Randy Manion: Good morning or good afternoon wherever you may be. And welcome to the tenth webinar of the 2017 DOE Tribal Energy Webinar Series. Today’s webinar, Essential Tribal and Utility Relationships. I’m Randy Manion, today’s webinar chair and manager of Western Area Power Administration’s Renewable Resource Program. Let’s go over some event details first. Today’s webinar is being recorded and will be made available on DOE’s Office of Indian Energy policy and programs website along with copies of today’s Power Point presentations in about one week. Everyone will receive a post webinar email with the link to the page where the slides and reporting are located.
Because we are recording this webinar all phones have been muted for this purpose and we’ll answer your written questions at the end of all the presentations. However, you can submit a question at any time by clicking on the question button located in the webinar control box on your screen and typing your question. And we’ll try to keep the webinar to no longer than two hours. This webinar series is sponsored by two US DOE organizations, the Office of Indian Policy and Programs and the Western Area Power Administration.
The Office of Indian Energy directs, fosters, coordinates and implements energy planning, education, management and programs that assist tribes with energy development capacity building, energy infrastructure, energy cost and electrification of Indian lands and homes. This webinar series is part of the Office of Indian Energy’s effort to support fiscally responsible energy, business and economic development decision making and information sharing among tribes. It is intended to provide attendees with information on tools and resources to develop and implement tribal energy plans, programs and projects, highlight tribal energy case studies and identify business strategies tribes can use to expand their energy options and develop sustainable local economies.
And today’s webinar Essential Tribal and Utility Relationships will start with a presentation by Margie Schaff describing potential benefits for tribes to develop a relationship and engage with their local serving utility. Ms. Schaff will also provide ideas for how tribes can build these relationships and advocate for services they desire. The remainder of the presentations will then focus on how tribes can and have developed their own utilities including a case study of the Spokane tribe’s efforts through sovereign power to gain greater self-sufficiency and self-determination and economic opportunity by providing power marketing generation and energy services to tribal customers.
I’ll introduce all four of our speakers now. So our first one is Margie Schaff. Ms. Schaff is an attorney who has practiced energy law for 29 years. She’s also a partner at Kanim Associates LLC where she continues her other role as a consultant assisting tribes and tribal organizations with their energy related issues including tribal utility formation, electric power generation projects, high voltage transmission issues, oil and gas exploration and the development of rights of ways, energy strategies and legal codes. Margie advised both at the ______ ______ Indians and the Kalispel tribes in the formation of successful startup of their tribal electric utilities on October 1, 2017 as well as previously advising at the startup of the ______ Indian utility cooperative. And for fun, Margie wrote a historical novel that takes place in Indian country under the name Margaret Martin. And the book is called Seven Generations.
And then following Ms. Schaff we’ll hear from Ken Johnston. Mr. Johnston is the manager for tribal affairs program at the Bonneville Power Administration, a Department of Energy power marketing administration located in Portland, Oregon. He has worked at Bonneville since 2002 as a tribal account executive or a transmission account executive and manager for the tribal affairs program. Mr. Johnston receives his doctorate from Louis and Clark Law School, Portland, Oregon. He received an environmental certificate and emphasis in federal Indian law.
Mr. Johnston previously worked as an attorney at the Columbia River Intertribal Fish Commission protecting the four lower Columbia River tribes’ treaty rights to take salmon as well as working on the growth of the tribal energy industry. And in this capacity, in transmission services, he worked on impact to tribal cultural properties, tribal [Break in Audio] issues, tribal utility formation, tribal access and the tribal [Break in Audio] with 54 northwest tribes within Bonneville’s service territory insuring the agency’s activity sustains the federal trust responsibility with the tribes. Mr. Johnston lives in Portland with his wife. That’s Portland, Oregon.
The next speaker is Chandler Allen, a member of the Fallon Paiute Shoshone tribe in Nevada. Mr. Allen is an economic development specialist for the office of Indian energy and economic development division of energy and minerals development within the office of assistant secretary Indian affairs department of interior in Lakewood, Colorado. And then closing out will be our final speaker, Jason Campbell. Mr. Campbell is a citizen of the Spokane tribe of Indians. He is also CEO of Sovereign Power. Sovereign Power is an energy company wholly owned by the Spokane tribe of Indians. Sovereign Power rives unique, integrated, leading edge energy solutions based upon implementation of renewable energy.
Sovereign Power is currently utilizing partnerships across public, private nonprofit sectors. Sovereign Power’s growing capacity in power marketing, power production, power distribution. Mr. Campbell through Sovereign Power strives to contribute to an improved quality of life for tribal citizens in a way that reflects the core values of the Spokane tribe. So with that, Margie just give me a moment to get your slide deck pulled up and we’ll get started here. Ok, Margie. It’s all you.
Margie Schaff: Thank you so much. Randy. It’s always nice to be part of these webinars. I’ve been asked to talk generally about tribes working with their utilities. This is important because the tribe utility bill is often one of the tribe’s larger costs. It’s also important because an opportunity is available due to the importance of utility infrastructure and your ability of the large customer with sovereign rights to improve your service.
So the next slide, Randy. This presentation does apply to many types of utility services including electric, natural gas, propane, communications, water, waste water and probably a few others not on the list. Next slide. Tribes have standard rights and options as utility customers but tribes also have tribal sovereignty which affords many options for [Break in Audio]. First of all, the standard rights and options include taking advantage of existing rules and tariffs. So many tribes are just under their standard utility service either as a residential or a commercial customer. But tribes are not often aware that there are other rules or tariffs that may provide lower cost service that they can access simply by making the choice with your utility provider.
The tribes and tribal members can participate of course in public and customer policy processes. These include things like rate processes, facility siting and all kinds of policy making that the utility has available through their websites and through public utility commission processes. Tribes can also of course file complaints, formal and informal either with their utility or with the commissions or other boards that monitor the utility services. Tribes can request and fight for changes in rules and tariffs. Because you have sovereignty not all the time depending on where your utility service is provided does a local public utility commission rules apply.
Also, when you pay for a new service, you can require the terms and conditions for that service. So you can negotiate especially if new facilities are being included or build using tribal money. You can use your power of being a large customer. Oftentimes utilities’ largest customers are the tribes, their casinos and other large facilities. Tribal news publications like newspapers can inform your community about when something is going on with the utility and can get your utility members involved in the process. Tribes are also available to use open access rules for transmission. So if the tribe is doing some kind of a large power project, try and just as a regular customer can access jurisdiction that has been created by the federal energy regulatory commission over interstate commerce facilities.
So any kind of transmission facilities can be used on a wholesale basis by tribes. So if your local utility tells you that you’re not able to use a substation that’s simply incorrect. The only restrictions for using the wholesale facilities of a utility are the actual physical constraints of those facilities. And so usually there’s a study that’s required to determine is facilities are available, if there’s enough capacity on the facilities to accommodate new opportunities. So just as a regular customer, every tribe is eligible to use transmission facilities.
