This Week’s Water Levels | Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Yukon Energy has promised to regularly update property owners on Marsh and Tagish Lakes of lake water levels. This is a service we provide each summer, to help residents prepare their properties in the event of potential flooding. Here is our latest forecast. The forecast is updated weekly on this blog. Feel free to leave a comment for us if you have questions about the forecast chart.

Lowest Power Rates in Years | Monday, June 22, 2009

At various times on this blog we have provided you with information about how your electrical bills are changing and what you can expect to pay for your power. Recent developments (a ruling by the Yukon Utilities Board on Yukon Electrical Company Ltd.'s rate application and a decision by the Yukon government to replace the Rate Stabilization Fund with a new program called the Interim Electrical Rebate) mean your bottom line is once again changing. In fact, your rates will be going down to the lowest they've been in several years. This post aims to explain what the changes mean to you in real dollars.

As we did in our earlier postings on this topic, we'll use the example of a homeowner who uses 1,000 kilowatt hours of electricity each month (the average usage in Yukon is about 750 kilowatt hours per month).

In January of 2008, this person's bill would have been $123.39, including GST. 

By January 2009, a number of things had changed. The Yukon Electrical Company Ltd. asked the Yukon Utilities Board to approve an 11 percent increase in rates. While the YUB considered the request, it approved on an interim basis an increase of five percent, starting on August 1 of last year. Then Yukon Energy asked for a rate decrease of 17.8 percent for residential customers using 1,000 kilowatt hours or less a month. While the YUB considered our request, it approved an interim decrease of 3.48 percent, starting December 1, 2008. 

As a result of those events, by December 2008 our homeowner’s bill, based on 1,000 kilowatt hours of electricity used, was $134.56 a month.

A reduction to zero of the Fuel Adjustment Rider (Rider F), and a final decision by the Yukon Utilities Board on Yukon Electrical Company Ltd.'s rate application dropped bills to $114.05 a month this June. Almost all this decrease was due to the Fuel Rider reduction. The Yukon Utilities Board rejected most of Yukon Electrical Company Ltd.'s proposed rate increase.

Starting this July, bills will be reduced even further for residential customers. The Yukon government is replacing the out-going Rate Stabilization Fund with a new program called the Interim Electrical Rebate. Residential customers will receive a maximum rebate on their bills of $26.62 per month (before GST), which will bring the monthly cost of 1,000 kilowatt hours of electricity to $105.60.

There's one more piece to this puzzle. The Yukon Utilities Board is still to rule on Yukon Energy’s request for a 17.8 percent decrease for first block residential customers. If it rules in our favour this fall,  the monthly bill later this year for a residential customer using 1,000 kilowatt hours of power in a billing period would be $87.49…the lowest rates in several years.

We Are Not for Sale | Thursday, June 18, 2009

There has been a lot of media coverage over the last several days regarding the possibility of Yukon Energy being sold to a private Alberta company. Employees at Yukon Energy are worried, angry and upset about the future of their company. Yukon Energy Corporation has given permission for a letter, which was sent to local newspapers by a large group of Yukon Energy staff,  to be printed on this blog. Here it is.

We are writing as Yukon Energy employees who feel compelled to talk about Premier Fentie's plans to privatize the public corporation we work for. The secretive manner in which he is dealing with this issue is unacceptable to us. The premier has an obligation to be open and honest about his plans not only with those directly affected (in this case the Yukon Energy staff) but with all Yukoners, who are the owners of Yukon Energy.

Good News! | Friday, June 12, 2009

We have written on this blog before about the work Yukon Energy is doing to reduce both the frequency and the geographical size of power outages in Yukon. This year we implemented an aggressive maintenance schedule to upgrade our equipment and improve reliability of power. One project we recently completed involved making improvements to the governors for two of our Whitehorse hydro generators. Yesterday, we saw evidence that the work has paid off.

Because of a problem with Yukon Electrical Company Limited, power went out to part of Whitehorse yesterday afternoon. In the past, such an outage could have caused Yukon Energy's hydro units to shut down, resulting in a wide-spread outage throughout the Southern Yukon. With the new equipment, however, this didn't happen. The equipment did its job and the outage was limited to a part of Whitehorse.

While this may be no consolation to those Whitehorse residents who lost power yesterday, we see this as very good news, as it means we have identified and fixed a problem that has caused numerous grid-wide power outages in the past.

A Break on Your Power Bills | Thursday, June 11, 2009

Starting on July 1, you'll see a new rebate on your residential power bills. The Yukon government is doing away with the existing electrical subsidy, known as the Rate Stabilization Fund, and replacing it with a new program called the Interim Electrical Rebate. It will give you a maximum rebate of $26.62 per month on the first 1,000 kilowatt hours you use. This is an increase from the maximum monthly subsidy of $18.67 provided under the Rate Stabilization Fund.

