From Shelley Midura's office...
This is very, very serious:
NEW ORLEANS, LA – In a letter to Entergy New Orleans CEO Rod West, City Council Utility Committee Chair Shelley Midura asked ENO to cooperate with the Council in defending New Orleans ratepayers from the impact of withdrawal of Entergy Arkansas and Mississippi from the Entergy system agreement. Withdrawal of these subsidiaries from the system threatens to leave New Orleans ratepayers saddled with millions of dollars in potential rate increases.
“This is a very serious threat to the pocketbooks of the people of New Orleans. My job is to protect the interests of New Orleans ratepayers. Their job is to protect the interests of Entergy stockholders. This is one of those times where those two interests are colliding head on,” said Midura.
Entergy Arkansas and Mississippi are seeking to withdraw from the system. ENO ratepayers currently benefit from the cheaper coal power assets of EAI as well as the leverage of system joint power purchases on the open market of cheaper fuel. New Orleans ratepayers have shared in the expenses of infrastructure development system wide for the better part of the last 50 years with the understanding that the benefits would in turn also be shared system wide. Midura’s letter threatens legal action if ENO ratepayers are forced to absorb unjust and unreasonable rate increases as a result of any withdrawals from the system agreement.
The City Council passed a resolution in support of Midura’s letter to ENO in today’s Council meeting.
This infuriates me....beyond words. We have to get these rotten bastards out of this city or we will never survive. As I understand it, this city had an agreement with Entergy to help build out their plant infrastructure (I think a coal powered plant in Arkansas) and in return we would benefit long term by getting cheaper supply costs from the plant. Now it appears they are breaking up the company into separate entities which would dissolve any agreement which existed with "Entergy" and the city. Which means our 50 years of good faith investment is now good for shit and they will hike their rates up at will from the plant we helped pay for or worse completely shut us off and force us to turn to much more costly sources which they dictate.
Folks...this is more serious than Nagin, NOAH, and everything else combined. We need to start an initiative immediately to move our city off of Entergy's grid. Hydrogenerators in the River, Wind turbines in the Gulf, return the energy grid back to public services....whatever it takes, we have to go balls to the wall to gain independence from these tyrants.
I'm sure we'll see a justification for the move in print tomorrow from the TP....I'll be interested to see how they sugarcoat this one. Any headline short of "Entergy breaks word....screws city" will be insufficient.
2 comments:
It is time for radical action. We must demand an immediate equalization of rates with the other Entergy units, or we want their fucking HQ out of our city. Rapists is the word I thought of when this first occured to me. Why would we want the headquarters of an organization of economic rapists in our city?
Entergy out of New Orleans.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: Since both energy and transit are virtual basket cases, bring back the old NOPSI! Much easier than bringing in a foreign outfit (even if it is French) to fix transit.
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