Private Power Wins

The long battle between public and private powermen for the right to develop Hell's Canyon finally ended. By refusing last week to review the case for public power, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Federal Power Commission's 1955 judgment in favor of private power. That judgment ruled in effect that private enterprise is preferable when it stands ready to serve the public interest quickly and efficiently.

At issue in 1955 had been two alternate ways to dam the turbulent Snake River between Idaho and Oregon: 1) a single, high federal dam costing $400 million, which would generate 800,000 kw., or 2) three low, privately built dams costing $190 million, which would generate 783,000 kw. The FPC licensed the Idaho Power Co.'s low-dam plan on grounds that Congress was reluctant to pay for the high dam. Idaho Power promptly went to work on Brownlee Dam, first of its three low dams, even though public power groups went to court to block it. Gambling on winning its case, the company has since spent $19.5 million toward completing Brownlee by 1958.

New Climate. But public power proponents are far from giving up. Though Hell's Canyon was lost, they knew that Northwestern industrial and political climates have changed since the FPC ruling in 1955. With no big new dams completed, Northwest economic growth is slowing down. Cheap power from public dams built under the New Deal is now inadequate, and few new industries are moving in. As a result of this--and the Democratic victories in the Northwest last year on a public power platform--there is growing pressure for more Government help in developing the vast Columbia River basin. Below Hell's Canyon on the Snake River (chief Columbia tributary), private power had planned two power-only dams at Pleasant Valley and Mountain Sheep. Though approved by former Interior Secretary Douglas McKay, the plans were tentatively disapproved by an FPC study last month that favored a proposed $450 million multipurpose (power, flood control, irrigation) federal Nez Perce dam below the confluence of the Snake and Salmon Rivers. In addition. Interior Secretary Fred Seaton believes that the private plans may be too limited (TIME, Feb. 25), is studying an alternate multipurpose federal dam at Pleasant Valley.

New Future. Underlying the new atmosphere is a better understanding of what private power can and cannot do. Encouraged by the "partnership" policy during the first Eisenhower term, long-dormant private companies have meshed with local public utilities since 1952 to open up new projects adding some 4,500,000 kw. to the Northwest power pool. But such projects are chiefly local, barely keep abreast of minimum needs.

Meeting in Seattle last week, the Northwest Public Power Association saw the only solution in a Columbia River regional authority that could coordinate and finance both public and private projects in long-term development. "The hydroelectric power potentialities of the Columbia Basin are less than a third realized," said Major General Walter K. Wilson Jr., Army Engineers deputy chief of construction. Said Association President Peter C. Spowart of publicly owned Seattle City Light: "Private utilities can hardly be expected to support an effort beyond their own power requirements. Only a regionwide, publicly owned agency can absorb these costs."

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