Salman,

Why guess when you can easily verify? The Snohomish PUD commissioners decided a while back to develop renewable energy resources within Snohomish County. Snohomish PUD owns very little in the way of energy generating resources (Jackson on the Sultan, Woods Ck, and Youngs Ck). They buy most of their power from BPA, the mid-Columbia PUDs, and other public and private energy producers.

The project is tentatively designed (won't know for sure until they study it more) at about 25 MW, which by rule of thumb provides power to about 25,000 people. In reality, most hydro projects average generation is about one-half of the total capacity because they don't run at full generation all the time because river flows vary through the seasons. The way it saves money is through ownership and having greater certainty over future energy costs. It won't cause current energy prices to go down. I'm not sure what you mean by how effective it will be. I cfs of water falling 14' = 1 kwh of electricity. That's determined by the laws of physics; kind of hard to change that.

Any developer anywhere in Snohomish Co. will have to buy his electricity from Sno PUD. They are the only supplier in the county unless the developer goes off the grid and generates his own power. So the power will cost the same if it is supplied by Sno PUD, regardless of whether it is generated by the Sultan R. project, Youngs Ck, Sunset Falls, or one of the Columbia River dams. The PUD has a set pricing structure, and your rate is determined by what category of customer you are.

I don't care if you give in or not, but if you want to effectively oppose the project you'll need to know what you're talking about and articulate a persuasive argument against the project. Good luck.

Sg