Now on the other hand, tribe sovereigns have basic options for improving their utility relationships. Tribes have regulatory jurisdiction over services on the reservation. Of course, the location of the services and the land type depending on if it’s a trust land or if it’s C or other kind of allotted land will often affect the level of jurisdiction of the tribes. Tribes however, don’t generally have laws which describe their rights as regulators. But tribes can directly tailor laws to their situation.
Tribes can also leverage right of ways and create service line agreements. 25CFR section 165.52 which is a new provision that was included in the 2015 upgrades to the right of way rules required utilities to have service line agreements for their distribution systems with tribes. And so, if you have issues with your distribution system, you can approach your utility to create service line agreements that can cover a number of different issues related to tribal service.
Tribes also have the power of imminent domain or condemnation. These tools provide a lot of flexibility but they do take planning. To exercise your power of imminent domain, you have to have tribal laws in place which requires quite a lot of forethought and assurance that you are meeting the due process requirements of the federal constitution. So you have to have some way of having the condemnation reviewed by a court including the tribal court. And oftentimes tribal courts do not have condemnation rules already available. So they’re the kinds of things that you have to create if you’re going to look at creating an imminent domain part of your law.
Part of the planning requires determining your goals, learning your rights and learning the utility’s rights. Then of course strategizing and implementing what you want to do. Lastly of course there is the opportunity for tribes to provide their own utility service under tribal utilities or just through the opportunity of tribes to use their own facilities or water rights or other utility services. Next slide please Randy.
So a good place to start is understanding what type of utility is serving you. Here are five lists, five types of utilities on this list. The first is an investor owned utility and they’re usually controlled as a corporation by a CEO and a board of directors. The wholesale parts of their company is regulated by FERC, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission but the local retail areas are usually regulated by a public utility commission. Investor owned utilities are for profit companies and so they have their shareholders to keep happy but they also have to of course keep their customers happy. And because they are a monopoly, they usually have the right to serve everybody within their service territory. The public utilities commissions generally look at their rates and other rules to make sure that they are providing appropriate rates and services in their monopoly area.
The next set of utility is a coop or cooperative. They’re usually covered by their bylaws which basically give them the rules by which they operate. All members of the coop usually elect the leadership. Again, they’re wholesale, always regulated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. And their leadership regulates their retail services. Their interests are service to their members and meeting their costs. The third type if a municipality which is often controlled by its city council. Another is a district which is often started as an irrigation or other water purpose. These are statutory and are usually governed by legislation.
Their [Break in Audio is regulated by FERC and their retail utility, the part that just provides the service locally is usually regulated by an appointed person. Their interests are service to their members and meeting their cost. And of course, that depends on the legislation that governs them. But this is a tribal utility and of course tribal utilities can be arms of government. They can be corporations or other entities. And the tribal government controls through resolutions or laws passed. And the tribal utility can institute a board if they desire. They’re generally regulated by the tribe or a tribal entity that’s established. And their interests are as stated in the formation documents. So a review of your utility authorities and rules is key to developing your strategy. Next slide please.
So how do you start the process of getting to know your utility? First, know and understand the type of utility serving you and their motivation. Then gather and read your utility bills. Ask for explanations and information. Utilities often have customer service reps for their major customers like tribes. Know your value for the utility as their customer. Oftentimes tribes are one of the biggest customers and the utility will do what it can to make sure that it’s serving you properly. Review utilities rates and tariffs and other customer input into their creation. So when the rates and tariffs were created, there was a public process that utilities generally go through during creation. So other customers can provide input into those creations. And a lot of times those inputs are really informative as to why the utility policies are in place.
You can always arrange for introductory meetings with your utility executives and with their staff. These can be very helpful and are really important to make sure that there is a one to one relationship between the utility and with the tribe. You can work with outside professionals. Many people can analyze your situation and make suggestions to improve your service. There’s also a lot of training opportunities. There’s a lot of educational reading available online. There’s a lot of [Break in Audio] power administration has a great electric power training center that tribes can send people to to get really good overviews of the utility industry.
You can always use your tribal publications like newspapers to provide information and recommend action to your community. And then you can partner with other customers, environmental or interest groups. There’s a lot of nonprofits out there that work on renewables issues, energy efficiency and other kinds of issues that are important to working with your utility. And oftentimes if you have more than one entity coming to a utility with differing interests, you’re going to be able to have those kind of [Break in Audio] than if you’re just a small customer.
Next slide please. So the vast majority of utilities will be very cooperative with tribes in their service territories. Utilities want to provide good customer service and they want to provide good and fair service. So all utility relationships can be improved through communication and negotiation. And as one of the main utility customers you should get to know your utility leadership, having the chairman of the tribe or other person of leadership in the tribe give those folks a call and just sit down and have a conversation with them.
[Break in Audio] values and know what you want. Do you want cost savings, improved service or better access? Have a strategy for achieving what you want and then communicate and negotiate that strategy. Of course, all of this requires preparation, a dedicated team, coordination and sometimes terms of months or years if these are complicated issues or large projects. And they require some political effort.
Next slide please. You can get results. These things come, can provide lower cost, the ability to integrate renewables and exercise and development of your sovereignty, improve service, improve reliability, ownership of infrastructure. You can have flexibility in your services. You can create better community relationships, integration of the tribe into broader community and political issues. And this is really important. Since utility services are often directly related to environmental issues which are important to the tribe.
You can have refined intratribal processes through development of tribal laws and tribal processes. So when you’re dealing with your utilities, you’re often finding that internally you need to improve your internal governance infrastructure to be able to better operate your utilities. This can also lead to infrastructure improvements and great agreements that will serve you for years down the road. Next slide please.
So how to develop the relationship. Know that there are generally utility liaisons that will work directly with your tribe whether they’re a customer service person or if they’re a specific person that works directly with tribes. The tribe can also appoint a liaison to work directly with the utility. You can also invite the utilities to things like fairs and powwows, school events. I think utilities are generally really excited to be part of educational events at schools. And as providers in the community they have some really good STEM information they can provide to the kids and they oftentimes have kind of show and tell type equipment they could bring in to teach kids about safety and about electricity.
I also really like the idea of having energy efficiency bingo where utilities are invited to come in and put on a bingo as parts of the tribe’s bingo and provide energy efficient equipment like light bulbs or even energy efficient appliances as bingo prizes. And that’s something that can kind of get your community involved in the opportunity to get to know its utility and do it in kind of a fun way that everybody likes.
You can request specific educational information from your utility about your bill or about specific programs they have. It’s really important too to create executive to executive relationships especially if your utility is somebody that you’re looking to do a business relation with or somebody that you plan to have some kind of a long-term dispute with over some aspect of service. Get that one to one relationship going. Also create staff relationships. So the experts at your tribe can work with the particular experts at the utility and that can really help resolve issues and concerns.
There’s a lot of opportunities also for sharing of expertise, sharing of equipment and other resources whether it’s issues about cultural resources if the utility does work in the area, whether it’s sharing of equipment. Sometimes there’s opportunities to use each other’s backhoes or something like that that may be necessary for some local activities. And utilities have a lot of other resources that oftentimes they may be willing to allow the tribe to share or vice versa. It’s also really important to educate your utilities on your tribal laws and culturally important topics.
