repeatedly, I’m hearing (from people) that ... ‘at our household, we’re trying to decide whether to buy food or medicine, or pay the power bill,’” Armstrong said.
“People have an inability to pay their power bills at the present rate,” let alone a higher rate, said state Sen. Roscoe Reynolds, D-Ridgeway.
He added that in the end, having to make choices about what necessities to pay for will lead to a longer period of economic recovery.
Martinsville-area resident Betty Cannaday said that she used less electricity last year than in the previous year, yet her power bill approximately tripled.
Franklin County resident Wesley Rorrer said his power bill now is “almost as much as my rent is.”
Higher electric bills will hurt young and old alike and “put a whole lot of people ... in the dark,” said Henry County resident William Spencer.
Reynolds and Doug Bassett, an executive at Vaughan-Bassett Furniture in Galax, both indicated the rate hike could result in job losses as companies seek to reduce expenses.
Del. Don Merricks, R-Pittsylvania County, said the “substantial, ever-coming increases in electric rates are putting ... businesses in a tough situation.”
“I’m afraid that if these rates continue to increase, industries located along our state borders will look to other states that have cheaper rates and move to those areas,” Merricks said.
Bassett said he understands Appalachian has been “raking in” record profits in recent years.
“To think that a business that is still making profits would ask its customers to pay more is unconscionable to me,” said Phil Curran, a representative of the Martinsville-Henry County Ministerial Association.
Another member of the association, Bonnie Lee Witt, mentioned she knows of cases in which elderly people have caught pneumonia and died due to the lack of heat in their homes after their electricity was shut off because they could not pay their power bills.
“Please remember those who shiver in the night. Please,” Curran begged the three SCC commissioners.
Burnette noted that “each level of government has to live within its means. Shouldn’t companies and utilities be expected to do the same thing?”
“I think we should try this approach: Tell APCo to spend less,” she told the commissioners.
“Appalachian should have a rate decrease,” Bassett said, emphasizing the “de.”
At the least, the company should be made to trim its expenses, said Karl Weiss, a member of the Patrick County Board of Supervisors.
About 25 people signed up to speak during the hearing, SCC officials said.
The SCC commissioners at the hearing were James Dimitri, Judith Williams Jagdmann and Chairman Mark Christie. Only Christie addressed the public.
“Each one of us ... is well aware” of the economic hardships in the area and that many people are “trying to make ends meet,” he said.
If it determines that a rate increase is appropriate, “we’ll do the absolute best we can to minimize its impact” on Appalachian customers, he said.
The SCC will hold another hearing on the proposed rate hike at 10 a.m. March 16 in Richmond. |
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