CU to address power generation, water treatment issues in 2002

The Board of Public Utilities and City Utilities will have many opportunities to serve our community in the new year. As changes sweep the utility industry, City Utilities will emphasize planning so our customers continue to enjoy the basic utility services we provide at competitive prices.

Electricity

This planning effort will be critical in the area of electric power supply. City Utilities' customer base continues to ex-pand, and customers continue to use more electrical energy to power their lives. This increased demand will require us to plan for our next increments of electric power generation.

Our customers already enjoy some of the most competitive prices in America for the electricity they use, and keeping that enviable position will be a challenge.

We are currently able to meet all local demand with existing facilities, and our challenge will be to decide whether building new generation or entering into a purchase power agreement with another company will best maintain this competitive advantage.

These decisions will have to be made early in 2002 so that sufficient time is available to implement them.

In addition to planning for our next long-term power supply addition, during 2002 we will complete the first phase of the McCartney Generating Station. The McCartney station will include two 50-megawatt natural-gas-fired combustion turbines and will be operational by May 2002.

These simple-cycle combustion turbines will generally operate during the hot summer months when air-conditioning loads are highest.

These turbines are the first generating additions to the CU system since the second turbine was installed at the James River Power Station.

Planning for the future power supply needs of our customers will keep Spring-field competitive. Of equal importance in the power supply equation is the maintenance of our existing generating fleet.

During 2002 we will complete major overhauls of three of our six coal-fired generating units at the James River and Southwest power stations. These overhauls are conducted periodically to en-sure the continued availability of low-cost power.

Water

At City Utilities we take raw water from various sources, including Stock-ton, Fellows and McDaniel lakes, Ful-bright Spring, the James River, and several deep, distribution system wells and pump it to the Blackman or Fulbright water treatment plants where it is treated and pumped into the water distribution system.

In order to meet the growing needs of our customers, we continue to expand the capacity of the Blackman Water Treatment Plant. Blackman was originally constructed as an eight-filter, 30-million-gallon-per-day plant that began operating in 1981.

During 2002 we will complete en-hancements to the third filter at Black-man, increasing its total capacity to 36.4 million gallons per day. This additional treated water capacity will allow us to meet the ever-growing peak day needs of our customers.

Communications

By July the new trunked radio system an 800-megahertz, public safety radio system serving the city of Springfield, Greene County and City Utilities will be operational.

This trunked radio system will replace aging individual radio systems now operated by the three partners. It will provide state-of-the-art communications and, for the first time, will allow each entity to talk directly with one another during emergencies.

The seven towers being constructed for this system also will have the capacity to hold antennas for other communications companies, thus eliminating the need for additional towers to be built around the city and county.

Customer costs

City Utilities will propose no new base price increases for electricity, natural gas, water or transit services in 2002. This continued price stability, together with more moderate costs for wholesale natural gas service, will mean that our customers continue to enjoy outstanding utility services at some of the most competitive rates anywhere in America.

Local control of your utilities, outstanding system reliability, customer convenience, low prices, and a culture that values the people who provide service and plans for the future all of these are attributes of a successful utility prepared to meet the challenges of tomorrow.

(John Twitty is deputy general manager and chief operating officer for City Utilities of Springfield.)