Usually the utilities don’t know anything about the tribe’s laws. And those tribal laws can directly affect their service. And you want to make sure that they understand and know the tribal laws before they begin doing activities on the reservation. These can include things like your ______ laws and any kind of access or cultural resource issues that are important. Bring in the BIA for any needed real property matters. When you’re dealing with lands related issues, you oftentimes have infrastructure that needs right of ways or service line agreements. But then you also have the opportunity to treat the infrastructure simply as personal property which does not bring in the BIA. So the tribe has to be very clear about whether what they’re doing impacts real property or simply personal property.
You can work directly with your utility to develop an MOU or another agreement. Again, the service line agreements are required by all utilities that provide distribution service on tribal lands. So those service line agreements can be really good opportunities to create processes and procedures and protocols and to establish communication for utility work on tribal lands. They can also do things like establish dispute resolution and clarify sovereign immunity and have agreements as to when tribal court or other courts or other dispute resolution provisions will apply.
So you can discuss larger utility topics such as power purchases, infrastructure plans and other kinds of things that the utility is doing that may impact the tribe. The tribe may want to do business with the utility on power purchases if the tribe is doing some kind of a power opportunity. That would require oftentimes a pretty particular relationship and process and procedure that a utility is required to go through under their regulatory obligations. So just knowing what those are is really important in having a good relationship with your utility. Next slide please.
So some examples of favorable tribe and utility relations include first tribal utility formation. I know a lot of tribes are talking about utility formation. But I will say from experience it’s really much easier to form a tribal utility if you lay the foundation of a relationship with your utility because you are going to need information from them. A lot of their infrastructure will be implicated in a new utility formation. So having a good relationship with that utility is going to make your utility formation much easier. There’s also opportunities for using wholesale tariffs. And what these are is the opportunity to buy power on the market and use the utility’s existing tariffs to have the utility deliver your power from a third party through their system directly to provide service to you.
And oftentimes these wholesale tariffs are already in place. Sometimes they’re called direct access service tariffs. And another example is the community choice aggregation which is now required in many California utilities. You can also take advantage of the utility’s net metering arrangements when you’re putting in renewables. And if the utility doesn’t have a net metering arrangement you can require that they establish one for tribal projects using your tribal sovereignty.
You can use utility substations and other infrastructure as I described earlier if it’s a wholesale service. You can also take advantage of utility energy efficiency programs and community renewable programs. A lot of these kind of programs do provide technical assistance and also provide energy audits or other kinds of framework through which you can work to make your project planning much easier. You can also make sure that your tribal members are represented on utility boards. You can find candidates and run them for positions and get out the vote so that if you have a cooperative or a district, you can actually have tribal folks elected to be part of these utility boards. Or you can even require if there is sufficient land base in the utility that the utility has a member on their board that may or may not be a voting member that’s a representative of the tribe. You can as I mentioned before negotiate sovereign immunity and dispute resolution provisions with your utility.
Another example of favorable tribal and utility interactions are the WAPA benefit crediting arrangements. These are for tribes that have allocations of power from Western Area Power Administration that can work with their utility or with other third parties to get the benefit of those power allocations through a crediting arrangement. Another example that I’ve seen of tribes working with utilities is during the time of dam relicensing. So if a dam relicensing which is required every 50 years for a private utilities dams, tribes can participate in those negotiations and be part of the FERC process and have a lot of rights and opportunities as part of those dam licensing negotiations.
There are also right of way agreements that need to negotiated every time a utility wants to use real property interests owned by a tribe. And that includes again the service light agreements as I mentioned that are a new requirement since 2015. You can also have a tribal choice of providers. Many tribes don’t realize that they can choose with the providers that provide service on their reservation under their right as a sovereign government to regulate utilities. This of course is kind of difficult sometimes if you already have one utility’s infrastructure in place. But it’s not impossible and you just have to look at the particular situation you’re in to determine if you can invite a new provider to come in and serve you.
So that’s my introduction of tribes and utility relationships. I have a lot more detailed information available on these topics. So please give me a call or email me if there are any questions. And next I guess Ken will tell you about some of the new tribal utilities in Bonneville’s service territory. Thanks a lot.
Randy Manion: Thank you, Margie. Ken give me a moment to get your slide deck up.
Ken Johnston: All right.
Randy Manion: And there you go.
Ken Johnston: Great. Well, thank you very much, Randy. This is Ken Johnston. Again, I am a manager of a tribal affairs program at the Bonneville Power Administration in Portland, Oregon. And I just wanted to say that Margie’s presentation, excellent. She actually talked about many of the things that you’re going to hear reflected in my presentation as well. Originally, we were going to play a video called The Power to Lead which was about our first three tribal utilities and their coming to the decisions providing utility service to their own members. However, due to some technical difficulties with the Go to Webinar format the video was not capable of being shown this day. So at the end of my presentation there will be a link to the YouTube video so that you can watch it on your own time. And again, it shows the three utilities that were formed at the time that the video was made. We have since added a fourth utility, tribal utility and I’ll talk about that in a little bit.
So next slide please. Just a quick little introduction about who Bonneville is. So you are probably aware that Bonneville is a power marketing authority which they’re called PMAs. And there are several of them throughout the United States and Bonneville is the one here in the northwest. In this territory we have about 30 percent of the electric power to serve the whole northwest. We do that by marketing the power from the 31 federal hydroelectric dams in the northwest. The dams are – and one nuclear plant. The dams are owned and operated by the US Army Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation. And Bonneville statutorily is required to market the power that comes from those facilities.
We have over 140 public utility customers. Bonneville being a federal power marketing authority is required to sell all of the power at cost. So it’s a nonprofit entity. And because we do market that power, we are self-funded. We are a non-appropriated agency. So that gives us a little bit of latitude where some of the appropriated agencies do not have the same capabilities. So we provide service from the dams themselves. But we do that over a transmission system that Bonneville actually owns and operates. So next slide please. Next slide, Randy. There you go.
This shows our transmission system throughout the northwest. The pink, purple areas are actually tribal reservations that are throughout the northwest. And as you can see the red lines if you can see that, those are transmission systems that run throughout the northwest. And some of them not only cross reservations but certainly are close by. We have over 15,000 miles of high voltage transmission. We have over 260 substations. Again, we are wholesale so we do not provide any retail service. We do not provide any distribution service. We serve our preference customers and they provide the local delivery to their customers. And as you can see our service territory includes Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Western Montana, just a little tiny dab into northern California and to northern Nevada. Not very much there at all. Next slide please.
So as part of Bonneville’s services we provide again transmission services. That means we build infrastructure projects. These don’t happen very often. But when we do they are of course these huge transmission lines everywhere from 115 KB up to 500 KB. We are in the process now of discussing transmission projects from Idaho to Oregon. We just mothballed a major transmission project that would have gone from Chehalis, Washington down into the Portland area and we mothballed that because we – after years of public testimony decided that we could look at some other options including non-wires solutions to that. So we are going with that service instead of building new transmission lines.
