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Idaho's powerful policies

31.01.10

These days, Idaho's farmers are being paid to stuff up using power.

Sitting at a cluttered kitchenette table in his home, Erwin - now a yeoman himself - waved a bill showing that in July, he received a commendation of more than $700 from Idaho Power for turning off his power-guzzling pumps on some summer afternoons.

"It's a full turnabout," says Erwin, who lives in Bruneau, about 60 miles southeast of here. "I'm almost 70 years old and this has been a lifelong tutoring to me."

As saving energy becomes a rallying cry for utilities and the administration, Idaho Power is in the vanguard. Since 2004, it has been paying farmers such as Erwin to cut power use at critical times, resulting in drop-offs of as much as 5.6 percent of peak power inquire.

In a related program, it pays homeowners to hairpin bend off their air conditioners briefly at times of soprano demand.

Other efficiency initiatives by the utility, including one promoting attic insulation, have saved about 500,000 megawatt-hours of power since 2002, according to the proprietorship - roughly equal to the amount used by 5,000 device-filled homes over eight years.

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

Classes cancelled at BES due to water pump failure

28.01.10

BARNSTEAD — Students at Barnstead Elemental School were given an unexpected day off Thursday after the persuasion's domestic water pump, which supplies water to the kitchen and bathrooms, shorted out the too soon afternoon.

Principal Tim Rice explained in an e-correspondence to The Baysider Thursday morning that just out heavy rains had somehow infiltrated an guerillas conduit that carries power from the transformer to the back of the erection, where the Water Room is located.

The moisture, he said, caused a quick in the electrical system for the domestic water pump at around midday Wednesday. As a sequel, kitchen staff began uninterrupted out of water toward the end of lunch, and students were unable to run water from sinks or burn toilets.

"We cannot have school in session without water because of the patent sanitary issues it presents, so we finished the style day and cancelled after school activities," Rice explained, adding that patronage staff sent a message out to

Source: Record Enterprise

Clayton Williams Suing to Pump Water From Land

26.01.10

Former Texas gubernatorial applicant Clayton Williams has sued a West Texas water neighbourhood for denying his application to pump water from beneath his upon.

Williams claims in a lawsuit filed last week in federal court in Midland that several of his constitutional rights were violated when the Mid Pecos Groundwater Conservation Locale denied his plan.

The Pecos County wildcatter, rancher and multimillionaire who irrecoverable the 1990 Texas governor's race meeting to Ann Richards is seeking unspecified remunerative and punitive damages.

The suit claims the locale discriminated against Williams' application by treating it "differently than others similarly situated" and that the part's board violated his due process rights by denying his request.

Williams has used water on his land for decades, but now wants to modify the district-sanctioned use and export it.

An attorney for the groundwater precinct, Mike Gershon, said Tuesday that the claim was administratively incomplete, not denied.

Source: ABC News