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<br />01452 <br /> <br />. "Will Be" Plan closes the most efficient office <br /> <br />In a recent letter by a WAPA employee from Salt Lake City, WAPA was criticized for <br />closing its most efficient office. The allegations in the letter were substantiated by <br />using WAPA's own financial data, This letter is attached for your convenience. <br /> <br />As can be seen from the letter, due to the conservative nature of the past and <br />current management in the Montrose office, the work force is very efficient when <br />compared to the other WAPA offices. From maintenance to operations, engineering <br />and administrative functions, the Montrose Office does more with less staff. WAPA <br />would have a difficult time justifying its plan in the private sector using the <br />employee/product ratio. WAPA is blowing smoke when promoting its plan is <br />"business like", <br /> <br />What does this all mean to a CRSP customer and the Upper Basin? It means one of <br />two things. First, CRSP functions will suffer due to lack of staff to accomplish <br />functions, or secondly CRSP will cost more due to less cost effective means to <br />accomplish CRSP functions. Either way CRSP loses!! <br /> <br />. Need for NEPA study <br /> <br />WAPA contends that its "Will-Be" plan is an administrative action and therefore does <br />not fall under NEPA. In most areas of the "Will Be" plan this is true. However, there <br />are many "technical uncertainties" that come under NEPA regarding the operation of <br />CRSP powerplants from Loveland and Phoenix that would require a NEPA because <br />of downstream river concerns. WAPA has not addressed this issue in its 'Will Be" <br />plan. If CRSP is operationally integrated as WAPA has proposed with the Parker- <br />Davis, Hoover, and Pick-Sloan Projects a reality exist that downstream river releases <br />from CRSP power plants will violate existing environmental restrictions. Remember <br />most of the restrictions are not seasonal restrictions as WAPA would like everyone to <br />believe, they are hourly and in the case of Aspinall inches in the River makes a <br />difference!! Again, violations will happen; it will be a reality. <br /> <br />There are many in the utility industry that will criticize WAPA for planning to operate <br />the CRSP transmission system from Loveland using one microwave path. This path <br />is routed over the Continental Divide starting at Steamboat Springs and terminating <br />near Cheyenne, Wyoming. This path is prone to winter outages and due to the <br />remote location can be inaccessible for long periods of time during the winter <br />months. What concerns the experts in the utility industry are if the outage is <br />prolonged no information about the CRSP transmission system will be available in <br />Loveland. This scenario will create a significant reliability situation because of the <br />importance of the CRSP transmission system that is interconnected to other western <br />systems transmission systems. WSCC the reliability coordinating body for the <br /> <br />10 <br />