So we do a lot of different things including non-transmission solutions to transmission problems. So we also obviously operate and maintain the lines. And that means we have a lot rights of way, a lot of rights of way across Indian lands, a lot of vegetation management. And just as an example which I’ll talk a little bit about later, we do partner with tribes on many projects including the acclimation recently competed for the vegetation management contract for our transmission line right of way across the ______ reservation and were awarded that contract because they offered the best service. So that’s a major accomplishment for them to use their existing governmental services that included firefighting, forestry management services to then repurpose that to do the vegetation management for that right of way. And that is a huge deal. Next slide please.
We also have what’s called power services. That’s our delivery of our power to our customers. As part of power services, there’s of course utility formation. We have a whole division on energy efficiency which is a requirement under our enabling statute. Power services is also responsible for things like negotiating the upcoming Columbia River Treaty. We also have to look at what’s called Focus 2028 which is 2028 is when our current contracts run out. And so, we are already in a planning mode to determine how we will meet the customer’s needs in 2028 when they have the opportunity to accept new bids for their contracts which includes if they want to use a different provider than Bonneville. So in order to make sure that we can be their service provider of choice, we have to be something that is of value to those customers. And if we are not a good value, they will likely turn to a different provider.
IPR is our what’s called our integrated programs and review. That’s something we do every two years as we run into our rate cases to show exactly where all the money is spent on the individual programs which includes things like our fish and wildlife budget and of course our FCRPS Cultural Resources program which stands for Federal Columbia River Power Services Cultural Resources. And those are the, that’s the program that is manages the impacts of the river operations on the cultural resources along the Columbia River basin. Next slide please.
So as I mentioned fish and wildlife is part of our power services obligation. We are, because we market the energy coming off the federal dams, we are responsible for paying for mitigation for fish and wildlife losses due to the operation and construction of those dams. Some of you know that we have a tremendous salmon run here and we have – many of our tribes have not only treaty rights but other guaranteed rights to take salmon at all their usual and accustomed places. And of course, the dams caused quite a bit of damage to those runs in terms of not only lost habitat but also due to the operations, the change in flows and things of that nature.
So as part of that program, we pay for the mitigation for those so everything from fish ladders and fish screens to habitat restoration to hatcheries, changes in hydro operations to mimic appropriate flows and of course we’re involved in harvest as well. The way we did this on the last biological opinion was that we worked with the three sovereigns, the federal agencies, the state agencies and the tribes in the northwest to come up with actions that would be supportive of the mitigation under the Bi-Op. And of these actions we created what are called the fish accords with six of our tribal partners and three of our states and several of the federal agencies.
And under those fish accords there was a guaranteed funding for ten years to provide for various mitigation measure, a lot of which is habitat restoration that our tribal partners have been undertaking, creating world class rehabitated areas that if you go on YouTube you can see some of these projects done by the warm springs Yakama, _______ and others that are just amazing. So please go look at those. Those fish accords like I said are ten years. They’re running out next year and we’re in the process of renegotiating how those will be looked at by the new biological opinion that’s in the court right now. And of course, that will be an ongoing situation. Next slide please.
So how do we do all of this stuff at Bonneville? Well, back in the ‘90s we had some very enlightened folks that said we really need to have a good tribal policy to address the federal trust responsibility. So working with the 13 Columbia Basin tribes, we developed Bonneville tribal policy and it was signed and adopted in 1996. And today it’s been evaluated by several legal scholars and they say this is still a very, very appropriate and robust document. So we’re very proud of that. And of course, that guides us in how we deal with our tribal partners. Next slide please.
And what it helped us do was to help develop what we call the Bonneville tribal affairs program. So as you can see we’ve got a mission. We’ve got a vision. And as part of that program we have actual people that work on this relationship building with our tribal partners. Next slide please. Basically, this map of the northwest you can see the different colored ellipses here. Well, those are to show the basic territories that we in the tribal affairs program cover with what we call our tribal account executives. So we have a tribal account executive for each one of these colors. And they work with these tribes on the various issues that pertain to them.
So as you can see there’s a blue ellipse there up to the upper right. that’s what we call our Upper Columbia United Tribes. And that as a tribal account executive of Joe Peone. Many of you probably know Joe. He’s a longstanding member in the northwest tribal community, worked for over 20 years in the Colville as the manager of the Colville fish and wildlife program. Next over on the west on the left the purple ellipses if our western Washington and western Oregon tribes and these are represented by Corina Ikakoula who has been with the tribal affairs program since 2002.
Next, we have in the middle the sort of tannish ellipse and that’s our four lower Columbia tribes. Those are the ones that have treaties that guarantee rights to take salmon, and those of course are Yakama, Warm Spring, Umatilla and Nez Perce. Those are represented by our tribal account executive Kurt Lynam and then to the lower right, those are the upper Snake River tribes and those are represented by Marcy Foster. Next slide please.
On this slide you’ll see each of these people so you have their contact information. You’ll see the tribes that they work with, their constituency. And so, if you ever need to contact us please refer to this slide and give us a call. If there’s anything at Bonneville that you don’t understand, give us a call. That’s our job is to help find out not only where that information lies but who it is in Bonneville that we can work with that will provide that ongoing contact and relationship with you in order to get you the information you need. Next slide please.
Again, this is the map of Bonneville service territory. I just want to point out we have over 50 tribes in our service territory. We have approximately 16 depending on which designation you use but approximately 16 within what is called the Columbia Basin. The rest are outside of the Columbia Basin such as the Puget Sound tribes and the western Oregon tribes. Ok. Next slide please. This is an overview of the tribal interactions that we have with Bonneville as an agency. As you can see there’s transmission. There’s power. There’s fish and wildlife and there’s of course cross agency issues. And I won’t go into each one of these in detail. But again, it’s a very robust relationship that we have across all of these sections of the agency with our tribes. Next slide please.
And we do – again as Margie pointed out it’s relationships. So it’s important for us to have an ongoing and very detailed relationship with our tribes. We do this through government consultation and coordination. We do this as partners such as the fish and wildlife accords where we’ve – where the tribes are receiving $100 million a year to provide these habitat restoration programs, these hatchery programs and things of that nature. And also, we have a relationship with them as customers through our tribal public utilities. Every project that we do has some sort of national historic preservation act, responsibilities, 106 responsibilities. We have a very robust cultural resources department that works hand in hand with us to make sure that all our NHPA requirements are going well with our tribal partners. And we have very healthy relationships across that. Next slide please.
So we have as I said a very robust travel affairs and cultural resources program. But we have a very high priority on internal tribal training with our executives, our staff and our field personnel. We have our executive leaders go to tribal events and they develop relationships with their counterparts and are on first name basis and can pick up the phone and call each other. We have a tribal survey that is done every two years that we respond to and find out information. And then again, the very robust government to government relationship. So next slide please.
As part of this idea about education and outreach we work both internally and externally. So we have a relationship with AISES. We have a couple of AISES interns every year and I’ll show a couple of those in a second. But we also have a tribal education and capacity building program and we go out to tribal career fairs. So we go to the tribal colleges. We have speaking engagements there. We have a group that goes out to grade schools and does presentations there or we have STEM programs that go out to the tribes. Next please.
