Problem at WAPA is the LEAC
Published: September 20, 2010
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It is that wicked time again — politics time!
Everyone should be engaged in deciding whether they will remain “together for tomorrow” or whether they will agree “we can do better.”
However, despite that demand for everyone’s attention, according to one of my political friends, one has to keep an eye on “bread and butter issues.”
Accordingly, while politics is important, everyone living in the U.S. Virgin Islands needs to take a new look at the V.I. Water and Power Authority.
The Levelized Energy Adjustment Clause bill is so excessive that it is stifling entrepreneurial creativity and fostering in these islands what, years ago, George L. Beckford called “persistent poverty.” Meanwhile, the government, the V.I. Public Services Commission and WAPA appear to be in collusion.
Every now and then there is a hike in the LEAC cost and it simply passes on to the citizens. Consequently, we must ask, “In whose interest is WAPA operating, and, is its total dependency on a price-unstable power source, oil, in our best interest?”
We also need to ask whether the PSC operates with reason and conscience. Often it seems to come down on the side that will have citizens paying more. The loud complaints in society hardly seem to matter.
Instead of coming up with creative and cheaper forms of electricity, WAPA appears to keep going back to the PSC, hands wide open, and repeating four words: LEAC SAYS MORE MONEY!.
So, with WAPA’s persistent LEAC increases in mind, it seems appropriate that citizens begin to ask more and more questions — not relaxed rhetorical questions, but questions that demand reflective thought and change action.
Always, when one confronts a pressing problem, the ultimate goal should be with change in mind. When the new action does not lead to change, then the question remains: Why suffer the stress caused by such puerile action?
One LEAC-related question is, “How is the increasing LEAC cost related to the government’s electricity bill?”
If the rising LEAC cost is related to government reneging on its electricity bill, can the increasing LEAC cost then be seen as an additional tax? One tax is paid by April each year to the government while a special tax is paid to WAPA monthly, on behalf of the government.
Meanwhile, the government lays back and allows WAPA to have its way with the citizens’ incomes. There seems to be a sense that the LEAC charge can go up and up forever. It will always be paid because the people are materialistic. They love to have their material things and so much of their toys are driven by electricity. However, in real life such reasoning can be false.
There are usually limits to human exploitation and abuse. A time comes when those being treated with contempt find the will to demand change to their condition of existence.
The second question is forced by the times in which we live. Actually, the geographical area where we live, and the emerging technology of our time beg the second question: “Why is WAPA so cocooned in oil power and not doing more creative experiments with the sun, the wind, the ocean, volcanic activity and other energy sources?”
Because the U.S. Virgin Islands is a secure staging location for the sale of HOVENSA’s oil to the rest of the world does not mean that we get the best pricing deal that there is. While Venezuelans pay cents per gallon for their gasoline, we are paying dollars for ours. The more we depend on oil, the more we will be required to pay to get it, since places such as China, India, and Japan are competing for the same oil.
However, they use their oil for more than producing electricity. It is used to produce industrial development, wealth and higher standards of living in those countries. At the same time, there are growing movements in such countries to find alternate sources of energy to produce electricity.
Recently, scientists in India collaborated with the government to supply millions of people in rural areas with electricity for the first time. The source of that energy is something we have and share. It is not oil, it is sunshine.
No place in the United States pays the crazy LEAC bills we are forced to pay here. They use coal, gas, some oil, the sun, the wind and nuclear power but pay far less for their electrical energy than we pay for ours.
There is also an ongoing concern about efficiency at WAPA as an electricity producing plant. That efficiency problem also impacts how much we pay and how often our LEAC cost is raised.
While it is admirable that young Virgin Islanders are at the helm of WAPA, this is the 21st century. They must do much more than maintain the electrical plant by satisfying the demands of oil use for electrical energy. That is our LEAC problem.
There is a need to turn to more creative, cheaper and easily renewable energy. Unpredictable oil prices and painful LEAC increases do not have to continue as forces limiting our future in these islands.
— Whitman T. Browne is an author and educator who lives on St. Thomas.
