Published March 2001

Increased power costs jolt county businesses

By Kathy Day
Herald Economy Writer

Dorothy Merison refuses to sit quietly and watch her company’s electric bill increase.

She wants it known that she is not just facing bills that are $3,000 more than a year ago, she’s also feeling the pinch of aluminum plant closures. Because her company, Mackenzie Castings, makes parts for smelting equipment, those plant shutdowns hit her bottom line.

“What the future holds for us, we’ll just have to wait and see,” she said in a recent interview.

“With many of my customers forced to shut down, with the 41 percent increase in the cost of electrical power, it is going to be tough for Mackenzie Castings to stay afloat,” she said.

Merison took over the business near the Arlington Airport in 1985 when her husband died. Already, she has lost 22 percent of her sales to aluminum plant closures. Now she worries that she won’t be able to give raises to her 24 employees,

The PUD’s efforts to have firms use power at off-peak times won’t work for her because she’s already doing that, she said.

Furnaces, which heat metal to 3,000 degrees, aren’t turned on until 11 a.m., instead of earlier as they used to be. If she violates her arrangement with the PUD and turns them on earlier, she’ll have to pay a large penalty, she said.

Merison wants to help and has attended PUD meetings where the problems have been discussed. She has written to Bonneville Power Administration officials and is active in the American Foundry Society, which works to protect the interests of the aluminum industry.

“This is bigger than just me,” she said.

She’s not alone with those feelings. Jim Werkhoven, who runs a dairy with 500 cows south of Monroe, paid $4,700 for power in January, $1,000 more than a year ago.

He needs electricity for motors to run his irrigation and manure systems, to clean and light barns, for milking machines and the computers that track his operations. He already has switched to the most efficient engines he can find to power them, set milking machines to variable-speed controls and cut back on lighting. He also turns off computers when they’re not in use.

“This is a very depressed market for dairies ... with historical lows for milk prices,” Werkhoven said. Because prices are controlled by the federal government, there’s no mechanism to pass the increased costs to consumers, he added.

“In the total scheme of things, it’s just one more thing,” he said. “It’s going to be a rough year.”

Doug Torrie, President of Everett-based King Extrusions, echoed his sentiments. The only good news he can find when he looks at his January energy bill is that one reason it’s higher is that the company was busy, producing more vinyl windows and parts than a year ago.

A year ago, his January PUD bill was $27,000; this year, it’s more than $63,000, though he attributes the actual increase due to the PUD’s rate hike at about $20,000.

Torrie said he’s looking at every aspect of the operation, which runs around the clock. Workers turn off lights and computers and shut down machines more often when they’re not in use. But the company is “already pretty lean, so this is cutting into our bottom line,” he added.

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