In our internal and external training, we have – we bring in speakers throughout the year to provide input on tribal history, culture and practices. And they’re some of the most well attended events at the agency. We probably have over 1,000 employees a year attend these events. Part of that is our internal training with our field services crews which are throughout the region. So we take trainings out to them. This last year we trained approximately 700 of our field services crews as well as the year before that.
So we go out with partners from our local tribes to talk about cultural resources and sacred sites and things of that nature. The crews have responded to us that this is the most significant trainings that they have ever received. So we have this active training program there partnering with our tribal partners. We also as I mentioned go out to the tribal colleges, provide information to them, career fairs and to the tribal schools as well. Next slide please.
As part of AISES we have every year we’ve had two positions. We’d like to get more but we’re happy that we do get two. One person goes to our fish and wildlife program and they spend eight of the ten weeks at the Cle Elum Fish Hatchery in Yakama with the Yakama Nation. And it’s a world class facility where they get to handle returning salmon and have a fantastic experience. The other internship is with our transmission services organization where they are hands on working with other transmission interns and they’re highly valued positions. So if you know any AISES students that would like to come and work with us, please let them know. Next slide please.
As I mentioned, we also have executive engagement. This is a picture of our administrator with the chair woman from Spokane. And rededicating a fish hatchery that Bonneville started about 25 years ago and refunding it for another 20-year time period. So our executives go to not only these kinds of things but they also go to affiliated tribes of northwest Indians. They present there. They go to other community events including treaty days, elders honoring and the like. But as tribal affairs we lead these trips and we also provide the support necessary for government to government consultations.
Next slide please which brings us to the point of this whole thing, the Bonneville Tribal Utilities. Who are the four tribal utilities, Mission Valley Power, the confederated _______ tribes in Montana. To the lower left is our UIUC utility down in Cal Creek. Then on the far right is Yakama Power in Washington. And then of course our newest one in the middle bottom there is the Kalispel Tribe of Indians. Next slide please.
Very quickly this is where the rubber meets the road. As tribes are trying to decide how they want to engage in the utility world, if they want to become a tribal utility within the Bonneville service territory. There are certain standards of service that must be met. Margie is well aware of these having worked through two such utility formations in our service territory. And they’re fairly straight ahead but they take a long time to get together. So it requires a lot of timing, a lot of coordination and of course a lot of energy expertise. But calling tribal affairs would be your first step in order to engage us on this as a possibility.
But as the standards of service you can see you must be legally formed. You must own a distribution system, be ready, willing and able to take power. You have to have a general utility responsibility. You have to have a financial ability to pay. And you have to have adequate utility operations and structures. And then you must be able to purchase in wholesale amounts. And for us we determine that to be at least one megawatt and higher. Next slide please.
Additionally, that’s – the standards of service are on the power side. On the transmission side they’re not quite as intense because they are fairly routine filling out forms and making sure you’re recognized by certain institutions such as getting a D-U-N-S number from Dan Bradstreet and registering with NAESB, obtaining a digital certificate and the life. Anyway, this information is available on Bonneville’s website. You can look that up. You can call up tribal affairs. We would be glad to introduce you to the appropriate folks to talk about how you might think long term about this including if you become very serious about it, we would introduce you to a transmission account executive and a power account executive in order to help you work through the process.
So that being said, our newest utilities, they Kalispel tribe started October 1st. It took them several years to get to that point where they actually started service. But that was because there was a lot of planning. And it’s never easy to pull apart the existing system in order to make it work for you. So it’s important to have a great staff to work with including a great expert in the energy field to make sure you’re following all of these steps. Last slide please.
So as I mentioned. Kalispel formed. Here is the staff up in the upper right-hand corner including Margie there as their consultant. On the left is a picture of their casino in the background. And on the lower right is a picture of the future. And as they have said, they are going to continue to grow. You’ll see there is the existing casino in that picture but then there’s a lot of commercial structures that are still to be built in that picture. So they are dreaming of the future and that’s what this is all about. Last slide please. And as I mentioned there’s a Bonneville video about the formation of our three utilities. We are going to try to take some video of Kalispel’s utility and maybe add it to the existing video. But please go to the video on YouTube and check it out. And thank you very much.
Randy Manion: Thank you, Ken. Excellent presentation. Chandler just give me a moment to get your slide deck pulled up.
Chandler Allen: All right. Well, hello everybody. This is Chandler Allen. I’m with the Division of Energy and Mineral Development here in Lakewood. Before we get started I was originally asked to which I’m going to speak about is our funding mechanism called the tribal energy development capacity program. That’s a funding program that actually could help support utility development. Before I touch on that, one side note just real quick for everyone who knows we’re talking about energy. We do have a sister program that is called the energy and minerals development program. Unfortunately, both are funding mechanisms for 2017 have just closed. But the EMDP program can be used for energy and mineral resources development feasibility studies. There’s more details to that obviously.
But if you go to the next slide, what I’m going to talk about is our program called the Tribal Energy Development Capacity Program. Specifically, we took over with DEMD I think roughly three years ago. We kind of revamped it with the goals of really helping to create long term capacity for energy resource development. It’s kind of a two-pronged program because it can be used to help expand business structure capacity along with also regulatory capacity as well. Just kind of some funding notes there that you guys can see. In 2015 when we took it over, we did a little over $1.5 million and we did ten projects. And then in 2016 we did a little over $1.4 million with 16 programs. Like I said unfortunately our 2017 funding just closed. We’re hoping to do pretty much similar figures to the 2016 projects. Next slide please.
Here’s just a map that we wanted to show everyone. This shows our current 26 programs – or I’m sorry, projects that we have awarded in 2015 and 2016. As you can look at the map, it’s pretty much 99 percent of them have been used for some sort of utility either feasibility or an aspect of pushing the tribe towards establishing their utility. You can pretty much see they’re spread out all over the country. Some tribes actually have done multiple phases so just kind of wanted to give you an example of where they’re at, kind of how spread out there they are. And you can see for yourself where we’re working. Next slide please.
Here’s kind of where I’m just going to go over the details. Like I said it’s a two-prong program. Really this is on the business side of formation activities that we helped fund. This is for the travel utilities. This is kind of just an example of other things, legal infrastructure for the business formation, if you want to go do tribal codes, tribal – you can see for section 17 – and again just to reiterate this is the main funding that we have for tribal utility authorities. Next slide please.
This is just kind of on the other side of things that we can help influence on a regulatory side. Just some – the main example that I would probably like to touch on here would be – it can be used for the tribe to put in place their HEARTH Act. It’s obviously just being filed with DOI. But this is a great opportunity for the tribe to get funding for it. And our last one there really that is a good thing to touch on too is the joint power agreements. That’s a good opportunity for the tribes to establish and get funding for it. Next slide please.
