From the Roundtable: Future of Columbia utilities remains uncertain

The most important matter engaging Columbia municipal officials right now is the future of its electrical power supply infrastructure conducted under the aegis of the Columbia Water and Light Department.
Nothing else even comes close.

The generation and distribution of electricity has been a municipal concern here for more than a hundred years. Somewhat odd among communities in general, the city owns the electric utility outright and is responsible for making sure its customers are reliably and continuously supplied with this essential silent servant.

Faced with steadily increasing demand tied to community growth while burdened with aging boilers that need to be replaced by 2015, municipal officials, the City Council and the Water and Light Advisory Board are faced with the daunting task of trying to figure this one out.

Columbia has already engaged Burns & McDonnell in Kansas City, which in the past has consulted the city on matters related to its utilities. One can easily get lost wading through their “interim” executive summary, part of “…an Integrated Resource Plan that evaluates the potential development of supply side and demand side resources to meet the future load requirements of Columbia.”

Columbia’s biggest problem has been that we’ve grown too fast. How different things might have been if there had been the foresight say 70 or 80 years ago to have replicated what Springfield, Ill., did in mapping out its utility needs. Having lived there for a while still leaves me envious of the environmental and recreational gifts that community ended up with through the efforts of its municipally-owned City Water Light and Power (CWLP) utility.

The Illinois capital had a considerable head start in population and importance during the “flapper” age. By 1935, the CWLP had created a beautiful 4,200-acre lake for its water supply needs in conjunction with construction of the V.Y. Dallman Lakeside electric plant, which uses that body of water for cooling purposes.

Columbia’s municipal electric plant began on a much smaller scale with a tiny lake a fraction of the size of Springfield’s, which was even available for recreation at one time. Although our plant has seen its share of additions, the land footprint at the current site simply isn’t available for an addition on the scale of Springfield’s latest expansion, a 200 megawatt coal-fired power plant currently under construction.

In retrospect, it was probably a mistake to build our power plant where we did and successively add to it over the years, hemmed in by highways and its proximity to business and residential areas. How different things might have been if a lake had been created by damming an area stream and building an electric plant on its shore. The lake would have been justified as a water supply reservoir, as well as recreation, and there would have been plenty of land available for a new power plant and its successive expansions.

Here is where Columbia’s policy relative to electric power differs from Springfield, which has steadily added on to its lakeside generating facilities. Our expansion in town has been relatively modest, stressing instead the investment in and purchase of power from large scale regional facilities.

Leaving envy aside, Columbia has wisely maintained the Business Loop 70 power plant, and it’s important that this facility be maintained to provide base load requirements irrespective of the power we buy from others.

One of the “others” may well be AmerenUE, which owns the Callaway Nuclear Plant near Reform in Callaway County. One of the most exciting developments on the regional economic scene is the forward motion underway leading to the probable realization of a second reactor: Callaway II. Under the cooperative tutelage of Areva SA, AmerenUE will build a state-of-the-art nuclear facility that could be online by 2018.

Imagine the thousands of construction jobs, plus 400 new jobs once Callaway II is online, in addition to the 1,000 or so already employed. A certain boost for the regional economy and a step out of the real estate slump, Callaway II might even boost the fortunes of our regional airport.