Tacoma Talks Tough On Power Conservation

March 14, 2001 By KOMO Staff & News Services

PIERCE COUNTY - If you're a Tacoma Power customer, you'd better start saving some juice...or else.

Until now, officials at the utility have simply urged their 146,000 customers to conserve energy by 20 percent during the current West Coast power crunch. But now they want to take it a step further by making energy conservation mandatory and fining violators $100 a day.

Utility officials pitched the idea to the Tacoma City Council on Tuesday. A public hearing is planned March 26th.

Tacoma Public Utilities Director Mark Crisson says officials hope to rely on a civic-minded approach of people policing themselves, rather than a get-tough stance.

The proposed requirements include a ban on outdoor, decorative and advertising lighting during late-night hours, and a ban on electrical heat for personal hot tubs or swimming pools.

http://www.komotv.com/news/story.asp?ID=9760

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), March 14, 2001

Answers

When I lived in Olympia, WA in 86-87, electric was abundant and dirt cheap. My, how times have changed.

Now, if only the consumer can connect the dots and see that owning a 14-17 mpg vehicle is ignorantly trendy and horribly shortsighted. There is nothing in our constitution that guarantees an infinite supply of natural resources. Nor can we breed indiscriminately with lack of foresight for perpetuity. Why, oh why, do we refuse to acknowledge the obvious!

-- Guy Daley (guydaley@altavista.com), March 15, 2001.