Forgive BPA? Forget it

Let’s say a business offers a group of customers a discount.

Then, several years later, the business admits that it fouled up and didn’t give those customers the full discount to which they had agreed.

What would you expect that business to do?

The word “refund” springs to mind, right?

Not to the Bonneville Power Administration, it doesn’t.

The BPA, the regional agency that sells much of the electricity in the Northwest, admitted recently that from 2002 to 2009 it overcharged, by $2 million, utilities including Oregon Trail Electric Cooperative.

The “Irrigation Rate Mitigation Product” limits rate increases for irrigators during the summer, the period when they use the most electricity.

During the period BPA overcharged irrigators, the agency undercharged, by about $1.94 million, other customers.

Because the miscalculation basically amounts to a wash for BPA, the agency has proposed, according to a Feb. 2 letter from Mark Gendron, acting senior vice president, that both the under and overcharges “would be forgiven.”

General Manager Werner Buehler of OTEC, which paid BPA about $60,000 more than it was supposed to, is none too pleased with BPA’s proposal.

We’re not, either.

BPA made a deal, but failed to fulfill its terms.

To be clear, the financial effect on OTEC is relatively minor. BPA’s error didn’t result in any OTEC customer paying extra.

Still, if BPA is allowed to write off its mistake, as it were, then OTEC will have $60,000 less to maintain our electric system and, potentially, to refund to ratepayers.

That’s wrong.