Trinity County Grand Jury
• 2011-2012
Trinity PUD Report Let There Be Light Grand Jury*
⚠️ Translation Notice: This content has been automatically translated. The original English text is the official version. Translation may contain errors.
⚠️ Este contenido ha sido traducido automáticamente. El texto original en inglés es la versión oficial. La traducción puede contener errores.
Findings and Recommendations 7 findings
F1
LAFCO Resolution No. 07-01, which establishes the sphere of influence and authorized powers for the TPUD, limits its activity to "provide power, light and heat." Communications (i.e. internet) is not one of the authorities granted. The public needs to be aware of the limited scope of activities that the TPUD can be involved in without first expanding the authority granted to it by LAFCO and the Public Utilities Commission.
Related Recommendations (1)
R1
TPUD should document, disclose and publicize its activities each year.
F2
All electricity customers within the county are not currently receiving the benefit of low cost federal power as provided for in the Trinity River Act of 1955.
Related Recommendations (1)
R2
The TPUD should create a Community Choice Aggregation for the non-served portions of Trinity County and contract with PG&E to wheel TPUD power to those customers that live outside TPUD service territory, but within TPUD's sphere of influence, thus increasing the benefits more broadly.
F3
Those Trinity County residents off the grid neither receive benefits from their right of use of preferential power nor from the compensation for damages paid by other CVP water and power customers.
Related Recommendations (1)
R3
TPUD should devote most if not all future US Bureau of Reclamation payments toward expanding service to the underserved areas and those currently off the gird until such time as all residences of Trinity County that can be served are being served.
F4
TPUD accepted four parcels of unimproved land from Trinity County as partial payment for funds advanced to support the Trinity Hospital. Ownership of the unimproved land is not germane to providing TPUD Customers with light, power or heat.
Related Recommendations (1)
R4
TPUD should sell the parcels, thus placing them on the tax roll, and return the funds to TPUD customers.
F5
TPUD's completion of the Direct Connect to WAPA decreased the California Independent System Operator charges by as much as a million dollars a year and eliminated TPUD customer's reliance on PG&E's sometimes unreliable service.
Related Recommendations (1)
R5
TPUD should, without delay, enter into a stand-by agreement with PG&E that would provide TPUD with the immediate ability to utilize PG&E power during an extended outage.
F6
The extent of the benefit being realized by TPUD customers and the additional benefits that could be utilized from their use of Preferential Power is not well known.
Related Recommendations (2)
R6a
TPUD should provide an annual benefits statement to each customer along with their bill.
R6b
TPUD should publicize an accounting of the total realized and unrealized benefits each year.
F7
Through the good efforts of those that formed and served the TPUD throughout the years Trinity County residents are making beneficial use of approximately one third of the Preferential Power made available by the Trinity River Act of 1955. If TPUD were to act on all the above
Related Recommendations (1)
R7
The Trinity County Board of Supervisors (BOS) and TPUD should do everything in their power to facilitate and encourage the consumption of all available Preferential Power. 7a. The BOS should evaluate the feasibility of building a pumped storage hydro electric facility and publicize the results. A properly sized Pumped Storage Facility could make beneficial use of some of the excess power allocation, while creating good paying jobs and a substantial increase in the tax base. 7b. The BOS should have the County's General Plan updated, specifically the housing and land use elements, with the intent of making it both easier and less expensive for housing and other developments, thus increasing the employment base, the tax base and expanding the benefits realized. 7c. The BOS should encourage the location of energy intensive industries, such as an internet server farm, thus expanding the tax base and employment opportunities. 7d. The BOS should aggressively pursue grants which aid in the financing of high speed internet infrastructure. 7e. TPUD should assess the feasibility of installing charging stations in key locations around the county to encourage the use of electric vehicles. This bold move could make Trinity County the place to visit for curious tourists with electric/hybrid cars throughout the country.
No Responses Found 1
Government entities assigned to respond to this report. No response documents have been linked in our database.
Trinity County
County
* This report's PDF did not contain easily extractable text and required Optical Character Recognition (OCR) for analysis. There may be minor errors in the extracted findings and recommendations due to OCR limitations with scanned documents.