County plans forum on energy plan

Published 6:00 pm Wednesday, October 18, 2023

ENTERPRISE — The Wallowa County Board of Commissioners was expected to approve a countywide energy plan at its meeting on Wednesday, Oct. 18.

Instead, in response to requests from people attending the meeting and watching online, the commissioners agreed to delay taking formal action on the plan. Instead, they intend to schedule a public forum to present more information about the Wallowa County Community Energy Strategic Plan and its recommendations. (On Monday, the commission said the forum had been scheduled for Wednesday, Nov. 8 at Cloverleaf Hall; see related story, this page.)

Commissioner Todd Nash said he had heard requests from the public to allow for a 30-day public-comment period on the plan. And he said the commissioners had received a letter from Joe Basile, the community energy program manager at Wallowa Resources, saying that there was “no rush” to approve the plan.

After Commissioner Susan Roberts seconded Nash’s motion for the waiting period and all three voted in favor of that, Commission Chairman John Hillock opened the meeting to public comment.

Many of the nearly 20 attendees at the meeting (another 10 watched on Zoom) said they liked the intent of the plan, but wanted more information about it.

Roberts said that Basile had put the plan on the county website and that of Wallowa Resources, but given the transition the county website is going through, people have had difficulty accessing the plan. “It can be there one day and not the next” on the county’s website, Roberts said.

Nash noted that there is a hard copy available at the courthouse.

Basile recommended checking for the plan on the Wallowa Resources website.

A copy of the plan also can be accessed on the online version of this story on the Chieftain’s website, wallowa.com. (Click on the image of the plan’s cover, and then click on the button that says “Download PDF.”)

Public input

County resident Jolene Cox liked the idea of a public forum, where elements of the plan such as the microgrids, funding, possible energy shutdowns and other elements can be clarified.

“It just doesn’t seem to go into enough detail,” she said.

Hillock agreed to discuss the plan with anyone who wants to, but one thing he did note was the question of how it would be funded.

“As far as the money goes to implement it, we don’t have any,” he said. “It may end up a document stored in the Planning Department that we’re never able to use. In the meantime — and Joe (Basile) can probably explain this better — Wallowa Resources has got some additional work to do to get grants and those grants weren’t to Wallowa County; they were specifically to Wallowa Resources.”

Nash reminded those present that the plan is intended to help the county capture more grant dollars for the projects it proposes.

“If you don’t have a plan in place, you’re less likely to capture those grant dollars,” he said.

Pamela Olson, another resident present, said the forum would be beneficial to her to learn more about the technology described in the energy plan, particularly about the solar energy.

“I would like to know about the batteries and the storage involved,” she said.

Hillock, who is an electrician and owns Enterprise Electric, offered to set up a meeting on that topic if people are interested.

Hillock added: “Also, Energy Trust (of Oregon) is willing to come up and talk about weatherization … to help elderly people. Some of that work is being done by Community Connection already.”

He mentioned other elements of the plan that have yet to be implemented. (See the sidebar for details about some of the plan’s recommendations.)

Reasons for plan

Olson spoke highly of the plan’s goals for hydroelectric energy and for the biomass planned at Wallowa (the microgrids that the plan calls for establishing around Joseph and Wallowa would use those energy sources), but wanted to know where those stand.

“A lot of the things people are counting on is the grant money that might be available through some of (President Joe) Biden’s legislation,” Hillock said. Regardless of whether that source of money continues, Hillock noted that there are “quite a few solar incentives right now that we’re taking advantage of.”

He added that Wallowa Resources, Energy Trust and others could provide education on those incentives.

“The more information, the better,” Olson said. “It just makes us more informed.”

“The whole idea behind the microgrid is, more than anything, about community resiliency,” Hillock said.

Getting the word outRoberts, as she has done on other topics, expressed some frustration about how to get the word out about projects like the energy plan.

“We’ve been talking about it in these meetings for two years,” she said. “But I do lay that back on the public sometimes because we talk about it and don’t get their attention.”

“That’s my question to the public, how do you want us to inform you?” Roberts asked.

She asked Tera Elliott, the commissioners’ administrative assistant, to send emails about the plan to those present and those attending via Zoom.

Hillock said he and Basile will put together a public forum at which experts with a variety of technologies present to help inform the public on elements of the plan.

Roberts also dismissed as groundless concerns that a “government conspiracy” is tied up in the energy plan. She said the plan is simply about Wallowa County helping itself.

“Wouldn’t you rather have the county take care of itself than count on the federal or state government?” she asked. “That’s what we’re talking about, not having to depend on the outside world.”

The Wallowa County Community Energy Strategic Plan represents more than a year’s worth of work from a community leadership team. Joe Basile, the community energy program manager of Wallowa Resources, helped to spearhead the work.

In its final report, the plan’s leadership team identified more than 30 projects for the county.

“Of that, 34 energy projects were boiled down into programs based on a priority-ranking scale that’s outlined in here to about seven programs,” he told the Wallowa County Board of Commissioners at its Oct. 4 meeting.

Those seven are:

• The Wallowa County Microgrid Resiliency Corridor Program, which is in the works and for which some funding has been obtained.

• An irrigation-modernization program, beginning with a campaign to ensure that farmers are familiar with irrigation modernization and the benefits it could offer.

• An electric fleet vehicle/mass transit program to support vehicle electrification and fuel-efficiency standards.

• A weatherization program that could include a truck and trailer so that necessary materials can be delivered right to households.

• A city-crosswalk and street-lighting program for Enterprise, Joseph and Wallowa to install solar-powered crosswalk signals and streetlights.

• A school clean-energy program intended to reduce energy usage and increase energy resilience of school facilities. A key goal here is to install rooftop solar arrays at each school.

• Residential solar, to increase rooftop solar development across Wallowa County.

Basile said the plan’s leadership team essentially is disbanded and being transformed into an advisory group to take the plan from the planning stage to the implementation stage.

“Wallowa Resources will continue to facilitate the process,” Basile said.

One of the primary goals of the plan is to establish microgrids throughout the county. A microgrid is a locally controlled electrical grid that can connect with the larger grid or operate independently. Microgrids can offer improved customer reliability and resilience in the event of grid disturbances.

Basile said the microgrids are expected to burn biomass in the Wallowa area, use solar power in the Enterprise area and hydropower in the Joseph area.

ENTERPRISE — A public forum to provide more information on the Wallowa County Strategic Energy Plan will be held Wednesday, Nov. 8, at the Cloverleaf Hall in Enterprise.

The forum will begin at 6:30 p.m. at the hall, which is at 600 NW First St.

Wallowa County Commission Chairman John Hillock and Joe Basile, community energy program manager for Wallowa Resources, scheduled the forum in response to public interest expressed at the Oct. 18 meeting of the Board of Commissioners.

Hillock said Monday that he expects representatives of the Energy Trust of Oregon to be at the forum to answer questions on the plan. He also has invited other officials of local and federal agencies, though they have yet to confirm their attendance.