Monks Jazz Club
LCRA Has Forgotten Its Mission
RECEIVED Tue., Oct. 17, 2006
Dear Editor,
Kudos to Amy Smith for her article on the current outcry among LCRA's electric customers tired of subsidizing LCRA's unprofitable water and wastewater division [“Who's Paying for the LCRA Growth?,” News, Oct. 6]. The newly formed Wholesale Power Alliance is rightly upset that their electric rates (and rate increases) subsidize LCRA's water department expansion.
In general manager Joe Beal's quest to grow, LCRA has been taking on debt (and losses) to extend water pipelines across the Hill Country and over the fragile Barton Springs Watershed.
Why build the waterlines? To provide developers with the infrastructure they need to build high-density mega-subdivisions in the Hill Country. Electric rates should not be used to subsidize Hill Country developers at the expense of both LCRA's electric customers and the health and well-being of the Colorado River, the Highland Lakes, and the Edwards and Trinity aquifers.
With its sprawl-inducing infrastructure spending, LCRA violates its obligation in its mission statement to "ensure the protection and constructive use of the area's natural resources." LCRA is no longer bringing electricity to hardscrabble farmers living without modern conveniences. LCRA is subsidizing big-time developers and Hill Country sprawl, plain and simple.
One way to make LCRA more accountable to its rate payers and the public would be to have LCRA board members elected by citizens in the Lower Colorado River basin, rather than appointed by the governor as current law provides.
Thanks again for the reporting that we won't find elsewhere.
Kudos to Amy Smith for her article on the current outcry among LCRA's electric customers tired of subsidizing LCRA's unprofitable water and wastewater division [“Who's Paying for the LCRA Growth?,” News, Oct. 6]. The newly formed Wholesale Power Alliance is rightly upset that their electric rates (and rate increases) subsidize LCRA's water department expansion.
In general manager Joe Beal's quest to grow, LCRA has been taking on debt (and losses) to extend water pipelines across the Hill Country and over the fragile Barton Springs Watershed.
Why build the waterlines? To provide developers with the infrastructure they need to build high-density mega-subdivisions in the Hill Country. Electric rates should not be used to subsidize Hill Country developers at the expense of both LCRA's electric customers and the health and well-being of the Colorado River, the Highland Lakes, and the Edwards and Trinity aquifers.
With its sprawl-inducing infrastructure spending, LCRA violates its obligation in its mission statement to "ensure the protection and constructive use of the area's natural resources." LCRA is no longer bringing electricity to hardscrabble farmers living without modern conveniences. LCRA is subsidizing big-time developers and Hill Country sprawl, plain and simple.
One way to make LCRA more accountable to its rate payers and the public would be to have LCRA board members elected by citizens in the Lower Colorado River basin, rather than appointed by the governor as current law provides.
Thanks again for the reporting that we won't find elsewhere.
Colin Clark
Save Our Springs Alliance
Save Our Springs Alliance