This is kind of one of the main slides, the main aspects of the program that we try to emphasize. They TDC program has been around since 2005. Historically it was used in a little different manner than it is now. Like I said the main focus for the TDC program is to create long term capacity, not just kind of a one-year impact. So with that being said one of the main eligibility activities that we cannot fund is establishing a tribal office. That historically previously was one of the – that was one of the main things that the project, the TDC program used to establish. Another thing is we cannot purchase or lease equipment. That’s kind of a big thing.
And the probably one of the other main ineligible activities that have historically been used with TDC funder’s training, like I said our goal is to create long term capacity. The training although we know it does have an impact with our limited funds we just don’t really get the results of the long-term effect that we have. We do – I mean all of us in this office would like to support it if we could. So if anyone wants to give us more money we definitely would take it and help spread it out. But really that was just a quick overview of what I wanted to say. Next slide.
Those are really just kind of the summary of the TDC program and I really just wanted to emphasize like you can see 99 percent of our funding goes to helping either do the feasibility and/or the formation of the utility for the tribes. So here’s kind of out contact information. Our main two contact points are me and Payton. Feel free to give us a call and thanks again for the time and thank you.
Randy Manion: Thank you Chandler. Excellent. And Jason, just give me one moment to get your slide deck up.
Jason Campbell: Sure. Thank you, Randy. Again, this is Jason Campbell. I am CEO of the Spokane tribe’s energy company Sovereign Power. The first thing you’ll notice about the Power Point is that it’s not anywhere near as sexy as everybody else’s. The bling in this presentation will come in the last slide that directs you toward the Sovereign Power website where we have a pretty good video of some of our energy development. Go ahead and hit the next slide if you would please.
Sovereign Power is the tribe’s energy company that started life in the mid ‘90s, late ‘90s as a power marketing company. And so, this relationship between the Spokane tribe through Sovereign Power and our regional utility which in our case is Avista. We also work a great deal with Ken Johnston and BPA. But when Sovereign Power started life in the ‘90s as a power marketing company, it – that brought the tribe’s relationship with our service utility into some different space. And so, you’ve heard some of the other presenters talk a little bit about those relationships with utilities expanding. You’ve heard some of the other presenters talk a little bit about climate change.
When the Spokane tribal council asked me to come on board as the CEO of Sovereign Power, it was through this lens of expanding on those power marketing opportunities but broadening the reach into more of a nation building approach. And so, our service, our main service provider in Avista, they’re an investor owned utility who then just this last year got bought out by Hydra One which is a Canadian corporation which ultimately means we are relying on several layers of external and international influence on ultimately the direct service to the tribe.
So this nation building lens that I want to talk about is a way to identify and address the political risk by the Spokane tribe not engaging in ownership in as many aspects of energy. So that vertical, that vertical value chain and energy development that starts with power generation and working with our utility now in understanding exactly what our demand load is both as tribal government agencies, private sector energy demand needs as well as residential energy demand needs. So working with that utility to identify those pieces. Sovereign Power is engaging in this vertical integration. And so that’s what this slide represents. Go ahead and hit the next one if you would.
In power generation, something didn’t translate on that slide. What happens is – there you go. Power generation and Sovereign Power is looking at how do we get the Spokane tribe into this space where we are energy independent. And how can we gain that energy independence in a way that’s reflective of our historic tribal cultural values? What are the values of the community? And what we felt was that the best representation of that is to engage in that independence through renewable energy. And Sovereign Power made the decision to be technology agnostic when it comes to renewable energy generation. So in other words, what forms of renewable energy make the most sense to the tribe. What are the easiest avenues to slide into and then we’ll layer from there what makes sense.
So what’s been very easy to get into is solar. And so, the first form of power generation that Sovereign Power engaged in is to look at solar on the residential rooftop scale. So we partnered with external nonprofit to get training, classroom training on solar PV systems, to get classroom training on rooftop installations. So we did four projects for low income families on the reservation to mitigate their monthly utility bills while simultaneously helping Sovereign Power develop the skill base to be a market driven company that engages in solar installations, operations and maintenance regionally. So we’ve done residential. What we have on tap in partnership with the Spokane tribal housing authority starting in the spring is a community scale project that will help the tribe mitigate monthly utility bill expenses for tribal operations as well as the housing authority operations which also includes elder’s housing units and the senior center.
So we’re looking at solar. We’ve done residential. We’re getting ready to do community scale which is going to be just under a megawatt somewhere in the 750 KW size system. And then what we have on tap is a utility scale solar farm within the boundaries of the reservation. So what we see is the opportunity here to then layer that solar power generation with the other major activity that happens on the reservation. Timber is our major industry. It’s the largest, outside of the tribal government, it’s the largest employer. And so, what we have done is engaged in the feasibility study around what is our sustainable level of biomass fuels production.
So based on what our department of natural resources has as their harvest rate for timber, how much of that, those waste products which comes in the form of slash, how much do we have access to to produce heat for a heat district. And so that study was completed and now we are in the final stages of the engineering design for that heat district. And once that’s accomplished now it’s time to go grab the construction dollars to get that underway. If you hit the next slide. Next one after that. We blazed through that one already. Ok.
So in this energy development – under this energy development phase of that vertical integration chart that I showed you, part of this that Sovereign Power has been tasked with isn’t just addressing energy independence which is part of a nation building strategy for the Spokane tribe. It’s also – we’re taking the opportunity to address – which I’m sure others that are on this from tribal communities have to have similar numbers. The Spokane tribe has an unemployment rate of 45 percent. And so, how do we take these market driven opportunities and leverage them into skilled labor development that helps us improve the employability and the training and marketability of tribal citizens as employees while simultaneously improving our energy resilience and independence? So that’s part of what we looked at in this is if we get into residential solar, if we get into community scale solar, if we get into utility scale solar what comes with that is this great opportunity for skilled labor development.
So hit the next slide. Biomass, next slide. Like I said that’s an engineering. The construction of that is going to have with us the opportunity for skilled labor development. One of the other pieces that we believe is unique to the biomass is that in the establishment of heat off takers, so this biomass is taking slash piles, chipping the slash, feeding the chips into a boiler, that boiler then sends hot water in a district around the town of Wellpinit, within the town of Wellpinit on that district or major nodes. So you have tribal government operations. You have the Spokane Tribal Health Clinic. You’ve got commercial market driven nodes like the Wellpinit trading post which is the grocery store. You have within that significant residential folks that can take advantage of that heat district and schools and BIA offices.
So within the district and those off takers it creates the opportunity that connects to what Chandler was talking about. And it also connects to the work that Margie has been doing with other tribes. And that is now the Spokane tribe is leveraging the opportunities that Chandler talked about to develop its own tribal utility authority. And we believe that the significance of the Spokane tribe and it’s – the scale that we use power at and the different ways that we use power, that we believe if we start developing our own tribal utility authority that then we can take these different opportunities like community scale solar, like utility scale solar, like the biomass heat district.
And we can learn from communities like the Yakama nation where we can start developing our own revenue stream to support our own economy rather than – you guys are probably familiar with this number. There’s something like 85 cents out of every dollar that comes onto a reservation leaves the reservation. And so, if we start looking at these market driven activities, we cannot only address energy resiliency, we cannot only address unemployment through skilled labor development. We can address the reduction of monthly utility bills, that burden. But now we can start building into this an economic multiplier effect where now instead of all of that money going out to external expenses like the utility we can start keeping that internal.
