Comment by Robert S. on July 30, 2008 at 5:40am

It's good to see PNM isn't taking their rate increase to provide backups to their infrastructure to make electrical service more reliable. Taking out one place (such as with fire) affects a lot of customers as we learned last night.

If the increase isn't going to infrastructure improvements and isn't going to the increase in natural gas commodity (down a couple bucks in the last week or so), I wonder where it's going. hmmmmm, Sterba's weekly pay increase! ;)

I am the lucky one - power only glitched for a few seconds where I live. I feel bad for those that had to do without for over an hour and miss the local news and Leno.

Comment by Lee on July 30, 2008 at 8:08am

Tell me which one of these doesn't belong with the others ?

a. One household uses 900,000 gallons of water in 2007

b.This year the same household has used 780,000 gallons of water...meaning it will likely exceed the 2007 usage.

c.The owner of the house, once called on it, thinks "there may be a leak" (to the tune of almost 700,000 gallons ?)

d.The owner of the house is a member of the water authority board

Comment by Ryan Martin Stark on July 30, 2008 at 9:25am

I'll give props to PNM as soon as they stop charging extra for renewable power generation...

Comment by Dan Ehrig on July 30, 2008 at 10:12am

I like how they buried the lead in the water story. One house is using almost 1.5 million gallons of water and nobody lives there but someone is paying the water bill? Isn't there anyone at APD that realizes what that probably means? I guess none of them watch Showtime's show Weeds.

Comment by once banned twice shy on July 30, 2008 at 10:20am

Hmmmm...so let me see if I get this right. I am counseled to go to great expense to install low-flow toilets and xeriscaping in order to save water so....a member of the water authority board can use all the water he wants? WTF?

Comment by Masshole in Fringecrest on July 30, 2008 at 10:39am

Looks like Cummins bid for election on the PRC in November (his ABCWUA post is up in Jan '09) is going, ahem, down the drain....

Comment by ColoMichelle on July 30, 2008 at 10:50am

Masshole - Interesting that while the Journal Op/Ed mentions Cummins PRC race, neither the Journal story nor KOB mention it?

Comment by Masshole in Fringecrest on July 30, 2008 at 11:55am

I actually didn;t even read it in the Journal, but found a little piece in the COMMENTS section of KOBTV.com article... that is ALWAYS a good read. I am fantasizing about a blog post entitled, "KOBTV.com comments section after "hot button topic" blurbs... my heroin." or something like that....

Comment by tinsree on July 30, 2008 at 12:30pm

robert s i'm sure you will be happy to know that no one at pnm got a bonus last year.

Comment by Robert S. on July 30, 2008 at 8:15pm

yes, I know from a few years ago how a power grid is roughly designed. A fire near farmington blacks out Albuquerque for hours!

I don't know why at that time a few years ago there wasn't a second or third way to bring power to Albuquerque (or a redundant link from farmington). Or why 11,000 customers couldn't get quick power restoration with power from other stations around the city with the failure of the I-25/Jefferson station.

Yes, I know most PNM employees work hard (I've had rarely a power outage lasting more than an hour, plus when I sometimes come home at 3 or 4 in the morning, I see PNM trucks driving to a service call or whatever).

Nothing about last night (or anything PNM has done) will change my mind that monopoly power companies should not be publically held companies. PNM, being publically held, has a primary objective to give a return to shareholders. Monopoly power companies should operate as mutual companies (return excess money to their customers like some auto insurance companies do when claims and administrative costs come in less than premiums) or operate as non-profits. If there were to be competition to PNM -- other than people pulling solar cells on the roof to minimize the need for PNM -- then let the market determine by who customers go with for the best service, reliability, or reasonable rates.

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