If you'd like to know more about this fund, you're asked to call the Yukon government at (867) 633-7949 or email roxanne.vallevand@gov.yk.ca.

Watching Water Levels | Tuesday, June 9, 2009

With the hot weather we've had in most of Yukon over the last few weeks, we've had some questions about possible flooding in the Southern Lakes. The summer of 2007 is still fresh in many people's minds, when local residents spent long hours sandbagging to try to save their properties from flood damage.

Yukon Energy is often asked what we can do to help prevent flooding of people's properties in high water years. There is a misconception that if we would only let more water through our Whitehorse dam or our Lewes Lake gates, there wouldn't be a flooding problem.

The truth is that under our water license, we must have all our gates open no later than May 15 of each year. That means that we hold no water back during the summer months, and we have no ability to increase the water flow from the Southern Lakes. We've had studies done that show even if we opened our gates earlier in the spring, it would have no effect on the peak water levels later in the summer. There's just too much water coming into Marsh Lake compared to what is able to flow out (think of filling a sink with a firefighter's hose....the drain can't handle the volume of water coming in to the sink from the hose). In the case of the Southern Lakes, the Yukon River and Miles Canyon act as bottlenecks.

While we can't prevent flooding, what we can do is share information with local residents about what we expect summer water levels to be like each year. This will help people prepare their property for possible flooding in high water years.

In 2009, after taking into account the high snow pack from the previous winter and Environment Canada's long range forecast, we expect levels to be in the vicinity of what they were in 2004. Here you will see a chart that shows a solid blue line up to the end of May, and then it turns into two dotted blue lines. The solid line is the actual water level to date. The two dotted blue lines indicate the range of anticipated summer peak water levels. This chart will be updated on a regular basis. We have also committed to emailing the chart to those local residents who request it. Please let us know if you wish to be added to the email list.

Resignations from the Board | Monday, June 8, 2009

It is with deep regret that we learned today that Yukon Energy's Chair, Willard Phelps, and three members of the Board of Directors - Greg Hakonson, Paul Hunter, and Martin Allen - have resigned. Their resignations take effect immediately. They have also stepped down from their positions on the Board of the Yukon Development Corporation (YDC), our parent company. 

While it would not be appropriate for us to speak on behalf of these four individuals, a news release that they put out today quotes Mr. Phelps as saying, "We have fundamental differences with Government of Yukon regarding the value, the role, and the governance of these Corporations. We also disagree on issues concerning the role of the Boards. For these and other reasons, we find it impossible to continue to perform in a manner that fulfills the responsibilities and obligations that these positions require."

All four board members made a huge contribution to Yukon Energy, and we will certainly miss them.

The remaining four members of Yukon Energy's and YDC's Board of Directors will continue to carry out the duties of the boards. Pat Irvin, who until now has been the boards' Vice Chair, has assumed the role of Chair for both boards until a more permanent replacement can be found.

It is the Yukon government that is responsible for filling YDC board vacancies. The YDC board is in turn responsible for filling the vacancies on Yukon Energy's board.  

A Historical Look Back at the Fishladder | Monday, June 8, 2009

We have written here before about the fact that this year is the 50th anniversary of the Whitehorse Rapids Fishway. The fishladder, which is owned by Yukon Energy and operated by the Yukon Fish and Game Association, was built in 1959 to allow the salmon to continue their journey past the Whitehorse dam to their spawning grounds further south.

When the fishway was first built there was no visitor reception centre attached. However there were three viewing windows that allowed people to watch the salmon as they travelled up the ladder, and an information booth was set up and summer students hired to provide information to the public about the ladder. The visitor's building was constructed in the 1980s. The site has become one of the most popular visitor destinations in Whitehorse and each year new displays and programs are added.

We thought you might enjoy seeing some photos of the early days of the fishladder.

This shows the fishladder when it was first built in 1958.
Photo: Yukon Archives/Whitehorse Star

Viewing the salmon in the ladder - circa 1970. Photo: Yukon government

Summer student working at the fishladder in the 1970s. Photo: Yukon government

Diver doing maintenance work in the fishladder circa 1970. Photo: Yukon government.

Yesterday’s Fry Release | Monday, June 1, 2009

Here are some images from yesterday's fry release at Wolf Creek near Whitehorse. We'd like to thank the Yukon Fish and Game Association for organizing this event and to everyone who came to help us to send 15,000 of our Whitehorse Rapids Hatchery fish on this first stage of their journey to the Bering Sea.

Photos: 1) Lawrence Vano from the fish hatchery arrives with a truck load of fry; 2) transferring the fry to buckets, which are carried down to the creek; 3) each child gets a baggie full of fry; 4) a child ready to release her fry into the creek.