Go ahead and hit the next slide please. Part of this biomass district is to – we see the revenue stream pieces. But part of this also is to create this – you’ve heard me mention a couple of times energy resilience. You’ve also heard me mention that one of our internal partners to the tribe is the Spokane Indian housing authority. And so, this resilience is coming in a year. The previous two years we’ve had two major wildfires on the reservation that have burned about 25 percent of the total forest land on the reservation. One of the questions is the biomass study, is it still valid given those numbers? Short answer, yes. One of the other things that comes with that specific to energy resilience is that during those wildfires in addition to winter storms, ice storms, wind storms we have regular power outages that last for extended periods of time.
And so, one of the things the housing authority did is to reach out to Sovereign Power to say hey, look. We serve a very vulnerable part of the population. When the grid goes down it’s hard to serve that population. They have medical equipment that requires power. They have medication that requires power on down the line. So how do we start developing this energy resilience model? And so that’s one of the pieces that the biomass heat district does is then creates this system where even if the grid goes down at least we can stay warm in the winter. Next slide please, Randy.
The aspect of solar and rooftop solar for specific residences, community scale solar that serves multiple parts of the community, tribal admin housing authority, those kinds of things, utility scale solar where we get to building out more energy production than the tribe uses that then we can leverage. You see on that chart down farther that fourth pane under Sovereign Power is power marketing. So now we get to start using or producing more power than we consume, then we’re getting back to the roots of Sovereign Power which was the power marketing company where we’re selling that power back onto the grid and to other off takers.
You see highlighted on that power storage. That is to be determined. That technology is changing rapidly enough that we know that we want to be in the power storage business. One of our example mentors around that is Blue Lake Rancheria where they have a significant amount of power storage that fits right in line with their energy independence model around power generation through solar. Next slide please, Randy.
So power storage then allows you to look at those peak demand times versus nonpeak demand times so that you can create revenue streams maximizing that energy production that you get into. Obviously, power storage is the major mechanism in power resilience for natural disasters and other disasters that happen on the reservation. Next slide please.
And then this gets into the development of tribal utility authority which then allows us to go from power generation and storage to power service, power distribution. We don’t know exactly what that looks like yet. Our kickoff meeting for the tribal utility authority is on Monday. We’ve also been – last week we had a meeting with our regional utility Avista through the tribal liaison there at Avista to talk about the goals about what the Spokane tribe are.
And then how does the fact that we’re building out this tribal utility authority. How do we do this in a way that’s complimentary to what our regional utility is providing for us. What are the things we can take on? What does it make sense for the Spokane tribes of sovereign power to take on of its own volition? What are the things that make sense to leave with Avista, those kinds of things? So that’s all still very in its very infancy. But the Spokane tribe and Sovereign Power believes that it’s in our nation building best interest to move in that direction where we start to gain control and we start to develop the capacity in our own utility. Next slide.
One of the examples that we look at in the state of Washington is in this power distribution model, Yakama power of the Yakama nation, they have just done a phenomenal job. And their opportunities are certainly different than the Spokane tribe’s opportunities. But they have done a phenomenal job of building out their utility authority. In my last conversation with them, I believe now they have four complete line crews and those line crews are highly skilled positions. Those positions there’s basically four individuals per line crew. All of those positions are held by Yakama tribal citizens and those positions are very, very well paid. That entity is hugely successful as a market driven business.
And so, we’re just looking at where does it make sense in terms of Sovereign Power, what does it make sense for us to take on? And in that distribution what does it make sense for us to have grid tide. But then looking long term, how do we improve our energy resilience through these models of microgrids and nanogrids. And how do the renewable technologies that we’re currently developing fit into those models. Go ahead and hit the next slide please.
So again, that power distribution you heard me talk about what Yakama has which is this incredible skilled labor development. It also is an opportunity for additional job creation in the back-office side of that. So when you look at those monthly revenue streams, people making their monthly utility payments to Sovereign Power, it’s all of that back-office stuff that creates those positions, keeps it in house. Go ahead and hit the next slide. Just went through that. Next slide. Ok.
So in this vertical integration of the value chain, we get back to the grass roots of Sovereign Power which is its power marketing section 17 corporation where we want to expand on the existing activity that we’re doing where we’re buying from Avista and then selling to industrial off takers. So we’re going to expand on that through these other activities that you’ve seen lined out. But we believe that each of these aspects, power generation, power storage, utility development, power marketing. And then lastly if you’ll hit that next slide is to proactively engage in – I guess it’s one more where we get into legislative affairs because what we’re seeing on the political landscape regionally and nationally is that if as tried we are not proactively engaging in the mapping of legislation that is both state legislation and federal legislation that includes tribal specific language – go ahead and hit that next slide.
We believe that the proactive engagement in those activities of both tribal governance as well as state and federal legislation, that that’s a critical aspect of this nation building lens of energy independence for all tribes. Not just for the Spokane tribe but that happens to be where we see the critical piece of this. Hit the next slide. And because an example of that is like you have these solar incentives in the state of Washington that historically and that’s changing as of recently. But incentives that if you bought Washington made products whether they’re solar modules or inverters there were financial incentives to the department of revenue that you could take advantage of basically if you were anywhere but on a reservation and how our housing systems work. And so that’s why we see that it’s so critical.
Go ahead and hit the next slide. Website, I don’t know what happened to the last slide on there but the website is sovereignpower.co, sovereignpower.co. And so, if you go to that website you’ll see a sexy video about what the Spokane tribes have been able to accomplish and all of our different partners that include private sector partners, federal government partners, nonprofit partners, those folks. So if there’s anything in [Break in Audio] that I look at it through, why do we look at it through a nation building lens? And then how do you take this high-altitude nation building lens down to a single mom living in a single house that’s part of a housing authority as an opportunity to catalyze energy independence and utility scale power. So if there’s any part of that that anyone on this webinar is interested in, I would be more than happy to expand on how we came to that as a tribal nation and as an entity. So thank you.
Randy Manion: Thank you, Jason. And we’ll make sure we get that last slide posted in the deck that we put on the DOE Office of Indian Energy webpage. So we’ll make sure we have that. And thank you very much. Excellent presentation. Let’s go to the Q&A. We have about 20 minutes left if we have that many questions. First question, Ken, how long has DPA had a tribal relations program?
Ken Johnston: Since the mid ‘90s.
Randy Manion: Ok. Question for you Margie. Please provide examples of tribal rights leverage regarding electric distribution lines and service that would be different or in addition to non-tribal utility customers.
Margie Schaff: Well, I think a number of them are related to using the existing tariffs that are in place to find less expensive ways of getting your power delivered to you. I think the question also talked about the distribution system and of course then the eminent domain is really important. Your leverage is that you can require utilities to sell their systems to you if the systems are on tribal trust land and you have imminent domain authorities in place through your tribal laws. The tribe also has regulatory authority meaning that if you have jurisdiction over the particular utility service you can establish the same kind of rules that a public utility commission could establish for your utilities activities within that service territory.
That is a little bit of a complicated effort. You have to have laws and rules in place and some kind of a commission in place to do the work. Actually, the Kalispel tribe has instituted this kind of a utility commission. They actually have a subset of their tribal council that is regulating the utilities that do serve on their reservation including their own tribal utility. That also gives the tribe a way to use their sovereign status to change or improve upon the utility services that are being provided under state utility codes. So that does take a little bit of negotiation and work. But certainly, it is a way to leverage those kinds of things. I’m not sure if I’m answering the question fully but just things off the top of my head.
Randy Manion: Yeah. Very good. And Chandler do you except TEDC to be funded again in 2018?
Chandler Allen: Yeah. It’s not an annual program but we’ve traditionally received funding every year.
Randy Manion: Ok. Great. Margie, another question for you. Will reaching out to utilities who are providing service devolve into right of way tribal record disputes? What are your thoughts on how to address these potential issues?
Margie Schaff: Well, I think if the utility wants to have right of ways across the tribal lands they have to reach out to you. And so, I think it’s best if the tribes begin that process of creating that relationship so you have a better understanding of what the utility is attempting to do. And you have a better understanding of the utility’s rights and requirements. And that you can also be part of the utility siting process. I mean if they are going to cross your lands as part of a right of way discussion you can certainly work with them on exactly how that right of way will be designed.
And in some ways, the only option they have is to go around you so there’s a lot of added expense if they’re going around you. But I think as a general rule I would say that working with your utility to build a relationship before an incident or issue comes up is much better than waiting until something happens and then create everything on the fly at a time that maybe the tribe is busy with other priorities.
Randy Manion: Great. Thank you. This question is for everyone and I’m going to take a crack at it after I read it. And then if everyone else could jump in. How do you handle providing technical training both classroom and hands on training needed for employable positions? Is this paid for by BIA grants or loans? Any case studies of where this has been done successfully? So I’ll add – and this was mentioned by Margie. We have a very unique electric power training center located in Golden, Colorado. It’s open to the public but we train over 500 power system operators and utility and government officials through this facility each year.
It does have a waiting list but we are trying to move some of the classes online and we are working with Chandler’s group to try to figure out where the synergies are to take greater advantage of this facility with all the tribes in our service territory or any tribe really across the United States. So you can learn more about our electric power training center by just doing internet search for electric power training center and it should come up for Golden, Colorado. And also jump in on this, because this is definitely a group answer. So with that I’ll turn it back over to the panel.
Jason Campbell: Randy, this is Jason with Sovereign Power. I can share our experience specific to solar PV and renewables. And we, one of our partners for training the classroom training was an eight-day training provided by Solar Energy International out of Paonia, Colorado. And they came to the Spokane Indian reservation. And we funded that between Sovereign Power and the housing authority. Specifically, we’re looking at labor development through the housing authority’s weatherization team. It just is a really good natural fit.
And so, they came up, Solar Energy International came up and we did that classroom training there at the housing authority. We also had volunteers from the community that were interested in solar energy participate. And then on the heels of that, we lined up four projects that were rooftop projects where out partner’s Grid Alternatives out of Denver, Colorado flew up and we did all of the training associated with that. But that wasn’t – there wasn’t federal funds that paid for that. It was just the tribal internal partners that then had our external experts come on to the reservation for training.
Randy Manion: Excellent. Thanks, Jason.
Margie Schaff: I’ll also add that Western Area Power did a really good overview of the tribal utilities that are in existence as of a couple years ago. I think Randy’s in the process of trying to get that tribal utility overview and summary updated. But the existing review gives the kind of whole white paper on how ______ utility was formed. And then it also goes into the history of the other tribal utilities that are in existence. And Randy, I think there is a link to that on the DOE’s website.
Randy Manion: There is. And anyone interested in that case study document I think it includes – it was originally published believe it or not back in 1996 and we focused on ________ option, was a later update and a few others. So yeah. We’re trying to update that. Lenny Gold also announced last month on our webinar series that he produced tribal utility authority documents and I think has a copy of that. So again, just email me and I’ll track down both documents and email it out to whoever wants a copy. So thanks, Margie.
Ken Johnston: So Randy, this is Ken Johnston. Here at Bonneville we have a special program that’s only been utilized a couple of times. It’s to go for a yearlong training on scheduling power. And so, we’ve done two such internships here where we have an intergovernmental agreement with the tribe. They pay for a student to come and learn how to be a power marketer. And it’s about like I said about a year long program. We haven’t done it in a few years because it is so specialized that there are very few tribes that would need this kind of expertise. But in the past, we have done a very successful program with the warm springs and with the _. So we can start up that program but again it’s an intergovernmental agreement with the tribe. The tribe pays for this position and we provide all of the necessary teaching through a yearlong internship.
Randy Manion: Thanks, Ken. That’s excellent.
Margie Schaff: And I’ll add that Pachanga just hired as a general manager one of the last graduates of that program. And so, it’s a really good opportunity to improve your skills directed into the field of tribal utility.
Randy Manion: Excellent, Sean, anything to add from DOE? Are you muted, Sean?
Sean: Sorry about that. Yeah. No. The website’s a great source of information as well. And we can definitely, I can send out a link there to all the attendees.
Randy Manion: Ok. Great. And Chandler, any comments on the training?
Chandler Allen: No. Unfortunately, we don’t have the resources for supporting funding or for training.
Randy Manion: Ok. Great. There are a lot – we’re going to kick off the eighth year of our tribal webinar series next year 2018 and so we appreciate all of the feedback that everyone has given us in our information gathering efforts. So hopefully we’ll come out with some topics next year that will continue to keep you all interested and help lead you in the right direction as far as getting your folks all trained. I think there are just a few more questions. Jason, can you repeat the name of the nonprofit that helped you guys on the training?
Jason Campbell: There’s two sides to that training, one with the classroom training so kind of an introductory to solar PV and battery backup systems, those kinds of things. And that is S, the letter SEI, Solar Energy International. And the other training is the actual install training so getting on the roof, putting up the modules. And that is Grid Alternatives.
Margie Schaff: Ok. Excellent. Thank you. It looks like that’s all of the questions. I want to go down a slide here. Let’s see. So we’re going to send out a link to everyone with where the slides and recording will be posted. Please give us at least a week or a week and a half to get the recording up. Slides will probably be up sooner than that. And we have one webinar left for the 2017 series next month. And it’s not the last Wednesday of the month. It’s December 13th? Let me move this down. Yes. December 13th and its economic market potential and tribal lands and interactive tools for assessment and this is a new interactive tool that DOE has developed to help tribes evaluate their renewable potential and the economic market potential in tribal lands.
So that will be a very interesting webinar and that will close out our 2017 series. And again, I want to thank Margie, Ken. Chandler and Jason for just outstanding presentations, very interesting, and thank our audience for their participation today and we look forward to having you all on the webinar in December. Thanks again. The webinar is now concluded.
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